Meat Isn't Murder, but it May Murder Us

                I found this video recently while perusing the internet. You don’t have to watch the whole thing; the general gist of the video is that we as Americans consume around eight times more meat than we need to, and Mark Bittman lays out a very succinct timeline of how this happened and why it is bad. Now I know what you’re thinking—Oh, great, another bleeding heart hippie telling us why meat is murder. Don’t jump to conclusions, though; the argument he makes isn’t the typical vegetarian argument.

                Now first and foremost, what made me believe what he was saying is that this man himself is a food critic for the New York Times. When I see that as someone’s credentials, I’m pretty willing to believe just about anything they say about food and diet. This alone is all he needs in my mind as an ethical proof. His logical proof is atypical as well—While I was expecting him to make a number of arguments about how inhumane the meat industry is, he completely ignored the ethics of meat and instead opted for numbers arguments. The amount of land wasted on livestock, the power the meat industry has over the very government departments that are supposed to be monitoring them, the amount of meat we eat vs. the amount we SHOULD eat, and so forth make for a compelling, fact-based argument that was difficult to disagree with. He makes quite logical and believable points, and it was easy to access as someone who doesn’t have a lot of prior knowledge of the meat industry. The best part though that really contributed to his credibility (for me, anyway) was that he said at the end that, yes, he has eaten quite a bit of meat in his life, and yes, he will probably continue to do so. It proves his point perfectly, because his point isn’t that meat is bad, per se; he just points out that we consume too much, a point with which I can agree after viewing the entire talk.