Little updates: The Snapper is completely back to normal with no need for pain meds and eating normally (like a horse); little house has NO BASEMENT! In the midwest!; I am too sick to exercise, starting antibiotics this afternoon–we’ll start next week, and in the meantime, hide your scales!
On to present business. I am not politically active when it comes to my version of vegetarianism, though I am always happy to explain it to inquirers (who have been nothing but courteous and complimentary, by the way). What it comes down to for me is 1) I’m not pleased with the meat industry’s treatment of animals, however much my girl Temple Grandin has succeeded in improving it; and 2), most importantly, it is an ethical position relative to the world food supply: you can feed more people with grain than you can with meat. If we all ate less meat and were generous with what we didn’t eat fewer people would be hungry. I say it’s an ethical stance because I don’t believe for a second that I am lessening world hunger by not eating any meat but fish. It’s a lifestyle choice that keeps me close to my concerns with hunger and poverty and hopefully encourages other people to do the same.
Which is why I was on www.goveg.com* the other day–my food choices make me periodically curious about what PETA is up to and if there is any new and interesting research or thinking. Whereupon I clicked on “Fishing Hurts” and learned about a 2003 study that indicated fish feel pain, anxiety, and fear as they are being killed. I also read a number of articles on the site explaining that conditions in fisheries and farms are inhumane to fish, and that far from being brainless little nothings they have social structures and emotional relations to one another that are similar to mammals. I did some googling and found mention of another study from the University of Montana. I don’t fully understand the science, but a researcher there maintains that the physiological responses the 2003 study claims indicated fear were nothing more than reflexes of some sort and reasserted the long-held (by me, too) assumption that fish do not suffer in their deaths. The 2003 study looks reputable but the Montana one is in a journal of a title that makes me suspect it is tied in with the fish industry. So honestly I don’t know where to go with this one. Do fish suffer or don’t they (and if they don’t feel pain, are there other issues with the dignity of their lives?)? Then there’s also the issue of massive water pollution, chemicals, etc. that all make their way into our fish.
Attic Man suggested that if the fish industry bothers me I should also be looking to take dairy off the table, as the issues there are similar, and in that case, we know chickens and cattle don’t like being stuffed into small, airless spaces. I responded that I feel my body needs dairy, but that fish is really optional (though very, very loved), and that I’ve made my peace with dairy because I am not able to afford free range, organic, etc. (I try to as often as I can, esp. because my body does better with hormone-free milk). I am all about what people’s bodies seem to be telling them. But I don’t know if this is a satisfactory position ethically or not. I don’t know how much the fact that I LOVE fish and dairy plays into things. I love poultry but gave up that…I even eventually gave up locally hunted venison (yum).
For the record I am not against killing animals as long as we need them (and we mostly don’t) and that the killing is done quickly, compassionately, and as painless as possible.
I’m thinking about giving up fish and seafood for Lent to enter a period of discernment about it. Any thoughts?
*Yes, this woman is from my alma mater.
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. Ah, ambivalence. It’s what I breathe on.
boomerific 
At the same time, big vegetable/grain farms like the ones where a lot of vegan protein is produced can be really devastating to the ecosystems around them and to individual animals, especially anything groundnesting that gets crushed by a plow. Plus, a big field of a single plant is very vulnerable to pests, so you need to use pesticides or intensive weeding; and vegetable farming is usually much more intensive as a land use than animal farming, so you end up with more erosion, etc.
Any farm is an ecosystem: the question is whether the nutrients and assets (like soil) stay in the farm and get recycled or whether they get leached out. Humanely raised meat is a restoration of a basic kind of decency in our relationship with animals, but it doesn’t take care of the biggest ethical issue with it, since killing kind of seems wrong any way you slice it. But small farms, where the animals are an integral part of the sustainability of the farm, create living ecosystems that also sustain humans, rather than scorched earth that only sustains humans. I’d rather buy from Daryl and the Fishers and the Meadow Run farmers than from EdenSoy.
There’s not really a ‘do no harm’ choice here, is all I’m saying. And choosing to eat meat can be an active ethical choice, rather than a compromise.
In my conversations with Attic Man he has pointed out that no matter what your food choices, you simply cannot remove yourself from the chain of abuses unless you only eat what you grow yourself. North mentions environmental concerns, but there are human rights ones as well, like the use of pesticides and the treatment of itinerant workers. Like all his siblings (notably LSULady, who recently reminded us of the tremendous job-producing benefits of the meat industry) Attic Man is not apt to fall into ideological ruts and I am grateful to him for pointing this one out to me.
Goodness. How do we eat anything?