Whose "personal choice" are we talking about? Pictured above: a calf roping at a rodeo.

The act of exploiting animals is often justified as a “personal choice,” but personal choices stop being personal when they affect others.

When we eat a vegan diet, when we refuse to attend rodeos and zoos, when we pass up leather jackets, wallets and shoes in favor of synthetic or plant-based goods, we are practicing peace.  We are behaving consistently in a manner that directly fosters justice.

It is ironic to hear people use their power of choice (typically, only as consumers) in and of itself to justify harming animals.  “It’s my choice to eat or not eat animals,” they assert.  But this directly violates the freedom and choices of another living being who has every right not to suffer.

Only the aggressor, or the more powerful, can choose to inflict misery and death upon others.  By definition, victims are victims, they do not have a choice in the matter of being used.

What about crimes against our fellow humans?  We do not say that rape is permissible because rapists are “making a personal choice,” yet rape is absolutely what is done to female cows to force them into pregnancy and thus eventual lactation.  We do not say thieves and murderers are excused of their crimes because they chose to commit them.  Yet what is more theft and murder than stealing breast milk and killing the children, then their mother when her body is too worn out to produce milk at a profitable rate?

The aggressors want to wiggle out of the truth of using words like “rape” and “murder,” because of a simple speciesist view that only rape and murder can be done to humans.

One fact which cannot be wiggled out of is by enslaving others, we strip them of their most basic choice: to be free.  Actions we take are only a “personal choice” until they infringe upon the freedoms of others.  Freedom to move about, freedom to avoid pain, freedom to reproduce (or not) at will: these are all choices denied to enslaved animals who would naturally make them if left alone.  When we confine and eventually kill our powerless captives, we deliberately and irreversibly engage in violence that annihilates all of their choices.

We all have the capacity to inflict harm.  We all have the capacity for enormous good, as well.  Abraham Lincoln put it perfectly when he said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

This scene is acceptable because it could have been worse. The attacker could have been driving a dump truck over infants while shooting the man on the left. That imaginary scenario makes everything better.

The could-be-worse reasoning is applied every day to attempt justify exploiting cows, chickens, geese, sheep, mice, rats, dogs, elephants, women, minorities, the old and the young.  With animals, people compare current, “humane” slaughter methods to some horrible alternative, and then state that snuffing out the life of an enslaved, helpless creature is now honorable and free from any moral condemnation.

Let’s go back to the analogy of theft.  If I steal your television, I don’t get out of jail by stating I could have also emptied your bank account.  When we do something wrong, we do something wrong.  It’s as simple as that.

Moral relativity to encourage animal exploitation is simple manipulation to keep us dim-witted and spend-thrifted (say that five times fast).  Many people want to believe they can make a difference without changing a thing.  As Gary Francione says, the “happy meat” and “humane” slaughter ideas are nothing more than the modern day equivalent of the church selling indulgences.

When we hear ourselves or others saying, “well at least I buy organic eggs,” or “at least this was free-range beef,” we need to remember that those allegedly great strides in animal freedom are illusions.  We do not free animals by encouraging people to eat more of them.  “Free range”, “grass fed”, “organic” and “humane” labels encourage consumption.  These labels move us in the exact opposite direction of liberation and justice.

At the core of this issue is the notion that people are still okay with using the animals, it’s the “excessive” suffering they’re uncomfortable with.  This is simple speciesism.  Except in extremely trivial cases, no one would wave away a crime against a human because “it could have been worse.”  That would not even work in small claims court.  When the crime is against those who cannot speak for themselves, it seems, we sing a different tune.

The could-have-been-worse perspective backfires on meat eaters and works against exploiting animals; we can always define “do not interfere with them at all” as the relative comparison.  Why must the relative marker be placed closer to torture, and not closer to amnesty?  Easy:

The goal of arguing in favor of exploiting animals is never on behalf of the animals.

It is our duty to remind people that treatment does not need to be “worse than” to be wrong.  Slavery is slavery.  Nutrition options exist.  Let’s use our options, not individuals.

No justice exists when crimes are dismissed by simply dreaming up “worse” crimes that could have happened instead.

The one on the left will be ground up with about a thousand siblings so you can eat his mother's eggs.

Is it immoral to cut a dog’s throat because we like the sound of the blood gurgling onto the soil? To stomp on a box of kittens because the squishing under our feet is lovely and refined? To sever a lizard’s tail and legs, leaving her to bleed to death, because the trail of blood she leaves behind makes interesting patterns?

Most of us would say yes, these acts are immoral.  Would they be any better if the aggressor was paid to do it? If a young man is paid ten dollars every time he crushes a kitten to death, is the act then acceptable? How about ten thousand dollars? Of course not.

We agree that receiving pleasure from the sound, sight or feel of bloodshed is immoral (if not downright creepy), as is profit.

What if the pleasure is taste?

If the pleasures on our ears, under our feet, or upon our eyes are unacceptable reasons to inflict harm, why do we make exceptions for the pleasures of the tongue? It is just another organ.

Eye, nose and skin pleasure may be seen as entertainment.  If we agree that killing for mere entertainment is bad, then certainly crushing kittens to death is bad.  Stabbing a cow to death for entertainment, then, is also bad because a cow is no different a moral specimen than a kitten is.

The difficult part of talking to meat and dairy consumers is helping them understand that eating flesh and non-human milk are unnecessary.  Because these food items are not necessary, they are entertainment.  Buying steak at a grocery store which also sells beans and fresh vegetables is no more defensible than stomping on a box of kittens.

We must reject killing not just kittens, but also cows, chickens and all living beings, in pursuit of the specific sensations given to our tongues and noses.

There is no magic morality purifier device built into our taste buds. Criminals are not released on the condition that they greatly enjoyed the crime. And, despite what the bacon advertisements tell us, pigs are not happy to die today because a plate will hold their body parts tonight.

Our enjoyment is as irrelevant as profit. The price paid per kitten squished has no effect on the immorality of the act. Be it ten dollars or ten thousand dollars, funding murder is funding murder. In the same way, a tickle or a taste does not change the exploitation.

Let us be consistent with our beliefs. Being so is much easier than trying to explain to our children why assaulting kittens is bad, but assaulting pigs is okay, provided we eventually eat them, too.

Summary: Do not blame being an asshole on this organ.

See Also

• Why Veganism Must be the Baseline at the Abolitionist Approach
• “Cage free” eggs at HumaneMyth

A common misconception is vitamin B12 is produced by animals. This is a main objection meat eaters have to veganism. Their reasoning goes, “If only animals produce it, and we need it, then we need animals.” This sounds like a good point, but, like most other meat and dairy arguments, it falls short if we dig a little deeper.

It is true we need vitamin B12. It is correct to say that of all the things humans who buy their food from grocery stores eat, only animal products naturally contain vitamin B12 nowadays, but it is incorrect to state that animals create B12.

Vitamin B12 and its relationship to animals is best summed up by Reed Mangles, Ph. D., R.D.^[1]:

“Animals get their vitamin B12 from eating foods contaminated with vitamin B12 and then the animal becomes a source of vitamin B12. Plant foods do not contain vitamin B12 except when they are contaminated by microorganisms or have vitamin B12 added to them.”

This still sounds like a straight-forward argument to eat meat, doesn’t it? It’s exactly the opposite.

First, the content of vitamin B12 in the muscle tissue of slaughtered animals is questionable. If you think pigs, for instance, are eating whole, natural foods swimming with plenty of the vitamins and minerals they need, you are wrong (and you haven’t been paying attention so far on this web site). In concentrated animal farming operations, pigs and other animals are frequently given vitamin B12 shots^[2].   This is necessary for them because the food they are eating does not have adequate B12 in it any more, and some gruesome studies^[3] show that B12 supplementation makes the meat “better.” Remember, these poor creatures are forced to consume fish meal, corn and grains they would never eat in the wild.

They have to get their vitamins from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually from the business end of an injector.

Therefore, if we eat animal products from grocery stores because it is a “natural” way to fulfill vitamin B12 requirements, we are being fooled. What we are really doing is using the defenseless pig as a proxy for taking a multivitamin.

Once again we see that if pig flesh wasn’t bled, salted, altered with fire and smoke, you’d find few sane people arguing that we need to eat it for survival.

We are not chained to eating animals to gain our microscopic vitamin B12 requirements. We have options. Common breakfast cereal is a wonderful source of B12. Almost all grain products in the United States are enriched with vitamins, B12 especially. Oatmeal, corn flakes, and rice puffs are good sources.  Even the sugar-drenched diabetic horrors that are most breakfast cereals have 35% of your daily B12 requirement.^[4] That’s five times the B12 provided by half a chicken breast^[5].

Don’t like cereal? Get what you need from multivitamins, nutritional yeast flakes, breads, tortillas, even pancakes.

Arguing that we need to eat animals to get vitamin B12 is like the Snargleplexonians arguing that they need to eat our babies to get their creamed peas.

Eating babies is natural because there is no other way for Snargleplexonians to get their blended pea supplement.

References:

1. Vitamin B12 in the Vegan Diet, Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D., http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/b12.htm, Accessed 2007/04/24
2. Minerals in Animal and Human Nutrition, L. R. McDowell, Published by Elsevier Health Sciences, 2003 ISBN 0444513671, 9780444513670
3. Comparative effect of low levels of dietary cobalt and parenteral injection of vitamin B12 on carcass and meat quality characteristics in Omani goats, I. T. Kadim, , O. Mahgoub, A. Srikandakumar, D. S. Al-Ajmi, R. S. Al-Maqbaly, N. M. Al-Saqri and E. H. Johnson. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2003.08.003
4. General Mills: Lucky Charms product data, http://www.generalmills.com/corporate/brands/brand.aspx?catID=69, Accessed 2009/01/05
5. Vitamin B12. (2010, August 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:44, August 25, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vitamin_B12&oldid=380795116#Foods

Is it blissful to stay ignorant of animal suffering? Maybe. But who among us is truly ignorant that animals suffer at our hands? On this topic most of all, 99% of us live in a state of willful ignorance.

Intentionally denying and ignoring the truth is willful ignorance, and is anything but bliss. Willful ignorance is artificial numbness. Numbness to what? To the pain caused by refusing to act.

The truth does not set us free. Not from this kind of pain. Simply knowing the truth about suffering does not set anyone free. Acting on the truth does.
The truth is that we all have the power to alleviate the suffering of sentient beings. Knowing this truth and taking no action causes our own suffering. Intentionally contributing to the unnecessary misery of others puts a heavy burden on us, and it takes a lot of energy to deal with.

Nope, nope, don't feel a thing. Nope.

Willful ignorance is like taking morphine rather than removing your hand from the stove, as if in a state of paralysis. The burning is knowing we can help someone with very little effort on our own parts, and not doing it. The paralysis binds us to our own suffering, and will not depart until we take action.

Compassion does not exist thought alone; that is called fantasizing.

In the case of eating, wearing, experimenting on and otherwise using animals, we actually can change their fates. We can reduce the demand for them as inbred Yorkshire puppies, as easter bunnies, as cows turned to “steak” and lobsters into bisque.

Willful ignorance compounds the suffering. Maintaining willfull ignorance requires great amounts of energy, because every time we kill one animal but keep another as a companion, we contribute to a split personality, and we reinforce the paralysis that keeps us tied to the stove, burning ourselves.

Why would someone stay in this state?

It’s not because they’re evil. It’s not because they’re stupid.

They’re scared.

Replacing meat and dairy requires making changes.

Making changes requires exploring the unknown.

Fear is always about what’s coming. It’s never about what’s here, what’s happening now.

Most of all, I think, people fear the lack of “payoff” of veganism. Pizzas and hamburgers are bound to nearly limitless cultural references, habits and memories. Will vegan pizzas be better? Will the soy milk taste just as good as the kind the posters tell us the mothers happily give up to their benevolent, caring, and gentle human masters?

That’s the funny part. People really do not know. Here we are, as vegans, eating delicious, affordable, compassionate meals that could literally be grown in hydroponic labs in the most cramped of space stations. And our friends, relatives and neighbors really do not know how good our lives are, how little we’ve had to give up. They simply don’t get it.

All because they’re afraid of giving up hamburgers.

Help two someones out, and share your meals. You’re helping the animal and you’re helping the human animal who grabs your tupperware. Cook a little extra, and give away food without asking permission first. Who cares if it’s not perfect?

It’s up to us to help people take their hands off the stove.

"... aaaand that's why they call it Jell-o." -- Penny-Arcade

Products like Jell-O and some kinds of desserts use gelatin for texture. Gelatin is made from pieces of animal corpses. Typically, it is the collagen extracted from bones and skin.

Some people believe it is okay to use gelatin, since the animal was going to be killed for her flesh anyway. That is, they believe it is okay to use product X taken from a non-human animal because she was already scheduled to be killed for product Y.

In other words, since I’m already raping you, I might as well steal your toaster when I’m done. That makes stealing your toaster morally acceptable, doesn’t it?

Of course not. But placing the crime into a human framework, equating the suffering and feelings of Us with the suffering and feelings of Them, will still cause many people (even some vegans) to hesitate.

Logically, it cannot be refuted that stealing a toaster is anything but stealing, regardless of the crimes you commit against the owner (and who owns her tendons and ligaments more than the calf, the pig or the dog?).

When a Snargleplexonian beams down to your kitchen to commit a crime against you, Multiplexing you into tasty pink oblivion, this horrific act is not an act exonerated if he also depletes you of your savings, land, and Iron Maiden posters. Conversely, depleting you of your Iron Maiden posters is not exonerated if he kills you first.

Clearly not trying to impress you with fancy words and references to metal bands, I can sum it up with: Two wrongs do not make a right. Not two Snargleplexonian wrongs against you, and especially not two human wrongs against non-human animals.
If you believe that living beings are worthy of moral consideration, and you do not wish them to suffer, then you must not advocate any demand for their flesh, secretions, fur, behavior (as entertainment), utility (such as pulling your romantic buggies through Cozumel), and so on. You must not consume them as products.

Let’s get real nerdy and illustrate some specific misconceptions with the thought of consuming gelatin (or any other “by”-product from a corpse):

• “Gelatin is different from other products taken from the corpse.” — False. Demanding gelatin places the same death sentence on her as does demanding her muscle tissue.
  
• “She would be killed anyway.” — False. The human demand for her flesh and milk condemns her. Remove the demand and you will prevent the killing.
• “As long as we’re nice to her first, it’s okay to kill her.” — False. Treating someone nicely and then murdering them does not free you from the crime. This doesn’t make sense with a space alien blasting you to bits. It doesn’t make any more sense when you’re a human being subjugating a helpless little piglet.
• “People are always going to eat meat, so why worry about gelatin?” – False. People are not going to always eat meat any more than people will always own slaves.
  
• “You pick your battles, like meat and gelatin, but I focus on other things, like donating to charities and helping my mother weed her garden. It all balances out.“ – False. I do not murder people, nor would I ever state that abstaining from murdering humans takes too much time or is too inconvenient. The same is true for non-human animals. Comparing do-goodery with veganism is a mistake. More on this topic here.

Some want to believe that consuming gelatin is a more or less innocent act, but even those sterile, generic-looking little packets of gelatin increase demand. Any demand for a good or service from living beings places monetary value on their lives. This is true for pigs, cows, geese, dogs, cats and even human beings. Here are four examples where the demand for “by-products” body parts has created wholesale slaughter, even when the meat and skins are not eaten:

• Bison tongues: The honorable Sioux slaughtered somewhere between one and two thousand buffalo purely for their tongues. For what? To trade for whiskey.
• Shark fins: Surely you’ve heard of shark fin soup? Well the whole shark is too damn heavy, so people just lift him up, cut the fin off, and toss him back in the water to bleed to death.
• Elephant tusks: Outlawed. Still being hunted. Still being sold as “pre-outlaw” ivory. As long as you buy ivory, people will shoot elephant children and mothers for you.
• Rabbit eyes: Sadly, still attached to the rabbit, eyes are sprayed with toxic chemicals to help people understand human accidentally spray themselves in the face with caustic goods. Really, guys? You can’t find anything else?

I hope these examples give you an idea of how any demand for the body parts of living beings is a very, very bad idea.

Solutions

And here you thought I was just going to cry my little vegan eyes out while offering no alternatives to gelatin. Hardly! Next time you’re thinking about buying a packet of the stuff, put it down. Get some of this, instead:

• Agar-agar (known by many names, such as kanten). Discussion at SeriousEats or take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Agar-agar
• Pectin – very popular replacement
• Arrowroot
• Gelatin alternatives for the food industry
• “Jel Dessert:” a vegan and gluten-free gelatin made by Natural Desserts
• Vegan Marshmallows

It’s not acceptable to inflict suffering and death onto animals by consuming them. With the above solutions, you do not need to exploit animals to get gelatin. You can have the foods you enjoy, while not contributing to the mass murder of innocents.

Now for a final comparison as equally disgusting and reprehensible as consuming human or non-human animal corpses. The next time someone asks you why using gelatin isn’t “okay,” ask them: Would it be okay to wear leather coats made from the skin of human prisoners of war? They “were dead anyway,” right?

As an aside, Penny-Arcade calls gelatin what it is.

Related posts: Recycled Speciesism

When discussing veganism with people, you  may encounter someone who brushes aside the idea because “it’s just another way of doing something good.”  They will cite examples such as recycling, buying fair trade coffee, and composting to reduce waste as equally useful and compelling steps toward improving our planet.

At first, it sounds reasonable, especially if you are vegan to improve your health, lower your cholesterol, “go green,” or meet some other end or reach some other status.

Let me ask you something.  If you were taking about the rape and murder of human children, could you imagine anyone even trying to compare those atrocities with recycling?  With buying fair trade coffee?  Of course not.  Because juxtaposing suffering and death next to tossing your Pepsi can in a green bin is ridiculous.

This is the kind of power thinking like a speciesist (or racist or sexist) exerts over the ability to think clearly.  And this is exactly why these people think vegans are flakes.

Wouldn’t you?  Imagine a rabid acolyte telling you that recycling is so important, everyone should be doing it, you’re a monster if you don’t do it, and don’t you even care that some city you’ve never heard of is ugly due to plastic water bottles?  Sure, you might think, but why all the theatrics?  You do your part.  Isn’t that good enough?

Bring it back to the speciesism.  Highlight it.  Don’t be distracted by minutia.  Don’t fall into the pointless trap of debating how many tons of carbon are squirting out of an organic beet farm, how many thousands of studies have come out this week showing eating animal meat will clog your veins and give you cancer (if you don’t get sick from E. coli or salmonella first).  All that is true, but is misses the point.

Common do-goodery has no place in comparison to the killing of animals, human or not.

By replacing meat and dairy with plants, meal variety explodes

Dropping meat and dairy is the easiest thing you can do to add variety to your meals.

One of the hesitations most people have to replacing flesh and animal milk is the fear of meals becoming bland, colorless, tasteless, repetitive or boring. This perception is happily dispelled by anyone who has gone vegan for a year or two, but why should it take so long?

When meat must be included at every meal, your main dish is by definition restricted. How is eating the same four animals variety? Going vegan, one is forced to eat something other than the Five Main Corpses: cow, chicken, pig, fish, or a random creature which tastes like any of the previous four.

There is such variety in the plant kingdom!

Upgrade from five flesh options to literally hundreds. Factor each option by the dozens (hundreds, if you’re a good cook) of ways to spice and flavor any food, and you’ve just increased your menu from a dozen to a thousand delicious, unique meals.

Go vegan. Your meals will be zestier, more flavorful, colorful and varied. If you don’t want to go vegan for the animals, do it for your taste buds.

Raw Bruschetta from Cashew "Cheese" on a Multi-Seed Base