Vegetarian Magazine article

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

 

Below is an article that I am hoping will be put in

the UK Vegetarian Magazine as promised.

 

They had been hoping for more hard facts and data to

be presented, but as that has not been forthcoming I

am sticking to arguing around a paradigm shift.

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

“To kill or not to kill?” That is the question.

 

The statement “I am a vegetarian” must be very common

to most of us who read this magazine. But what does

being a vegetarian mean, and what are its implications

in a wider sense? Whilst my diet might be ovo-lacto,

lacto, or pure vegetarian (meaning vegan) does the

diet alone encompass all that there is in being a

vegetarian? What about the wider interconnected

factors such as health, environmental, economical and

ethical factors to name a few? Surely it is a

combination of many of these factors above solely a

diet that leads to one being a vegetarian. And within

the ethical dimension, which does seem to be more

stressed in British vegetarianism compared to say the

US, is not a major question to do with the right we

have, and the choice we make, of whether or not to

kill the farm animals of whose products and services

we

use during our lives?

 

At present it can only be the pure vegetarian, the

vegan, who can hold the moral upperground. By not

partaking in products or services from farm animals

their connection to the suffering of farm animals is

much diminished in comparison to the (ovo)

lacto-vegetarian. Whilst the latter may be the

majority of the minority vegetarian population in the

developed world, there voice, heard through the key

players within the vegetarian movement, is not heard.

What is heard is the voice of the vegans. And when it

comes to the formidable question of “to kill or not to

kill?”,

the vegans will answer neither. They will answer “not

to farm in the first place”, as farm animals do not

exist in their scenario. This paradigm in itself has

its own paradox, but that is for another article. What

needs to be asked here is what should be the (ovo)

lacto-vegetarian’s voice? And the answer to this

ethical question is a resounding “not to kill”.

 

In the future it could well be both the vegan and the

(ovo) lacto-vegetarian who can hold the moral

highground. But what needs to change is the farming

system from which we partake of goods and services

from farm animals. Presently, milk and milk products,

eggs, wool, leather, etc., come from a farming system

that ultimately slaughters all of its farm animals.

This does not have to be the case. VEDA, the

Vegetarian Environmental Development Association, is

working on a non-slaughter farming system called

Protection Farms - for the profitable and productive

lifetime protection of farm animals. Whilst its work

is still in its infancy, it is to be hoped that

articles like this one and its predecessor in the

Summer ‘99 edition will stimulate the thinking

vegetarian public into really questioning its

rationale

behind being a vegetarian. The resulting answers could

well bring forth not only a change of paradigm but

also a change in animal welfare, farming and land use

far more revolutionary than ever envisaged in the past

150 years of vegetarianism in the developed world.

 

If you have found this article to be of interest and

you would like more information on this subject,

please email VEDA’s founder, Mark Chatburn, at protection_farms

 

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