This week Australian moral philosopher, Peter Singer, announced on Triple J’s evening Hack show that people who ate meat were “less good” than those who refrained.
Queue the strong opinions (some of them pretty explicit!) from all quarters about whether or not people were in agreement with him.
It’s divided opinions amongst us here at LIV HQ (lots of us love eating meat but one of us is a long-standing veggie) as we discussed the human nature vs 21st century society debate.
Obviously mankind has eaten meat since the year dot and our bodies have needed the various nutrients we get from animal meat to evolve into the humans we are today.
But with vegetarian and vegan restaurants popping up all over the place in our capital cities, there are now plenty of ways to take on board most of the good things we need to function. And some of them are even tasty!
So it really comes down to the ethics of it all. Do the animal welfare and environmental issues make you feel bad enough to give up a major food type you’ve probably enjoyed since childhood?
We have plenty of LIV pet owners here and while most of us would take a bullet before letting anything happen to our furry children, we still enjoy a tasty chicken schnitty on a Friday evening.
It seems a bit of a case of what’s out of sight, is also out of mind.
While you probably can’t blame anyone too much for that most human of perspectives, what about the impact on air pollution from the farming of animals on such a widespread scale?
If it’s true and we are doing irreversible damage to the planet, then surely for the sake of future generations, we should be looking to switch off meat or at least cut down our usual intake.
We certainly aren’t here to judge if you’re living a good or bad life, but it’s fair to say that moderation is probably a good policy in this instance.
As the barbie nation of the world, it would be unrealistic to expect everyone to go veggo overnight but perhaps it’s the start of a journey we’re on where animals and the planet we share with them begin to be treated equally.