Second Post

This morning marks my fourth day of veganism. Since Colorado College serves up a ton of vegan options, I have found that it comes down to a mere selection between the different options in front of me. It’s not half bad. I grab salads instead of creamy pasta and order mock cheese on my pizzas at the preserve. And though the food all tastes delicious, my biggest help comes from the animal rights literature we have to read for class. Spending a few hours a day reading up on factory farms and animal suffering provides major incentive. We have read work by Peter Singer, Tom Regan and Mylan Engel Jr. on why vegetarianism is the only morally permissible way to go.

            A heavy hitter in the animal rights movement, utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer in Animal Liberation that because animals are sentient beings and possess the same capacity for suffering as we do, we must take their interests into account equally with our own. That means that the satisfaction I get from eating an ice cream cone cannot override the torture endured by the factory farmed cow it came from. Such a trade off has no moral justification, especially when there are cruelty free alternatives to virtually any food.

            Mylan Engel makes one of the most persuasive arguments for veganism. He makes no claims about animals’ inherent worth or anything of that matter. Those points are compelling but too easy for reluctant omnivores to dispute. Instead, he lists several things I already believe – like that a world with less unnecessary suffering is more desirable than a world with more unnecessary suffering – and connects them to modern day animal agriculture. Animals in factory farms obviously endure more pain and suffering than most of us can imagine. Most of this suffering is not inherently necessary in order to raise an animal, but large corporations have imposed practices like small cages and hurried slaughter in the name of efficiency. When you consider the food alternatives I mentioned above, there is no denying that this suffering is unnecessary. Eating any animal products therefore goes against my basic values as a human being. I completed an essay about Engel’s stance against eating meat for class yesterday. Assignments like these keep animal rights in my head all day. By the time I take a study break to get dinner, I have lost my appetite for animal products.

            This assignment still has its challenges. My stomach growls a lot. Out of habit I have been eating the same volume of vegan food as I did non-vegan food, and I think that because it has fewer calories I get hungry quickly. I also have not gone to the grocery store yet, forcing me to buy soymilk and other dorm room food at the C Store for a ridiculous fee.

            For our collective action project, Maeve, Teddy, Alli and I will be teaming up to learn more about where our meat comes from. We will be talking to local grocery store managers and members of the Bon Appetit team to learn the origins of the meat they sell and serve hopes of educating the community about their choices.