Vegetarianism for Carnivores

When I was young, it seemed everyone pretty much ate the same foods. We were in the age of the “Four Food Groups” and readily accepted those guidelines as the right way to eat. Of course, meat was the main course back then. Served with potatoes, maybe some canned vegetables, a piece of bread and a glass of milk, it was the All-American meal. I can even remember looking at a can of “Vegetarian Vegetable” soup and thinking how redundant that seemed. Well, at least for many people like me, the times have changed.

It was May of 1990. I was already thinking more about the foods I ate, and then I saw an “Earth Day” show on the History Channel all about the 19th century whaling industry. I watched the brutal techniques used to capture and kill whales, and the blood shooting out of the blowhole of a whale as it gave up its life. My jaw dropped even further in disbelief as my eyes witnessed the shipboard “rendering” of the kill. Now, I never ate whale, but I knew of people who did, and that the blubber was once used to extract whale oil for lamps and such before the growth of the petroleum industry. I just did not know exactly how they did it. The reality was shocking. Even though the whaling industry is diminished, I immediately made the connection between that industry and the modern cattle, swine and poultry industries.

I suppose modern methods of euthanizing food animals are more humane, but what about humane treatment before the kill? The questions keep coming. “Why do we need to do this at all?” Do we need to take the innocent lives of other animals to continue our own lives? Can we live healthy lives if we do not eat meat? Oh, I have heard the arguments about culling the herds and fielded the questions about what to do with the animals if they are not eaten, but I just cannot get around the idea of the unnecessary taking of one life to preserve another. I did some research.

Most people eat meat for the protein, yet very few people seem to know what the RDA for protein is. Yes, there actually is an RDA, but it is more of a guideline. Too much protein in the diet can hypertrophy the liver and kidneys, and lead to other complications. Too little protein can cause marasmus and kwashiorkor, especially in children. To balance this out, the RDA suggests the consumption of just .8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, but not more than 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. Since a kilogram is 2.2 pounds, an easy way for people to figure how many grams of protein to eat is simply to divide their weight in pounds by two. It will not be an exact number, but it will be close enough for easy referencing. Since .8 is almost 1.0, the figure arrived at in the first division should be approximately right in the middle of the recommended RDA limits. An even simpler rule of thumb is to make complete protein just 15% of total caloric intake. That is all a healthy, adult human needs. Doing the math just assures that one’s diet is within the guidelines even though most people, even vegetarians, consume adequate protein every day without ever giving the numbers any thought at all.