"I Honour the Animals I Eat"

“I’m like the Na’vi! Oel Ngati Kameie and all that”

I never even thought about the animal at all before becoming vegan. I didn’t like to waste food so I guess that was my very loose way of honouring the animal. Even then it wasn’t a hard rule and I would occasionally let things slide into the bin.

But what does “honouring” actually do for the animal?

Agree to disagree

I think the term “sacrifice” gets thrown around a lot when people start talking about “honouring” the animals they eat. There’s this kind of implied nobility or spirituality, maybe even a sense of human dominance over nature. The animals are giving their life for the benefit of humanity.

However, they didn’t “give” their life, we took it from them. There is no contract or agreement with the animal as we know that it wants to live.

A sacrifice is something you give. This is something that was taken.

What about cultures that honour animals?

Some communities, like the Inuit, have deep rituals around hunting and eating animals, often in places and times where there wasn’t much choice. I’m not going to tell someone surviving in the Arctic what to eat. That’s a very different situation to me standing in a supermarket with tofu on the next shelf.

If it’s about necessity, that’s a different argument. If it’s about culture, I’ve talked about that one too.

Tree Hugger, Animal Lover?

“But I love plants and animals equally, and I still eat plants”

Are they really the same though? Plants can’t feel anything.

When I say that I “love” this tree, flower, or vegetable, what I really love is how it looks or how it tastes. They don’t give af about living or dying cause there’s nobody home to care.

An animal, on the other hand, does care. A cow or a chicken can feel and has a genuine interest in staying alive.

If I loved animals the way I love plants, I’d be loving them as things, and that doesn’t really feel like love to me. I can say for certain that I don’t love Aloo 🐱 the same way I love my spider plant.

No disrespect

If I really respect an animal, why don’t I just leave it the heck alone? It’s not that hard.

I can’t honour someone by doing to them the one thing they’d most want me not to do.