The Only Diet for a Peacemaker Is a Vegetarian Diet

Picked up The Only Diet for a Peacemaker Is a Vegetarian Diet from DrumBeat: July 12, 2008 at the The Oil Drum.

John Dear argues that:

But for me being vegetarian boils down to peacemaking. If you want to be a peacemaker, Bruce said, reflecting the sentiments of Leo Tolstoy, you will want to eat as peaceful a diet as possible. "Vegetarianism," Tolstoy wrote, "is the taproot of humanitarianism." Other great humanitarians like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer and Thich Nhat Hanh agree. The only diet for a peacemaker is a vegetarian diet.

Emphasis Mine

He states his vegetarianism began with reading Diet for a small planet by Frances Moore Lappe:

In it, Lappe, the great advocate for the hungry, makes an unassailable case that vegetarianism is the best way to eliminate world hunger and to sustain the environment.

The key points are:

1. The amount of plant food consumed by farm animals for human consumption is staggering (70% of US grain);
2. The amount of grain used for bio-fuels is not as bad but has an impact (10% of US grain);
3. The amount of greenhouse gas produced by farm animals is large (40% of methane - farts);
4. And there is the ancilliary impacts on water and land usage. (90% of water use in an industrialised country goes on agriculture)

In summary, vegetarianism reduces resource consumption and therefore the need for competition over resources.

However, vegetarianism goes beyond this to broaden our humanity through a connection with nature. Dear expresses this as a religious experience:

"Not to hurt our humble brethren, the animals," St. Francis of Assisi said, "is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it. If you have people who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity," he continued, "you will have people who will deal likewise with other people."

And yet there are people who see meat-eating as an expression of their personhood. My being a vegetarian threatens their self-worth. Some become quite vocal and passionate about eating meat. It is as if my mere existence dimminishes their self-worth in some way. It is equivalent to being a teetotaler among beer drinkers, or a non-smoker among smokers.

But a change in personal dietary habits is only a small part in the need to fix the world so that humans can survive. We also need to change how the system works. This cannot be done by individuals - only by the people united.