Obviously being new here I'm curious about the various reasons people have for choosing not to consume meat, or use any animal products. Another reason for being here (for me) is to draw on the ethical ideas of others to help me refine my own. I figure that in part, that means expressing what my ideas are.
For a couple of years, I was (and identified myself as) vegetarian. However, time has passed and I think it unlikely that I'd ever identify myself as vegetarian or vegan in future. I'm not about to roundly criticise not eating animals as daft, or avoiding animal products as pointless. Rather, I'm going to try to explore particular situations in with the ethical argument becomes unclear, or even potentially counterproductive.
Keep in mind I'm not presently even *behaving* as vegetarian and vegan to a substantial extent. I probably will again soon, although the finer points are still under consideration. But onward to the issue.
The core idea I'm going to explore is this: even if I stopped buying meat, cooking meat, ordering meat in restaurants, buying and eating eggs, buying and consuming milk or cheese, Despite all this, I will never call myself vegetarian, because I might still eat meat.
It sounds pretty obvious that this would preclude calling myself a vegetarian, but the point is that being vegetarian may not (although I'm hoping others will debate this here) be the most ethical option.
For example: if I go to visit a friend, and my friend (despite my best efforts to explain this to everyone) has cooked up a stir-fry including meat, despite the fact that I think killing animals for food is ethically wrong I'm not going to pick out the meat and put it aside. Why? Because the animal is already dead. Sure, to pick out the meat or even refuse the meal in its entirety might make an impression on my friend; that friend will probably never make the mistake again of cooking meat when I'm visiting. But the animal is still dead, and now that part of it has gone to waste. Unless my friend is particularly nasty, then as long as I discuss with them the fact that I would much prefer that they didn't cook meat for me (even if that simply meant giving me the exact same thing without meat) will mean he is unlikely to make the mistake again. That, and it quite unoffensive so will not put him offside.
Another similar waste-related one is this: if I buy a coffee from a shop and they for some reason erroneously use normal milk instead of soy, I'll still drink it. It is, I think, probably the most ethical thing to do. That coffee can not be served to anyone else - at best, one of the people behind the counter may drink it (and thus not produce another milk-containing one later). If I ask for another coffee, one that contains the soy I asked for rather that milk, then not only will the coffee with milk probably go to waste but additional materials and energy (coffee, soy-bean production, etc.) has been used which otherwise would not have.
So those are the ethical things that mean even if I aim to be vegetarian or vegan, I can never be sure that I actually will be. However, if in this hypothetical these situations never occurred, then in this hypothetical case in which I'm aiming to be vegan or vegetarian, I would indeed be. But even in this latter case, I could never identify myself as vegetarian or vegan, essentially for social reasons. And that is more awkward than you may imagine.
See, if I called myself vegetarian or vegan, but then drank that otherwise-to-be-wasted cup of coffee with milk, or ate that otherwise-going-to-the-bin stir-fry meat then I think I would be subjected to substantial social censure. That's fair enough; if everyone who called themselves vegetarian ate meat when it was accidentally delivered to them in a restaurant (instead of the vegetarian equivalent) then I imagine that the idea of vegetarianism would become much harder for people to understand, they would see it as hypocritical, and frankly people may be less careful to ensure that they remember that such-and-such is vegetarian when cooking for them.
The problem is that saying "I don't like eating meat" doesn't have nearly the same connotation as "I'm vegetarian". The former is likely to be interpreted as "I don't really like meat", or "I'm a picky eater" rather than "I believe killing animals for food is ethically wrong". It doesn't carry the same weight. So the options are (excluding explaining this entire thing in advance in every situation) to describe myself as vegetarian, but inevitably be criticised (and probably by vegetarians and vegans, to be honest) when I eat meat because it is the most ethical decision - OR - to not describe myself as vegetarian to avoid the social censure, but by avoiding the use of the stronger term make the likelihood of people making errors in understanding the seriousness of my 'preference' not to eat meat.
I like to think it is a bit of a quandary.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not claiming that vegans and vegetarians are obliged to eat a slab of meat stuck in front of them in error, even if the alternative is that the meat goes in the bin. I am, however, claiming that depending on your perspective on energy conservation, what about meat-consumption is ethically wrong (e.g. the conditions in which animals are raised, the killing, or whatever aspect(s) it may be) then to eat that piece of meat may actually be the most ethically sound thing to do.
And that's why, even if I exercise my buying power (not buying or ordering meat or animal-based products) and my social power (trying to bring people's awareness to the ethical issues) to reduce the use of animals for food and other products in which alternatives exist and are readily available, I will probably never call myself vegetarian or vegan. Even if I never eat meat, or use animal products.
I'd love to hear the views of others on this. And it isn't intended as a criticism of vegetarianism or veganism; that isn't the point I'm trying to make.
