What if Tavi Eats Meat?Since starting this Substack, the most common question I have received is about Tavi, our four-year-old son: specifically, what if one day he decides to eat meat? The question has come both from people who eat meat and from vegans. I have received it by email, by text message, and in comments on my posts. It has been, overwhelmingly, the most common thing people ask me.https://winforanimals.substack.com/p/veganism-as-the-gift-of-not-pretendingHere is my response:Eating Meat Isn’t Natural, or Human NatureThis is my core belief. On a personal level, it is based on my own experience. I went vegetarian when I was nine. I often mention this on podcasts, and the interviewer will comment on how oddly early that is. But it isn’t. There was a study done at Harvard that found my experience is not unique. Karen Hussar and Paul Harris studied what they called “independent vegetarians”: children between six and ten years old who had decided to stop eating meat even though they were being raised in completely meat-eating families. This was not a matter of being picky eaters. The researchers interviewed the children, and they—unanimously—gave moral reasons for becoming vegetarian, focusing on the suffering and death that meat eating causes animals. These children arrived at an animal rights philosophy, on their own, by six, or eight, or nine, or ten—just like me. And they stayed vegetarian, like me, despite the practices of every adult around them. If eating meat were “human nature,” children would not, routinely, be becoming vegetarian when their own parents eat meat.
>>5163479>Vegan parents are often accused of forcing veganism on their children. But perhaps it is the other way around: perhaps some children are being forced to eat meat.This is what the peer-reviewed data have found: A recent study https://doi.org/10.5964/phair.20587 surveyed 1,063 UK young adults aged 18 to 26, asking whether they had ever thought about giving up meat while growing up. Nearly half, 48.5%, said they had considered stopping before they finished secondary school, and those thoughts first occurred at around age 11 on average. Of those who considered it, over half actually tried, with attempts lasting anywhere from a few days to the present. The single strongest predictor of whether they succeeded? Parental support.But of course, as we already know, most of them did not stay: in the follow-up sample, 89.5% of those who had stopped reported eating meat again. For those who stopped and then started again, parents, peers, and schools were all more supportive of starting to eat meat again than of stopping in the first place. The parental difference in support was very large.So, we have to ask a different question, implied by this study, but one I have never seen asked:>What happens to all these children—almost 90%—who went vegetarian and then started eating meat again?
>>5163480Meat Eating As Childhood TraumaThere is a difference between ignorance and “disavowal.”For example, I teach my students about chocolate production, which is also a moral abomination: it runs on child labor and child slavery. None of my students know this beforehand. All of them are appalled. Many ask for more resources: documentaries, articles. There are follow-up questions. All of them think something should be done about it.>Chocolate is a food product, tied to cultural memory, that almost all of my students enjoy consuming. But never, not once, not a single time, ever, has a student gotten angry at me for telling them the truth about it. That is because it is true ignorance.
>>5163482I do occasionally have a similar experience when I teach my students about animals: students who are immediately appalled, who want more information, who are outraged. But normally the response is very different. This is because it is not true ignorance, it is “disavowal,” a knowing-not-knowing. My students learned, at a very young age, just enough not to “know” what they do already very much know.I am invited, as a professor of communication, to give training to animal advocates on how they can be more effective, but I will go ahead and tell you—right now—the main point of the entire training: often, perhaps overwhelmingly, what we are dealing with is not true ignorance. It is repressed childhood trauma.At a very young age, many, many children decide to go vegetarian; many, many more feel deep discomfort at the idea of killing animals. At some level they believe, and feel, the arguments we are making. Of course they do: everyone, every parent, every teacher, tells children not to hurt animals and young children do not think hypocritically.At a young age, perhaps 9, perhaps 11, whenever they first think about the fact that “chicken” is chicken, many children decide to go vegetarian, and then their parents, the people they love most in the world, the people they are completely dependent on to take care of them, to feed them, to keep them safe, to teach them right from wrong, lie to them.
>>5163485>They tell them that killing animals doesn’t hurt them, that they have to eat meat or they will get sick or die, that the animals want to die. And so the children, logically and understandably, learn at a young age to repress what they already know to be true.Often, that is who we are talking to as adults.I know this from the peer-reviewed data. I know it professionally, as a professor, from the hundreds and hundreds of barely-out-of-their-teens students I have taught about what is happening to animals, and from watching their reactions. I also know it personally, as one of those many children who first went vegetarian at nine. My parents did not take it well. They tried to force me to eat meat; they refused to make me anything “special,” and so for an entire year I had to figure out how to feed myself—at nine. I used to buy huge bags of oranges and eat those as a meal. Finally, my parents decided it wasn’t a phase, that I wasn’t being a picky eater, and started making vegetarian food. But I was a uniquely stubborn and ethically committed child; that cannot be our standard for vegan advocacy. Of course many children will simply start eating meat again, which is what the data show.And then they—try—to forget.Reaching Those who Were Already ReachedThe message I give to advocates trying to convince people to go vegan is to remember that, for many of the people they are speaking to, including often the most hostile and angry ones, it is not true ignorance they are dealing with. I mean, sure, they might never have seen a battery cage, but the basic idea of killing, hurting, and eating animals is not new to them. It is repressed.Realizing this simple truth can change the way we talk about veganism and relate to others. That is why, throughout this Substack, I have tried to explain, to highlight, to model, the way I have found to speak to people. Anger is a difficult path for dealing with trauma.
>>5163486Logical argument is a difficult path for dealing with trauma.>Gentleness, walking together, grieving together, acknowledging the need and the desire for denial along with them, apologizing for what was done to them, helping them see and experience what the inside of a vegan life actually looks and feels like—that is what works with trauma.Focusing on our family, our children—who are thriving as vegans—this, too, is part of how we reach them.Because in a way it is less about reaching them, since they were already reached at six, or nine, or eleven, than about taking something off them: a burden they have been quietly carrying, and trying very hard not to think about, for many, many years. This is also why I keep emphasizing that the gift veganism gives all of us is a wholeness, an integrity, the option of living our lives fully without hypocrisy or compartmentalization. Because at nine they, like all children, wanted exactly that, and they were told they could not have it: ethics only go so far; growing up is hypocrisy; wholeness is impossible. That is the untrue, heavy weight they have been carrying for so long, and that is the gift we get to give them.>No, we tell them, you can finally be whole—again.
>>5163487From Boys to MenMy colleague and friend Richard Twine talks about this in his 2024 book, The Climate Crisis and Other Animals: the “secret” that meat eating represents in our society. Growing up is seen as learning our society’s secret, that we torture and kill animals, and then pretending it away. And particularly for men, the belief in, and denial of, this secret is what makes us “men.” Boys, we are taught, are allowed to care about and love animals: how childlike; how naive. Because women are infantilized in our society, women are allowed to keep caring for animals. Men are taught to repress their emotions, their care, their love; to be practical, to feel less, to be “realistic.”Lee is one of Tavi’s best friends. We were hanging out with his family. Lee loves to hug; he runs up and gives Tavi a huge hug every single day when Tavi arrives. Lee ran up to give me a big hug as we were leaving a playdate. His dad apologized. I told him not to. He said he was going to take Lee hunting when he turned five, the same age at which his own father had taken him. That seemed like an odd thing to say, on so many levels, particularly as he knows our entire family is vegan.>But I knew what he was saying: his son was still a boy, but after he went hunting he would be a man, and he wouldn’t hug so much.
>>5163488I suspect Lee’s father is right. And then, thirteen years later, perhaps he will be in a class like the one I teach on animals, with a professor trying to give him back something that was taken from him, by his own father, when he was only five years old.The question of whether Tavi ever eats meat is, fundamentally, the wrong question. The right question is: what about all the children who want to get to be vegan? We don’t make our children go vegan; we let them. The question misunderstands the dynamic at play. Tavi is not vegan because of me—any more than I was vegetarian at nine because of my parents, who ate meat—I stay motivated in my veganism because of him. We have to build a world worthy of our children. No person, but particularly our children, should ever have to eat meat. All people, but particularly our children, should get to be vegan. We have to build a world worthy of our children. No child should have to grow up to learn the terrible secret that has been hidden from them. Perhaps the world will teach Tavi to be hypocritical, but that is not a message I will teach him, because Devs and I have yet to learn it ourselves. Veganism is part of how I am working, with all my might, to build the world he—and every other child—should get to grow up in.Veganism is our gift. The gift we receive for fighting for what is right. The gift of not having to pretend to forget; the gift of getting to live our lives—whole. Experiencing that gift is how we win.And for Tavi, and you, every day is already winning.
I'm sorry but humans simply need meat to be healthy. It doesn't matter how much that fact makes you seethe. Although we're omnivores and can survive on just plants, we still need to eat meat to truly live. Telling someone to be vegan is telling him to be weak and unhealthy. Don't be surprised when that isn't received well.Your whole >Eating Meat Isn’t Naturalbusiness is the most retarded shit I've ever read. Predators are a vital and irreplaceable part of the ecosystem. Do you think wolves give a shit about what deer think? Do you think cows wouldn't do the exact same thing to us if they had the need and means to? It's eat or be eaten and humans simply matter more than animals. Not only because we're smarter but simply because I'm human and thus am genetically programmed to care about the survival and well-being of myself and other humans. If you would place animals over humans, you're defective. It's as simple as that. There is something seriously wrong with either your genetics or brain chemistry to cause such a weakened self-preservation instinct. If it's the latter, I suggest you get help with that, or just eat a good steak since it's probably caused by malnutrition. If it's the latter, then it's luckily a self correcting problem. Humanity will be better off without your genetics. Good riddance.
Enjoy your bloodline dying out from weak development and chronic persistant illnesses.
>>5163499Obviously wild wolves killing wild animals and eating them is natural. A human going to the grocery store isn’t. There’s too many world record holding vegan athletes for your we need meat claim to be true
>>5163501I almost never get sick. Most meat eaters especially black ones are deficient in vitamin D even in first world countries like usa
>>5163499>Do you think wolves give a shit about what deer think? Do you think cows wouldn't do the exact same thing to us if they had the need and means to? A 3 year old human who shoots and kills a 2 year old human doesn’t care what the 2 year old human thinks.As far as the cows I’m not sure but humans have dehumanized and treated other humans terribly and then later granted them rights.>It's eat or be eaten and humans simply matter more than animals. Not only because we're smarter but simply because I'm human and thus am genetically programmed to care about the survival and well-being of myself and other humans. If you would place animals over humans, you're defective. It's as simple as that. You’re mixing descriptive with prescriptive. A father is programmed to do almost anything to save his son’s life but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s ethical for him to torture 5 non related to him healthy babies in order to create a cure for his sons extremely rare and life threatening disease . >There is something seriously wrong with either your genetics or brain chemistry to cause such a weakened self-preservation instinct. If it's the latter, I suggest you get help with that, or just eat a good steak since it's probably caused by malnutrition. >If it's the latter, then it's luckily a self correcting problem. Humanity will be better off without your genetics. Good riddance.Slaughterhouse workers have higher rates of domestic violence alcoholism ptsd etc
>>5163503You are anti-human subversive faggot and should be killed for wishing to degrade humanity. Also I like seeing animal die and then be chopped into pieces so I can consume them in a delicious healthy meal.
>>5163505>Also I like seeing animal die and then be chopped into pieces Predictor of psychopathy. You are a danger to HUMANS if you enjoy that.
>>5163505But you could draw the ingroup preference line anywhere. You could say you’re a anti male or anti white traitor to your own kind for not supporting the enslavement of women or black peopleDrawing the line at having a mind and being able to suffer and experience makes more sense because I and many other humans of all genders and ethnicities like to be happy and don’t like to suffer and so do pigs and chickens .
>>5163506Correct.
ChatGPT thread
>>5163512Nope
>>5163499>I'm sorry but humans simply need meat to be healthy.
>>5163519this
>>5163499>I'm sorry but humans simply need meat to be healthy.Humans need the nutrients inside of meat to be healthy. Your body breaks all food down into its basic forms anyways, so your cells don't care where the nutrients come from. There are cheap supplements for the few things plant only diets lack.
kys OP
>>5163519what, did he ONLY eat meat or something retarded like that? obviously the healthiest thing to do is to eat both meat and vegetables.
>>5163499Meat is poison that results in losing on average 20 years of your life from heart disease, cancer, and dementia related illness.Our bodies cannot digest meat and actively try to purge it from our digestive systems.
>>5163605>Meat is poison that results in losing on average 20 years of your life from heart disease, cancer, and dementia related illness.that's not from eating meat, that's from neglecting vegetables.
>>5163607Its from eating processed garbage. Which is 99% plant based.
>>5163609High cholesterol contributing to heart disease is extremely studied, a whole drug class based on lowering cholesterol (statins) also has decades of proven research.
>>5163479You're naive. When my pet dog dies, I'm going to butcher it and eat it. If I was allowed, I would donate my dead carcass to a bear instead of burying it underground.
>>5163612Your brain is made of cholesterol. Lowering it makes you a retard and demented. As with all things moderation is the true path.
Hey OP, can you stop reposting blogs from literal who narcissists on /an/? Thanks.
>>5163519I know veganism makes you weak and retarded but this is a new low. Do you understand the difference between "humans need meat" and "humans can ONLY eat meat" or has your brain atrophied to the point it can only comprehend binaries?
>>5163650Anon, its a fucking bot....
>>5163479>eating meat isn´t naturalcarnivores are older as a concept then herbivores, by millions of years.
>>5163649Carnism = narcissism it’s believing you’re entitled to torture innocent animals for taste pleasure
>>5163612the studies were faked, it was a concerted effort from the grain industry to cripple the meat, and dairy, industry, youve literally been psyopped into being an industry plant
Vegan substack spammer doesnt argue. He doesnt debate. Smarter anons than you have reduced him to a whimpering mess defending its claims that it would kill people to save cattle and defending itself for insisting that human as a category separate from cattle does not exist. He is often reduced to using AI to answer and just copying and pasting grok output while solving captchas. He is fundamentally stupid. He knows he can not be reason with. He can only repeat himself until all the smart people get sick of him and leave. Also, he’s some hideously ugly, unhealthy indian guy from the ask yourself discord.
>>5163486>>5163487Em dashes everywhereIts literally AI bullshitting. The modern 4jeet is indistinguishable from the chatbots they use to post.
Saar eating meat is bad karma saar all life is the same my sirs human is just a temporary body. You will reincarnate as a slug for the sin of hierarchy you benchod fucka.
Painfully slaughtering an animal and then turning it into a delicious meal is a blessing to the animal because it gives purpose to its worthless existance.
>>5163788i'm really brutal too but like in real life not just in the edgy internet waymy dog ate a pigeon once and i thought it was fucking awesome(yes the dog was ok)
>>5163791Kill your dog.
