Top of the Food Chain, Ma!

02 May '05

Posted by: ryan in: Ethics/Animal Rights, In the News

The folks over at VeganFreaks take on Newsweek and their coverage of the battle over foie gras.

Animal cruelty is reduced to a “huge misunderstanding,” making animal rights activists look like sub-intellectual fools. And of course, the authors couldn’t resist mentioning our “struggle to the top of the food chain” (another anti-vegan/AR quip that I hear pretty often). Let’s chuck the authors in a cage with some hungry lions, and then we can talk about million year struggles to the “top” of the food chain….

This is one of the arguments from non-vegetarians that really gets me… the whole “top of the food chain” or “if we don’t eat them, they’d eat us” argument. My first question for them is: what animals do you eat?

Chicken. Ah, an herbivore.

Cow. Another herbivore.

Pig. Omnivore, but the ones you’re eating certainly aren’t out there eating snakes and worms.

Duck, deer, sheep, etc… all of the meat we eat comes from animals that are primarily plant-eating animals (though there are some exceptions). When was the last time you saw someone snacking on a tiger leg or lion foot?

The way I see it is that the reason we eat the calm, gentle animals that generally don’t eat other animals is because they’re the only ones we can physically dominate and force into factory farm situations. How quickly most of us would become vegetarian if we had a choice between attacking a bear and eating a potato.

So, yeah… “top of the food chain” my arse. (For further commentary on the “food chain” argument, see comment #16 on this post.)

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12 Responses

Sara
02|May|2005 1

I’ve had two very positive experiences with nonvegans recently that might cheer you up. One of my coworkers is a very big fan of the “food chain” argument. Well, he recently realized that for the past few weeks he’s eaten nothing but fruit, nuts, and the occasional vegetable. He just kept eating foods he enjoyed that required no effort to prepare, and they just happened to all be vegan. Once he realized it he just kind of shrugged and said, “Well, why stop now?”

Once he confessed this to another carnivorous friend, his friend in turn confessed that he gave up eating meat for lent and just never went back to it. He had secretly been living as a vegetarian since. There was just no point to eating meat, since it’s absolutely unneccesary.

So now my coworkers no longer laugh at me when I bring in soy nuts and fruit salad for lunch. There’s always something to be positive about. :)
Suebob
03|May|2005 2

I think that eating domesticated animals is probably more common because they are easier to keep and kill.

Eating carnivores on the other hand, isn’t done much because I don’t think they taste very good. They probably also tend to be tough and sinewy.
Ryan
03|May|2005 3

Interesting… that’s an angle I hadn’t thought of (the texture angle).
Christopher Jones
04|May|2005 4

There is a good quote that relates to this:

“The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger after sweet and gentle creatures who harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service.”
-John Jacques Rousseau
vegenaise
05|May|2005 5

@Suebob:
“They probably also tend to be tough and sinewy.”

Isn’t that what one of the guys said in the movie _alive_?

(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Hoss
15|May|2005 6

Putting aside the various “might makes right” flaws with the “food chain” argument, it’s worth noting that the basic premise itself doesn’t make any sense. After all, vegetarians and vegans are on top of the food chain, too!
animal_friend
17|Jul|2005 7

Interestingly enough, Food chain believers do not believe in food chain when animals attack humans!
Sean Morse-Barry
29|Oct|2005 8

I’m twelve years old and I’ve been a vegetarian for one year so why should I start eating meat now just because meat tast good doesn’t mean I should start eating it again but it would be helpful to have more tasty not meat food
Sean Morse-Barry
29|Oct|2005 9

I’m twelve years old and I’ve been a vegetarian for one year so why should I start eating meat now just because meat tast good doesn’t mean I should start eating it again but it would be helpful to have more tasty non meat food.
Ryan Mercer
27|Dec|2005 10

Well put!

The very fact that slaughterhouses exist and that people continue to eat meat, knowing full well how much agony, suffering and pain is involved in getting their “food” to their plates is a reflection on the ignorance and dull mindedness of the majority of this so called “modern world’s” population.

The food chain argument is often the only one that meat eaters have left in using against us to somehow justify their funding of the barbarism and cruelty that is the meat industry.

Let me dispel the “humans are at the top of the food chain” myth here:

http://www.adaptt.org/vegan.html#herb

Remember: If animal slaughter is distasteful for humans to think about, what must it be like for the animals to experience it?
Charles Edelman.
22|Apr|2006 11

Man is better off without any foods of animal origin in his diet. He is neither an omnivore or a carnivore and does not need animal protein. The meat industry is a nightmare for the animals raised and slaughtered in it for human consumption. Animals raised in intensive farming are sick and diseased, pumped up with antibiotics and growth promoting hormones, fed garbage, cardboard, roadkill, discarded restaurant grease, animal waste and dead cats and dogs from our animal shelters. They are a primary cause of cancer, heart and other degenerative diseases in humans, contribute to environmental devastation and global hunger. The meat industry is one of single greatest evils in the modern world and should be totally eliminated ASAP.
Ashley
04|Apr|2008 12

if that were true… if that were true… then we’d be eating bears, tigers, lions, and any animal that’s bigger than us/can kill us if we are unarmed.

But chickens and fish…is questionable, LOL!