Raj Patel is an interesting writer on world development and food issues. The Observer just published a thoughtful article by him.
There are other reasons why it’s so hard to give up meat. It’s certainly harder for working-class Americans to eat sustainably when they are working and living in ‘food deserts’, those parts of the country where fresh fruit and vegetables are hard to come by, and where processed meats are readily found on convenience-store shelves. But I don’t have these excuses. It’s entirely possible for me to make the right decision.
And the evidence for me rather tilts against meat consumption. I care about climate change, animal suffering and the condition of people in developing countries. Addressing meat’s problems will require a range of policies, from ending the subsidy to meat prices from workers’ low wages, to pricing the full cost of meat’s pollution into its price, to addressing unsustainable practices in agriculture. But in caring about all this, eating meat is a big strike against my conscience. For this, I can’t blame America, China or India. I can only blame myself. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that I’ll need to become more human, even if, in America, it means I’m less of a man.
