A skeptical eye for the vegan guy

Tag : Salmon Leather


By: Rome Jorge
Content provided by: The Manila Times

Are animal rights advocates overly sentimental about animals? Ordoes eating meat, wearing leather, patronizing zoos and leashingour pets make killers, torturers and jailers out of us?

Critics contend that animal rights advocacy, most especially at atime many urgent and dire human concerns, is flawed prioritizationand vain sentimentality. When most Filipino overseas workers couldnot find any place for themselves on flights out of Lebanon duringthe 2006 war with Israel, People for the Ethical Treatment ofAnimals (PETA) was decrying the policy of disallowing evacuees tobring along their pets. Resources spent promoting animal rightscauses mean less focus and energy on such concerns as human rights,environmentalism and other advocacies.

Though vegan advocates cite certain human anatomical features suchas the lack of canines and long intestines tracts as evidence thathumans are naturally herbivorous, humans also lack the largemultiple stomachs, food regurgitation and other adaptations ofdedicated herbivores. Conventional science views human beings asomnivores, credited with most varied and adaptable diet of allspecies that includes animal protein as well as plant produce.

Animal rights advocates contend that slaughtering animals for foodand clothing is brutal. However, animals themselves kill and eatone another in ways more brutal than any butcher could.

Philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, argues thatan animal