The Vegan Evolution

Transforming Diets and Agriculture

Gregory F. Tague

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000600360
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Artes culinarias

Arguing for a vegan economy, this book explains how we can and should alter our eating habits away from meat and dairy through sociocultural evolution.

Using the latest research and ideas about the cultural ecology of food, this book makes the case that through biological and, especially, cultural evolution, the human diet can gravitate away from farmed meat and dairy products. The thrust of the writing demonstrates that because humans are a cultural species, and since we are evolving more culturally than biologically, it stands to reason for health and environmental reasons that we develop a vegan economy. The book shows that for many good reasons we don't need a diet of meat and dairy and a call is made to legislative leaders, policy makers, and educators to shift away from animal farming and inform people about the advantages of a vegan culture. The bottom line is that we have to start thinking collectively about smarter ways of growing and processing plant foods, not farming animals as food, to generate good consequences for health, the environment, and, therefore, animals. This is an attainable and worthy goal given the mental and physical plasticity of humans through cooperative cultural evolution.

This book is essential reading for all interested in veganism, whether for ethical, environmental, or health reasons, and those studying the human diet from a range of disciplines, including cultural evolution, food ecology, animal ethics, food and nutrition, and evolutionary studies.

1

Preliminaries and Objections

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289814-2

In this chapter, I hope to build on my reliability, presumably already established. Readers are reminded of the overall argument and key claims laid out at the beginning of this book dealing with a drive for community education and awareness about the health and environmental benefits of a vegan food culture. We are evolved apes who have mostly lost contact with natural biodiversity, the pattern of relationships in nature, as seen by Darwin. Pim Martens (2020) says that in line with biodiversity preservation, emphasis should be on wildlife and animal care, not simply on enumerating species.

Who is a Vegan?

Simply put, a vegan is someone who does not use or eat animal products, whether meat, seafood, or dairy, maintains an ethos that is free from any animal cruelty, and avoids purchasing leather, fur, products tested on animals, etc. Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong (2018) discuss how veganism can be a “marker of difference” where one politically resists any form of capitalism that profits from harming animals. As Barbara McDonald (2000) puts it, one might have an orientation toward being vegan-like, perhaps because of heightened empathy that gets set in motion by some catalyst. This is not to say others can’t embody and act on the feeling of being vegan-like, evident in the argument and claims of this book. The invitation is open.

As stated in the Declaration of Toulon (2019), animals are persons and not things. A vegan can achieve health and fitness, evidenced in the many vegan athletes across a range of sports from weight lifting, running, and tennis. For the sake of my argument, when I use the term veganism I am not referring to raw veganism (Alvaro 2020a). With raw veganism one’s diet consists almost exclusively of non-cooked foods like fresh fruit and leafy greens along with nuts or seeds. While that could be an ultimate goal for some people, I don’t foresee that as a practical strategy in winning over readers in this argument. Even some vegans will admit that the shift in their diet was a gradual weaning away from red meat, then away from chicken, and eventually away from dairy. Some cultures don’t eat much meat since it’s expensive or prohibited because of religious reasons. At any rate, and to emphasize a serious point from an evolutionary perspective, say Donna Hart and Robert Sussman (2005), up until about 10kya with the introduction of farming, meat was a “scarce supplement” to a variety of other, mostly plant, foods. I define the word vegetarian loosely to describe a person or animal who might rarely but not regularly be a consumer of some animal flesh or dairy, including the ingestion of insects. I will talk about eating insects in Chapters 3 and 4.

For many people, veganism means not eating any animal flesh and not consuming any dairy products. There are no steaks, chops, ribs, or fish. There are no animal-based eggs, milk, or butter. There is no honey. However, corporate executives have capitalized on a growing vegan trend, so there are many animal substitute products widely available, very tasty, and infused with vitamins and nutrients. One foreseeable problem is the corporate takeover of vegan agriculture, but I will not address that in this writing other than raising the red flag. Yet it’s a concern, and any new vegan economy should be guided by wise policy makers and visionary politicians who keep the vegetable farms small and within a short distance from urban areas. Community leaders should allow entrepreneurial manufacture and distribution of veggie products, especially in city neighborhoods lacking healthy food. Suffice it to say that if vegan companies stay true to their mission, they could have multiple, energy efficient operations across the country to reduce the burning of fossil fuels in shipping. They could have controlled profit sharing or franchise opportunities for women and minority start-ups where vegan quality is maintained and improved along cultural food traditions.

It’s probably futile to make some vegans feel uncomfortable because they don’t eat raw foods or to make meat eaters feel guilty. Raising awareness so people can generate informed decisions is the goal. Meat and dairy eaters could be motivated to change course in seeing how there’s an environmentally responsible, healthy, and ethical choice in veganism.

Identity Thinking

Vegans have a perceived and projected identity often rooted in an authentic ethos more than a diet (Greenebaum 2012). There’s a clash between this minority vegan ethic, which strives to benefit the planet and its biodiversity, and consumers with little regard for the consequences of participating in animal agriculture. Part of the challenge, addressed in this book, is to use biology, evolutionary history, and cultural evolution as a means to rationally sway most people away from meat and dairy eating as supposedly integral to their survival identity.

Researchers (McCright & Dunlap 2011) recognize what is called the “white male effect.” Conservative white men, apparently, are more likely than others in the United States to deny climate change across the board. Such monolithic attitudes, by analogy and since battling climate change is tied to veganism, are hard to overcome. This demographic (see, too, Pennycook, et al. 2019) perceives risk based on their worldview of rugged individuals in a hierarchical order. Such stolid thinking needs to be chipped away, and some closed attitudes might have opened up because of the pandemic and recent climate events.

Psychologist Joshua Greene (2013) would call group division moral tribes, but I wonder where the morality is in those who ignore violence in animal agribusiness and destruction in deforestation for cattle farms. Each group has its own set of values and beliefs, but not all mores are life-affirming or ecologically feasible in the long term. Visionary, eloquent leaders who appeal to such men (and women) could be a start, as well as a more well-informed medical community. When these men, and others for that matter, visit their doctors, there could be a discussion about the total health benefits of a vegan diet. Most physicians are not trained in nutrition, much less a vegan diet. The theory is that conservatives adhere to what’s called identity protection and are reluctant, no matter how much data is thrown at them, to change their minds. If you can alter the thinking of someone close to such a man, then maybe that person could exert an influence. Furthermore, John Jost, et al. (2017) show how the conservative view is like a syndrome of anxiety about uncertainty, and so there’s an alliance to the familiar status quo of traditions and hierarchy. Education (not indoctrination) of young people about healthy foods and the environment is paramount in a new cultural paradigm.

Confirmation Bias

We need to study evolution in light of growing pandemics and environmental collapse through climate change. Misunderstanding how scientific theory works, i.e., the testing of propositions, is a common problem. As Naomi Oreskes (2018) says, climate change is not a matter of a vote among a few scientists. Rather, via peer review, as a whole, large numbers of researchers work out key parts and questions of the puzzle. There is a consensus, but it gets refuted by a few often unscientific voices. Consensus correlates with expertise, as Cook, et al. (2016) demonstrate in a synthesis of studies indicating how nearly all climate scientists agree that the atmosphere and oceans are warming because of human activities. The farming of animals for meat and dairy is a human-induced factor (Di Paola, et al. 2017). Part of the problem involves making predictions about the future. That’s not an obstacle with the argument for a vegan economy, for by reducing meat fat and dairy cholesterol we can improve health while reducing animal farm pollution.

You can be a vegan only for health reasons, but if so, the chances are that you have considered the ethical ramifications as well. We tend to interpret data to confirm our feelings or beliefs, even if those mental states are not substantiated by facts. Emphasizing education and a rise in science courses, as argued here, Jon Miller, et al. (2021) say that belief in human evolution is increasing. Nonetheless, Andrew Hoffman (2015) seems to suggest, when you hit a stone wall you are confronted by confirmation bias. No matter how much evidence you present to the contrary, the other person or group will shut down even more. Likewise, Keith Stanovich and Richard West (2007) describe how personal opinions become fixed in spite of factual evidence, although education could factor into one’s critical thinking. Those with this so-called myside bias seem less affected by new information and more concerned about how new cultural ideas threaten them.

As many authors concerned with conservation biodiversity and environmental ethics point out, humans need not consume nearly as much animal flesh as they do. In fact, in many prosperous industrialized countries, from China to North America, people are ingesting too much protein. Ecologist Carl Safina (2011) points out how all “animals,” from insects like bees to elephants, wolves, and dolphins exhibit a range of social intelligence and cross-species empathy demonstrating why we should not be killing them for convenience or food. More importantly, every living creature exists in symbiotic relation to another, thereby forming a stable and sustainable biome that contributes to what once was a self-regulating biosphere. Nothing could be further from the truth than asserting that humans are born meat eaters, programmed to hunt, or destined to eradicate other species into extinction, as I hope to demonstrate.

The American Heart Association (Kim, et al. 2019) says that overall health, and particularly cardiovascular fitness, is improved in a plant-based diet. Dr. Tushar Mehta and Nicholas Carter (2021) have compiled a comprehensive list of the best research on the benefits of a plant diet. Microbial gut bacteria promote good health and can prevent serious illness like diabetes and heart disease. A fit microbiome results from eating minimally processed whole foods low in salt, sugar, or other chemical additives. Not everyone’s gut will react the same way, but researchers (Asnicar, et al. 2021) found that healthy gut bugs stem from a diet that includes lots of fiber plant foods like spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, nuts, seeds, etc. Yet meals centered on meat prevail. Researchers are looking at dwindling hunter-gatherers, whose diets traditionally tend to be weighed more to plant foods, to understand how modern influences on these groups affect health (Crittenden & Schnorr 2016). Hunter-gatherers, generally, have a rich microbiome fit for natural plant foods while among North Americans the microbiome is geared toward animal mucus (Fragiadakis, et al. 2019), which can lead to colon cancer and heart disease.

These bits are related, since, as is true:

• We evolved from ape-like humans who ate mostly fruits and leaves.
• Humans have literally eaten some species into extinction.
• Increasing rates of obesity and corpulence are public health concerns.
• Farming animals for flesh and dairy is a prime contributor to climate change.

We cannot continue at this pace without encountering health and climate doom. As implied by Philippa Brakes, et al. (2019), animal cultures, like social learning related to feeding, can impact species survival. This means humans should respect wildlife biodiversity for its own sake as a self-regulating system contributing positively to the forests, oceans, and atmosphere. We can learn from other species that feeding cultures are balanced and healthful, not maladaptive. Humans must tackle obesity, poor health, and climate change from farming and eating animals...