What is Ethical Meating Eating?

If a person believes that killing an animal to consume its flesh is fundamental unjustifiable, for them there is not such thing as ethical meat eating.  However when meat is avoided for reasons of animal welfare or environmental impacts, a case can be made.

George Schedler (2005)  makes the interesting argument that the animals that exist for meat production, and their enjoyment of their lives, should be counted in favor of a meat eating community.  He also argues that vegetable production causes suffering to 'field animals' whose dens and sometimes lives are destroyed during cultivation. He argues that fewer animals are in fact killed under a grazing system than a cropping system.  This in addition to the human pleasure derived from meat eating can be used to argue in favor of 'ethical meat eating'.

People are swayed in their meat purchasing behavior by ethical considerations such as the perceived welfare of animals raised to produce meat (Tonsor et al, 2011).  However other factors such as perceived food safety typically have a higher magnitude of effect.

References:

• Schedler, G. (2005). Does ethical meat eating maximise utility? Social Theory and Practice, 31, 499.
• Tonsor, GT; Olynk NJ (2011). Impacts of animal well-being and welfare media on meat demand. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 62, 59-72.

Labelling

In order for consumers to support agricultural and harvest practices they consider ethically desirable, they must be able to identify products that use these methods.  For this reason a number of labelling schemes have developed to identify food qualities such as:

• Organic
• Sustainably Harvested
• Humanely Raised
• Country of Origin

Such labelling requires clear criterion for inclusion as well as an inspection process, typically with an independent auditor.

See also:

• Canada Protests Country of Origin Labelling

References:

• Bostrom, M. (2006). Regulatory credibility and authority through inclusiveness: standardization organizations in cases of eco-labelling. Organization, 13, 345-367.

Mercury in Fish

Most consumers are aware that mercury (in the form of methylmercury pollution) can accumulate in the flesh of fish. Concentrations high enough to constitute a health risk my be found in some species such as swordfish.

Chen & Williams (2009) surveyed fish consumed in the United states and found that mercury levels declined significantly between 1995 and 2005. However they still recommend that pregnant women and children should not consume high quantities of the species most likely to accumulate mercury, such as swordfish and shark.

References:

• Chen DY, Williams VJ. (2009). Marine fish food in the United States and methylmercury risk. International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 19, 109-124.

Meat and Evolution

Many commentators try to appeal to an idea of what is natural or healthy, what humans are 'designed' to eat.  For example Gary Smith of the "Center for Red Meat Safety" claims that "Evolutionsist tell us humanity ... should now consider returning to a diet more like that of out Paleolithic ancestors--high-protein and low fat". 

A more dispassionate reading of the evolutionary data suggests that our more distant ancestors were herbivores.  Humans developed into omnivores during the late Miocene era, to provide energy for their relatively large bodies and energetic lifestyles.  As such, humans are naturally omnivores (Deneen, 2002; Milton, 1999; Smil, 2002).

As omnivores humans have some characteristics typical of of our distant herbivore ancestors such as:

• Needing to get our vitamin C from our diet
• Having a intestine that is long in comparison to our body size

However out bodies have been retrofitted in the more immediate evolutionary past to digest meat as is apparent from features such as:

• Production of hydrochloric acid by the stomach

Did Meat Make Us What We Are Today?
It is sometimes argued that switching to an omnivorous diet led directing to an increase in brain size and the evolution of humans as we are today. Others argue that the increased brain and decreased tooth size of hominids developed primarily before the shift to meat-eating and later adaption might related to the handling and cooking of tubers as much as meat (Pasquet and Hladick, 2005).

Conclusion
While consumption of meat is clearly part of our current biological design, it cannot be assumed that because something is natural that it is necessary or good.  People with access to diverse food sources can get all of their nutritional needs from non-animal sources (Smith, 2005).

See also:

•  Why Do People Eat Meat?

References:

• Deneen, S. (2002). Body of evidence: were humans meant to eat meat? E, 13, 33-34.
• Milton K. (1999). A hypothesis to explain the role of meat-eating in human evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology, 11-21.
• Pasquet P, Hladick C-M. (2005). Theories of human evolutionary trends in meat eating and studies of primate intestinal tracts. Estudios Del Hombre, 21-31.
• Smil, V. (2002). Eating meat: evolution, patterns and consequences. Population and Development Review, 28, 599-639.
• Smith GC. (2005). Why people eat beef. National Cattlemen's Beef Association Annual Convention in San Antonio, TX. February 2, 2005.

Xenotransplantation

Public Acceptance
There are very few uses of animals, other than food, that involve taking part of a non-human animal into our body.  Thus it is not surprising that Michael and Brown, 2004) found strong connections between how people understand eating meat, and their attitudes to xenotransplantation (the use of an animal body part to replace a fail human body part).

The authors argue that any new phenomenon is initially understood with reference to something familiar.  Because animals are used and understood in such diverse ways, and meat represents the closest equivalent for a situation such as the use of pig as donors of cells, valves, and potentially organs. However meat itself is frequently seen as a source of concern based on intensive farming, disease issues and animal transportation methods.  So this comparison is not entirely unproblematic.

Michael and Brown carried out focus groups and extracted three main types of argument: whether people involved in the process are trustworthy, whether ones opinion carries an weight, and how needing a life-saving procedure would change one's willingness to use a xenotransplanted organ. The focus groups exchanges around meat eating show how it provides a familiar model for understanding the option of using animal parts for human purposes--in situations where the literal need may be much greater than eating meat, which is rarely absolutely necessary for continued health and life.

Conversely, it has been suggested that if swine are more widely accepted as organ donors people may feel more 'closely related' to pigs and become less willing to eat them (Glein, 2002).

Risks
The immediate problem with transplantion from a non-human donor is rejection.  Research is underway to try and develop donor animals and anti-immune regimes that will allow a wider array of organs and tissues to be donated by non-human animals. 

This is also a longer term risk of the transfer of infection agents and the development of dangerous zoonotic diseases (Glein, 2002).

References:

• Glein, H. (2002). Custom made piggeries in Norway? View of the meat producing industry. Acta. Vet. Scand., Suppl 99, 51-52.
• Michael, M., Brown, N. (2004). The meat of the matter:grasping and judging xenotransplantation. Public Understanding of Science, 13, 379-397.

Dietary Restriction and Illness

Diet elimination studies typically use small groups suffering from the health issue under investigate, with a control time period or group, and a time period or group under the influence of on a restricted diet, typically for a period of 2-8 weeks.

Migraines
A small study employed phases with diets where any foods that patient had IgG positivity for were eliminated, and another where they were deliberately increased.  these foods varied between patients but commonly included seafood and cheese, and for some patients included eggs, milk and meat.  Diet was shown to effect migraine frequency ( Alpay et al, 2010).

Asthma
A small study of asthmatic children in the United Kingdom gives some credence to the idea that a milk and egg-free diet can improve their symptom. Thirteen experimental and nine control children were studies over an 8 week period and the children on a restricted diet showed improvements in IgC antibodies, and in some cases lung function and overall health as self-reported and confirmed by a pediatrician.

References:

• Alpay K, Ertas, M, Orhan E, Ustay DK, Lieners C, Baykan B. (2010) Cephalalgia, 30, 829-837.
• Yusoff, N.A.M., Hampton, S.M., Dickerson, J.W.T., Morgan, J.B. (2004). The effects of exclusions of dietary egg and milk in the management of asthmatic children: a pilot study. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 124, 74-80.