The Edible is Ethical

It’s a little awkward for a vegetarian to talk about food at breakfast-time. But this week we’ve heard from Oxford scientists that limiting carbon emissions and feeding a growing population should mean moving towards a more plant-based diet. 

The discussion’s awkward because it involves moral judgments in an area we like to think of as a matter of personal preference: as the saying has it, ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’. But vegetarians and vegans have long argued that the choices we make around eating are intrinsically ethical. Environmental and health issues are part of the conversation, but vegetarians’ main concern is that meat production causes animals to suffer in ways we can avoid. 

From a Buddhist perspective, what links these issues is the belief that the consequences of food production for both animal suffering and the planet are our responsibility. Not all Buddhists are vegetarian, but Buddhist ethics teaches that acting well means paying careful attention to the conditions from which things develop. Chinese Buddhist monks start a meal by reflecting on where the food has come from with a sense of gratitude to the farmers and cooks. 

Vegetarianism and veganism come in when you reflect on other conditions that are involved. The food on our plate derives, one way or another, from the planet’s resources. Before it’s cooked and served, the food is grown or reared, then processed, packaged, transported and sold. So it isn’t just food – it has an environmental and economic impact. 

In the case of meat, Buddhist teachings are broadly in line with the science that sees animals as fellow ‘sentient beings’ who experience suffering to varying degrees. For Buddhism, the view that animals exist for our benefit is part of the self-importance that’s the ultimate root of our own suffering.

In one sense, of course, our dietary choices are free, but recognising their effects means seeing that they’re also ethical decisions. If we’re part of the environment, it follows that we’re morally responsible for our effect on it.

People naturally draw differing conclusions. My own efforts to be vegan often falter when someone offers me a slice of cake; and the Oxford study proposes that people become ‘flexitarians’, reducing the meat they consume, rather than cutting it out altogether.

But these choices matter. People say that the personal is political; perhaps we should add that the edible is ethical.