I'm having a steak tonight. Rare.

Vegetarianism doesn't automatically mean cruelty-free, especially when it comes to the dining habits of a family of psychopaths, as Bonnie Stansfield illustrates in her short story, "A Tasy Dish":

http://electricstorytime.blogspot.com/2006/11/tasty-dish.html

It will be interesting to see how the arguments against meat eating survive against artificially grown meat, which will certainly be a reality in less than ten years. It hard to argue that taking a few cell sample to use to grow just meat masses that have no attached brain is cruel, and it's a good bet that the packaging conditions will be more sanitary than todays (no feces to contaminate the meat). Will they be reduced to the feeble "but, but, it's not natural"?

Really at that point is there a difference between artificial meat and all the crap they add to textured vegetable protein to simulate "meatiness". I ask this as someone who has on and off flirted with a vegetarian diet over the years, yet avoided the TVP stuff since a quick read of the ingredient revealed more food science (read voodoo) than anything else on the shelf.

Maybe the argument will simply move to whether or not it's morally acceptable to eat artificially grown meat from human muscle tissue samples.

While I admit it's a moderately interesting topic, this looks to be another pot-boiler for Salon designed to generate clicks and ad revenue as people get their undies in a bunch.

While I'd like to think we're in for a lot of thoughtful responses, realistically:

Look forward to 300+ posts of screechy people who aren't making even a half-assed effort to think the issues through before screeching half truths.

Here comes KStone...

I think the author of the review must have meant Petrarch, who did write famous sonnets. Plutarch was known primarily for his lives of ancient Greeks and Romans.

Are you putting me on..? Is this some kind of sophisticated joke..? What would possess someone to bother writing a book on such a topic..?

Salon Premium members. Self righteous faux hippy wannabes are juicy and tender and best of all they jump in the pot themselves.

Laura Miller has written an interesting and thoughtful review, however has failed to ask the obvious question. Was the author a shill for the meat marketing corporations? Just kidding, but it certainly sounds like it. Don't eat meat and you too can be crazy as a coot! I liked Laura's point about morality being bound to its time and place. At this time in the world many people regard with horror the eating of rodents but at many times and places rat is/was considered a staple if not a delicacy.

I don't eat meat. I have my own reasons. Other people who don't eat meat have theirs which may well be vastly different from mine. To think of all non meat eaters as a heterogenious group called vegitarians and that we share a common belief system is as foolish as believing all Christians are basically the same and share a common dogma.

A discussion of the history of meat eating versus non-meat eating is interesting but has very little relevance as to wheather a meat free diet is personally /globally advantageous in 2007.

David Edler

Christ. First Debra Dickenson on why Barack Obama is not really black, and now this crap. Hey Salon, what's next: "Man-Boy Sex: Maybe it's not so bad!"

Are you that desperate for attention?

Pathetic, truly pathetic.

Really, no books or even articles need to be written about it. Would you kill and eat a human being even if there were other food available, just because you liked the taste, or thought it would provide a bit more nutrition? If the answer is no, you shouldn't be eating animals either.

Activists, on the other hand, know different. They count on the evolution of morality. Recently, Adam Hochschild's fascinating "Bury the Chains" chronicled the means by which a group of committed 18th-century idealists convinced their fellow citizens in Britain and America that slavery was an intolerable wrong.

That's a huge gripe for me. That view is popular with wanna-be activists, much less popular with historians.

Many "activists" lionize past activists most often for their zeal; rather than pragmatism or the good fortune of larger historical context. It encourages the notion that anyone zealous enough will make a great activist, when very often they lack the strategy or historical timing and just create divisions and promote the "digging in" of political opponents.

"Vegetarian Activism" i.e. the active promotion of vegetarianism has little to do with mild increases in vegetarianism, and probably has more of a negative reactionary effect than positive pro-vegetarian effect.

Vegetarianism exists mostly for reasons that are technological, with spiritual/moral and historic components. Nutrition options, society specialization, super markets the disconnect from the slaughter, are technological impetus. Some moral reasons are ancient, but the additional research into intelligent species and many other developments are technological.

It's also highly subjective. For example, many people enjoy hunting and feel the hunt and slaughter connect them to the land and maintain ancient traditions. When vegetarians think of "rednecks" doing so, they're not very sympathetic. But when it's Native Americans in sacred rituals, they're often much more sympathetic. That shows the subjective and cultural judgments which are pretty rational.

That shows the subjective and cultural judgments which are pretty rational.

meant to say 'irrational.'

I can understand everyone's point of view on this subject, even 7th level vegans (don't eat anything that casts a shadow), but I LOVE meat. It is delicious and good for you. That said, I have a real problem with 'meat factories' where they line cows up in cramped stalls with automated shit-scrapers to clean the floor and an endless cycle of feeding and milking, then off to the slaughterhouse for a slug in the brain-stem. I have a moral problem with the chicken warehouses. I do not, however, have a problem with a cow that has been fed and cared for all his life, then goes off to the barn for a slug in the brain-stem. And yes, I have killed and dressed my own meat before.