The Ethics of Eating Meat

This is going to be a difficult subject to encapsulate in a blog. A book is more what's required, but there's no need for a book from me as there are a some very good ones out there already. So, for the blog side, I'll just jump right in.

I don't think we should eat meat. I am struggling with this admittedly. Even though I have eaten very little meat over the last 20 years, I do still eat some.

20 or so years ago, I stopped eating red meat principally due to environmental and health reasons. I learned that beef production was responsible for some of the worst environmental atrocities in the food chain. Evidence was clear and compelling. I felt I had little choice. Same with health. Red meat clearly was not necessary to have in the diet, and it's negative effects were clear and compelling. While many feel this is highly arguable (usually they work for the beef industry, or just really, really like convenient beef and want to defend their personal practices), the environmental aspect was enough for me. So I quit eating red meat. Actually, to be clear, I adopted a 99% personal policy. That is to say, I reduced red meat to less than 1% of my diet. As such, if I was at a restaurant and I ordered a salad and it arrived with bacon bits on it that I hadn't realized it was coming with, I would eat it, enjoy it, but not order it again.

During this time, I continued to eat chicken. And seafood. Without regard to its source (how it was raised). I now realize that this was flawed thinking on my part. Eschewing ethically raised beef over factory raised chicken does not hold philosophical water to me now that I have delved deeper into the subject matter.

And why did I "delve deeper"? Because I felt that I had the moral responsibility to do so. When we determined a few years ago that we were going to open a restaurant as part of our new brewery facility, I decided that it was my responsibility to learn about food.

No, not learn how to cook. That's important of course, but I wasn't going to be the chef. I mean learn about the food itself. I figured that if people were going to come over to our place to eat, we should feed them good stuff. Not bad stuff. This may not seem like a huge epiphany, and I'll agree that it wasn't. It seemed quite basic to me in fact. And if I was going to learn about food, that meant really learn. I have tried to approach it from what I call the "What if you knew" perspective. That is, for just one example, what if you learned everything possible about beer. Then what kind of beer would you make? At Stone, you can find that answer, as that answer is Stone. It's not about being a know-it-all. That's too high of a bar in this hugely rich and varied world. Instead, the bar we should aim for is to know all that it's possible for us to know, and to strive to constantly know more.

So, for another example, what if I learned about beef. Then what decisions would I make? I don't mean the particular cuts of beef. I mean learning about beef production. How is it done? What are the physical, environmental, health, social, ethical and moral questions? What are their answers? What if studied up on the subject? What if I knew, as best as possible...then what decisions would I make?

Let's look at it another way. Seatbelts and airbags in cars. First cars came without seatbelts. Then it was learned that seatbelts improved safety. Then they became mandatory. Then airbags were invented. And it became known that they also provided dramatic improvements to safety, and airbags also became mandatory. Yes, it made a car more expensive, but the overall cost/benefit equation was clear. The immediacy of the deployment of hundreds of dollars worth of airbag in saving thousands of dollars of medical costs (or funeral costs) is one that lawmakers could not turn away from.

The connection between the costs of food, and the social, environmental and medical costs are as undeniably clear. However they are significantly less immediate.

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A pause for a moment here. I think it might be important to make a statement. I am not going to be citing a lot of references and backing up every statement I make in this blog with annotations. Why not? Because I am not attempting to convince you, dear reader, of anything. The data is out there. It is easily accessible. It is clear and compelling. I am writing this to share with you where I am coming from, and from where, due to the association, our restaurant is coming from.

It has been my experience that those who wish to learn are easy to convince. And those that prefer to do the bury your head in the sand ostrich-style, well, most of the time you can pull and pull and pull, and if you talk them into pulling their head out of the sand at all, what they really want to do is put it back in. Soon.

It's all about the comfort zone. Humans gravitate towards comfort zones, even though it often tends to be the most dangerous place to be. It feels great, and comfy, but it's when we're in our comfort zones that we do dumb things like crossing the street without looking both ways (metaphorically speaking).

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So, back to the topic at hand. Meat. And the "What if I knew about beef," specifically.

Some of the questions and answers are easy. Do I want to eat beef that has been raised under miserable factory conditions in which working conditions are atrocious, the animals know nothing but misery, and they're pumped full of hormones and antibiotics so that they will grow as fast as possible while be kept barely alive? Errrr, call me elitist, but that answer is 'no.'

One might counter that "That's just the picture that the people that radicals are trying to get you to buy into. It's not really the way that it is done." Hmmm. OK. Have you been to a factory operation? I would encourage you to go. Or at least try to go. Chances are they won't let you in. I don't think they give tours. (I imagine this sounds slightly radical. Interesting of course that the desire to see where your food comes from could possibly be considered 'radical' in any way.)

What about me? Have I been to see where the beef we serve at the restaurant has come from? Yes. I have. Last February I traveled out to Brawley to 'commune with the cows,' and shot a video blog of the trip. It was certainly better than most operations, yet I still felt challenged to accept the close quarters, lack of ability to truly roam, and the fact that corn was the bulk of their diet. Positives are that the beef we get from them doesn't travel far comparatively (a couple hours), and is hormone and antibiotic free.

So, to wrap up this longer-than-intended blog entry, the conclusion that I've come to is that 'commodity' beef is just not acceptable for serving in our restaurant. "All-Natural" is acceptable, but still presents some challenges.

True "Free Range / Grass Fed" is what our goal is. Our beef supplier, Hamilton Meats, has found us an option, and I tried it just last week. In short, it tasted incredible. Comments that I have heard from some beef producers that grass fed is too tough and gamey did not prove to be true in this case. We'll be bringing it in soon!

That being said, I probably will eat it only rarely, if at all (maybe once or twice a year at best guess). No matter how good it tastes.