I eat beef, so what?

Hey, do you eat meat on Saturday? They ask me here in Hyderabad. I say, “Why not, if I can eat it on a Sunday, why not any other day of the week? Do you eat beef? They are curious. “Buddy not just beef and pork, I had dog meat many times when I was in the Northeast,” I say. They are shell-shocked. I’m an oddball, they vouch.

And I am not ashamed to admit. After all, I’m no cannibal. Another avid blogger Jan Cho wrote recently: A lion topples a giraffe, a bear slays a fawn, a seal captures squid, and nobody objects. (Non-human) animals will be animals, and they do what they have to subsist and, if possible, prosper. The circumstances for humans are otherwise. Ethical eaters argue that it’s wrong for humans to kill animals for food where survival is not at stake. As omnivores with a conscience, humans have a choice in what we eat and understand the ethical implications of our choices. This is why we are held to a higher standard. But how did humans, unlike every other animal in nature, evolve the cognitive capacity to consider the ethics of our choices in the first place?

I agree, pal. It’s you who told me about an essay contest in New York Times’ Ethicist column that challenged omnivores to defend the practice of eating meat. “In recent years, vegetarians — and to an even greater degree vegans, their hard-core inner circle — have dominated the discussion about the ethics of eating… In response, those who love meat have had surprisingly little to say.”
Yes, I too have very little to say.
I take the side Jan Cho.
If you fellow humans can eat products derived from factory farm animals, who are subjected to terrible and unnecessary suffering in confinement, why can’t I eat their meat?
There is a terrible food shortage the world over. And the USA puts the blame on India. “In today’s food environment, eating meat may in fact be the best bet for survival for many Americans. It is a more reliable way for them to get the energy and nourishment they need. In many areas of the country, fruits, vegetables and whole grains are hard to come by, and adhering to a plant-only diet would — calorie for calorie, gram for gram — costs more money (and time that can’t be spared) than one consisting of bacon-topped burgers and fried chicken, which are subsidized by our country’s industrial agricultural system. Composing a complete and balanced plant-only diet, moreover, requires a level of knowledge of foods, nutrients and supplements that most Americans are nowhere near having. Abolishing meat from the diets of Americans would not be unlike throwing them to the wolves,” writes Jan Cho.
Well, it is ethical  for me to eat meat here in India too!