You Are What You Eat

Everyone knows that you are what you eat. We all pronounce this phrase unthinkingly, failing to recognize the moral consequences. In the first place, if you only eat vegetables, the adage implies that you will eventually become a vegetable. Do you want to become a vegetable? I didn’t think so.

And we must add, without providing too much evidence, that vegetarians and vegans are depriving themselves of vital nutrients. To say that they can sop up plenty of protein by having soy lattes ignores the fact that there are a lot of other nutrients in meat, nutrients that do not exist in soy lattes. Like choline.

Nonetheless, vegetarians and vegans feel that it is worth risking becoming human vegetables, because theirs is a moral choice, one that makes them feel so righteous that they would happily impose it on everyone. Free to choose is not a concept that crosses the addled minds of these moralistic scolds.

Obviously their idea of moral choice does not involve getting along with other people in society. It places them at odds with human society, almost as though they believe themselves to be morally superior because they are saving the cows. Does this imply that the cows and other animals are sacred, therefore eating them would offend a deity.

Naturally, in the ambient discourse no one is really allowed to says anything about the vegans in their midst. It would be judgmental. And yet, when researchers do surveys-- what would we do without researchers?-- they find the people who refuse to eat meat or animal products are considered to be asocial preeners.

People who honestly think that forgoing that cheeseburger is going to save the planet are generally believed to be cult followers of the Nature Goddess. And most people seem to believe that cult followers of one or another god or goddess must be social deviants, not to be trusted, not reliable, not worthy of everyday social commerce.

The study comes to us from the vegan left, from a Belgian researcher named Ben De Groeve. He is, as you will see, totally and completely convinced that his vegan ways are contributing to the survival of the Nature Goddess. He is so convinced about the higher moral truth of his beliefs that he does not for an instant consider that he might just be delusional and/or brainwashed.

Eric Dolan reports for PsyPost:

“The high consumption of animal products (e.g., meat, dairy, eggs) in Western countries may be considered one of the most pressing moral problems of our time, because it is entails the exploitation and suffering of billions of sentient animals in factory farms, because it compromises environmental sustainability and because it negatively affects our own health,” explained lead researcher Ben De Groeve, who recently obtained a PhD in communication science from Ghent University.

“Despite strong arguments favoring a shift toward plant-based diets, there is only a minority of people who choose to abstain from meat (vegetarians) or other animal products (vegans), raising the question why shifts toward plant-based diets are often resisted by the meat-eating or ‘omnivorous’ majority.”

Eating cheeseburgers is a moral problem. It’s not just a moral problem, it’s one of the most pressing moral problems of our times. There are, De Groeve suggests, strong arguments to abstain from eating meat and other animal products. He does not recognize that there are strong arguments against his anti-meat hysteria.

As for the great majority of people they consider their health to be more important than making political statements with diet. Obviously, they are not willing to have their diets dictated by moralistic scolds like Ben De Groeve.

When it comes to vegans, we recall, to our chagrin, the stories about parents who refuse to feed infants milk and who therefore seriously damage their children’s health.

Or better, ask the salient point: would you invite this man to dinner? Or even to lunch? Because if you did you would first be obliged to prepare a separate meal for him. If you did not want to prepare a separate meal for him, you would be obliged to serve everyone a meal of grass and twigs-- the twigs would be there for their fiber content. And if you offered him a separate meal, you would still be obliged to listen to him ranting about how everyone else at the dinner table was, by consuming fish and cheese, destroying the planet, unleashing a planetary holocaust that was going to burn up everyone and everything.

Would you invite such a person to a dinner party? And considering that one of the basic ways that we humans have about bonding involves sharing meals, it makes some considerable sense that such people, by refusing to share, are defining themselves as cult followers, not as members of society.

As it happened, when De Groeve surveyed groups of people, asking them whether they would prefer to socialize with omnivores, vegetarians, vegans or flexitarians-- God only knows what that means-- he discovered that people preferred to socialize with omnivores.

Dolan reports the research:

The participants viewed omnivores as the most socially attractive group, followed by vegetarians. In other words, the participants were very willing to be associated with omnivores and slightly less willing to be associated with vegetarians. They were slightly unwilling, however, to be associated with vegans.

Vegetarians, and especially vegans, were seen as more moral but also more eccentric and moralistic (self-righteous and narrow-minded) than omnivores, which in turn predicted lower social attractiveness. Vegetarians and vegans were often described as “eco-friendly” and “considerate” during the free association task, but they were also described as “judgmental” and “preachy.”

“Vegetarians and vegans may evoke both positive and negative impressions. Both groups may be viewed positively for their (perceived) moral commitment and their dietary motivations related to animal welfare, the environment, and health, and this may increase their social attractiveness relative to omnivores,” De Groeve told PsyPost.

“At the same time, vegetarians and vegans are generally seen as less socially attractive because they are seen as less normal, less sociable, but especially because of moralistic stereotypes. Especially vegans may be perceived as less attractive because they are associated with a self-righteous commitment to attain goals. I would encourage people, irrespective of their dietary pattern, to consider each other’s perspective.”

Of course, De Groeve is so convinced he is right that he pays absolutely no heed to the notion that some vegans might be less sociable, less normal and more moralistic. They are self-righteous scolds who refuse to participate in a dinner table ritual and who therefore undermine group cohesion.

Of course, what matters to De Groeve and his fellow travellers is not group cohesion. He does not care and gives no consideration to the simple fact that he is judging people negatively for eating what they were designed to eat. And yet, he is all-in when it comes to defending cows and fish and turkeys. He condemns those who dare to be participating in an activity that hurts animals:

“A lot of evidence also shows that many people typically want to avoid harming animals, despite engaging in dietary habits that harm animals (this has been called the meat paradox in psychological literature). To maintain the illusion that eating animals or their products is both (relatively) harmless and unavoidable, people might engage in motivated reasoning to defend their diet. Moralistic stereotypes may serve as a stigma to silence morally-motivated vegetarians and vegans whose mere existence challenges this illusion.”

Needless to say, such moralistic scolds are isolating themselves from human social commerce. They are not merely content to practice their own deviant behaviors, but they believe that they must impose their views on everyone else. Some want to ban meat and meat products. Some will sit at a dinner table and moralize about what other people are eating.

And yet, when it comes to the choice between advancing social commerce and group cohesion and forcing other people to join your cult to the Nature Goddess, these people have no feeling for human beings, or for what is required for humans to live in society.