Once upon a time I was snowboarding with a few friends. I am a pretty low key person without oodles of extra energy and with no desire to participate in most sports other than hiking, snowboarding, scuba diving, and gymnastics when I was younger. I guess I just don’t do team sports. Anyhow, I made a comment on the way home about being tired by midway through the snowboarding day and how at that point snowboarding isn’t as fun anymore. I could be totally happy with a half day and then some relaxation. I commented on my sluggish metabolism stating that “I have a hibernating bear like metabolism.” I was joking really- or at least being my normal over dramatic/ over exaggerating self.
One of my friend’s response was, “that is because you don’t eat meat.” Now I REALLY respect this friend so I didn’t go into all the ways this is a ludicrous statement, but he was serious and I get reactions like this once in a while. (Of course a similar situation has happened more recently leading to the writing of this post but I wouldn’t want that recent person to know he made my blog…. so I go back in time a bit.) I just want to rebut these types of statements in a safe and anonymous forum that I don’t think he will ever read!
1) Eating meat is not optimal for your digestive system and therefore it requires much more energy to digest and use the protein in meat as compared to plants. This is energy you could be using to play sports or snowboard. Because meat has no fiber, it is harder for your body to move it on through the system. It makes your GI tract sluggish. Isn’t it common for people to eat a big meaty meal and then need a nap? You don’t really hear of that happening after a giant salad (greens and veggies) is consumed.
2) I get a more optimal level of protein as a vegan than the average omnivore does. Most Americans get about 2 times the protein they should have everyday which actually slows them down, causes constipation, and causes (in the long term) kidney problems. It is hard work for kidneys to filter out all the by products of meat digestion/ processing and it is hard work for the body to keep its pH in the appropriate range with meat protein breakdown being so acidic.
3) Many vegans/ vegetarians report needing less sleep than they did before their diet switch…. Although I haven’t become the non-sleeping super human of productivity that I would have hoped.
4) I definitely know I work better on this diet. I don’t have the stupor of tired-unable-to-thinkness that I used to get about once a day. I don’t need naps. And my GI tract is much more happy and works wonders these days 🙂
Since I am writing things I didn’t want to say out loud at the time of hearing ridiculous statements, here is another little anecdote:
Once upon a time I was with some adults and some children in a car. We saw a dead animal on the side of the road. It had been hit by a car. One of the kids expressed sadness for the animal being hit. Not overcome with emotion kind of sadness- just a passing statement. These kids were older kids (13-15) and well able to handle the situation of an already dead animal on the side of the road. The adult leader in the car (the one having a large impact on molding those young minds) said, “I don’t think animals feel pain in quite the same way we do.” AKA animals feel less pain or don’t know they are in pain so their pain is less important or nonexistent. At least that is what I took his statement to mean. Now this person did say, “I think” and they are entitled to their own opinion, but what is this statement based on? I think it is a myth passed on generation to generation to make us all feel better about the horrible things we do to animals to eat them. I think it is denial and justification. This particular person doesn’t know more than your average Joe about animals or biology. Its not his line of work or his interest. When asked, he had no basis for it scientifically. I think people tell themselves this and propagate this myth because it helps them sleep at night.
If you have ever seen an animal in pain, then you know they feel it. The stress hormone levels in grocery store meat indicates that the animals were in pain when they were killed. Animals display being frightened by the potential to be in pain and by the smell of blood and the sound of other animals in pain. All animals (which is a word that technically means mammals) including us, have the same basic anatomy and nervous system. They feel things how we feel things. Ditto with birds and fish. You have to get down to lower life forms like insects and cnidarians with their nerve nets to start saying they may not feel pain the same way we do. Now whether or not you care about animal pain is up to you, but don’t go perpetuating fallacies to make yourself feel better. (Just for the record I don’t think this person put that much thought into their statement or was trying to perpetuate a fallacy. I think its just so ingrained in many people to disregard animals and not think a second thought about eating them or their suffering.)
Okay I am done venting passive aggressively to the google universe for a while.
It's Spelled D-A-I-N-A 
Animals feel pain, of course. But, I agree they may not feel it quite the same way that we do in certain situations. The actual pain, like from getting stabbed, they probably feel the same. But, as animals are not self-aware the way humans are, I don’t think they would experience the same anticipation of a dreadful moment the way a human would.
Donna, animals feel pain duh! I get so mad when little boys hurt animals for fun. But your blog did make me wonder if they do feel as much pain? I don’t know and I will probably never look into it, but if they have a less advanced central nervous system don’t they also have less capacity to feel pain. Not that I am justifying the way they are treated, it makes me sick, but I am honestly wondering about this. let me know what you have found out.
Ben, it is true that animals may not anticipate pain in fear from, say, being hit by a car. They don’t know what a car is. But evolutionarily speaking, they know the smell of blood and are probably more sensitive to stress hormones in the air and the fear reaction that happens. And having no way to logic themselves out of the fear, they would live in the moment.
And Sarah I would agree that their nervous systems are less developed than ours- the higher powers of thinking and reasoning don’t belong to them. But I think the same primitive responses to fear and pain that we feel would be intact for animals. But I guess I don’t know for sure. They look pretty scared/ hurt/ miserable in undercover movies I have watched. Hard to watch movies.
Interesting thoughts peeps. Thanks