The vegetarian debate rages on!
8:39 a.m.
My good friend Odalisk has published the results of her survey on the ethics of consuming aliens for vegetarians, and she has misinterpreted me (somewhat). I left her the following note:
Two things: I didn�t say that eating crisp alien was permissible, I added the proviso that the the diner had to be truly starving (or why else would the protagonists in ALIVE have eaten their dead teammates when cannibalism was not a regular way of life for them). I also didn�t say that it was permissible for a vegetarian to eat the leaves of a sentient plant, I just said it was understandable if he were to do so. Just wanted to clarify for you.
She has since changed her entry to reflect my comments.
Harri3tspy has it right when she says that a vegetarian can choose to eat whatever he wants, but the qualifier in Odalisk�s question was the word �ethical�. Most people are agreed that it is unethical to eat another sentient being, no matter if he burned up on reentry or not. Most of us would not eat another human being, not even on a dare, unless there were extenuating circumstances, such as imminent starvation were we not to do so. But there are people in the world who are culturally acclimatized to the notion of eating people, just as long as they don�t belong to the same tribe. Usually the ingredients for human stew come from defeated enemies, and are consumed in a ceremonial way so that the victor truly overcomes his opponent and his substance is subsumed by the survivor. Is this unethical? Does this not then open up a whole new kettle of fish with the question: Is it ethical to kill people at all, even in war?
And lastly, before I go off to have a decadent bath with sky-high bubbles, �vegetarianism� is derived from the word vegetus, which is Latin for �vigorous�. Early vegetarians were not non-meat eaters, but eaters of unrefined, whole foods, believing that the goodness lay in the entire organism. Modern vegetarians would do well to look to their ancestors when practising their craft. If people ate more whole foods in general, they would need less meat in their diets. For example, how many vegetarians do you know who stopped being vegetarians because they felt tired, or were getting sick, or who never felt full? How many gave it up when they got pregnant or felt that children should be getting more nourishment from meat than non-meat sources? From experience, one can have a very healthy lifestyle without meat or animal products at all and have healthy babies and raise healthy children. Maybe healthier.
BUT, as human beings, we are omnivores, meaning we can and do eat everything (except pain thinner and maybe dirt), and choosing to include or exclude meat and meat products from our diet is exactly that, a matter of choice. I call myself a vegetarian, and yet I eat eggs, dairy products and occasionally fish. Does that mean I am not a vegetarian? When I have told people who have invited us for dinner that we are vegetarians, they automatically assume we will eat chicken. Uh, sorry, no. A chicken is not a vegetable. But then, neither is a fish. Well, how many fish have you had in your acquaintance? Can you categorically say they are not vegetables? My good friend the vegan eats honey. Honey is bee vomit, folks. It is an animal product. And yet, she has made the choice to eat honey while eschewing eggs and milk. She does wear leather shoes though. Hmmmm�
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