We finally watched the movie, Avatar, over the weekend, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I confess, all I knew before watching the film was that it featured blue humanoids, and that the DVD was released on Earth Day, so I suspected an environmental protection theme. I won’t give away any of the story, I’ll just describe one scene: the lead character is learning to hunt in the tradition of the blue humanoid – before he makes the kill, he speaks kind, respectful words and expresses gratitude to the animal that will become his dinner.

Chapters 17 and 18 are about vegetarianism and the ethics of eating meat, as well as a detailed explanation of Pollan’s attempt to hunt for meat (he hunts a pig).

Domestication is an evolutionary, rather than a political, development. It is certainly not a regime humans somehow imposed on animals some ten thousand years ago. Rather, domestication took place when a handful of especially opportunistic species discovered, through Darwinian trial and error, that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own. Humans provided the animals with food and protection in exchange for which the animals provided the humans their milk, eggs, and–yes–their flesh. Both parties were transformed in the new relationship: The animals grew tame and lost their ability to fend for themselves in the wild (natural selection tends to dispense with unneeded traits) and the humans traded their hunter-gatherer ways for the settled lives of agriculturalists.

Pollan spends a little bit of time in this section being a vegetarian, and deciding whether or not it will be ethical to resume life as a meat eater. I had trouble putting the book down while I read this part. He quotes Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, as saying that “there is no serious clash of interests between human and nonhuman animals.” I didn’t have to read the next sentence with thinking that, as a fledgling gardener, I have learned that this statement is patently untrue – I have come to terms with the fact that gardening takes a lot of skill, and much of what you need to know is how to win in the “clash of interests between human and nonhuman animals.” It amazes me how, after only about a week, tiny creatures, some of them requiring a magnifying glass to be visible, moved into our yard, somehow believing that I had opened up a free restaurant for them. So much for growing cabbages for my family – as it turns out, caterpillars and spider mites are powerful combatants, and they might actually want those cabbages (and the cucumber plants, unfortunately) more than we do. I don’t want to eat these creatures (really – I don’t – I probably wasted too much water the other night making sure we ate lettuce sans mite eggs) – and I don’t mind sharing my garden with them, but I suspect they would rather not share with me if they can help it.

Further, Pollan illustrates that, if everyone in the United States became vegetarians, the animals would not necessarily be better off: we would need more land to grow food, so grazing animals would have even less land available to them than they do now. Some parts of the country would have to import their share from somewhere else, in greater quantities, which would require more chemicals to be used on their food in order for it to survive shipping. Also, where would we put the animals that we are no longer going to eat? Where is their natural habitat? Is it better to let more species die off forever in order to make sure no human eats any animals again?

After reading this section, I have decided that our family eats too much meat. I think we eat it daily, sometimes even several times a day (including lunch meat). This is probably excessive, even if it was ethically raised. I have to talk with my husband about how we can reduce our consumption in this area. Also, we need to practice “animal kindness” by selecting meats that were ethically raised, from the beginning of their lives, all the way to the end. If I can’t get eggs at the farmer’s market or equivalent, I will continue to pay more for the “free range” ones – it turns out that, even “fake” access to the outdoors is still tons better than the life led by non-”free range” factory chickens.

The hunting chapter is very well done. I can’t say that I am now interested in acquiring my eat this way, but I respect what Pollan did here. I have extended family members who hunt, and I know that they make proper use of their spoils. Now that I think about it, it’s in many ways far more ethical to hunt for food than it is to purchase factory farmed meat. It seems barbaric – who would want to kill something for fun, right? But at least the hunted animals got to see the outdoors, and live relatively “natural” lives (the same cannot be said for most factory animals, who are bred to be slaughtered, and who are not allowed to follow their natural instincts, in favor of “efficiency”).

You should read these two chapters if you get a chance, even if you don’t have time for the entire book. Then come back and talk to me about your views on meat eating.

Other posts about The Omnivore’s Dilemma:

Post 1: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
Post 2: Even Fish Eat Corn
Post 3: Junk Food is Cheap Food
Post 4: Global Garden
Post 5: I Have a Garden. What’s Next, Chickens?
Post 6: Chickens and Pigs
Post 7: Honestly Priced Food
Post 8: Squash is not Poisonous
Post 9: Hunting, Vegetarians, and Animal Kindness
Post 10: Mysterious Mushrooms