Is being vegan/vegatarian a luxury/neccesity created by Western society? (long)

[KristyMum]

Is being vegan/vegatarian in Australia a luxury/neccesitycreated by Western society?

I was wondering about this the other day. I was just daydreaming through thoughts of things we did as kids, things we ate, how we lived etc (and we by no means lived a traditional life, although many we know do/did) eating roo, fish etc having had goanna etc then Ramsay had camel milk and croc meat and anyway, yes my train of thought does wander sometimes...

For some traditional societies (and I say some bc I don't know of all the older treaditional societies in the world) that I know of here in Aus (which is def not all of them), meat of one kind or other, makes up an important part of the diet, sometimes, a very large part of it - and not just for food but for clothing, making tools, and a heap of other things.

Now, due to the population of countries like Australia now, it would be pretty much impossible for the whole of Australia to embark on a traditional Aboriginal diet for the area they live in (aside from people's choice issues, availability of knowledge etc) for the simple supply/availability issue.

But hypothetically IF it was possible, those things aside, would vegatarians/vegans still continue to be so, and would they sruvive to be healthy? Does the 'real life' of traditional living change things that much? iykwim

Which led me to the question, has Western society, through it's farming/agriculture practices, excessive consumption, massive population increases, treatment of animals, etc, 'created' the 'need/choice' for vegan/vegetarian living?

My understanding of it is that to be a healthy vegan/vegetarian, you need to have more of other items in your diet, instead of taking those nutrients from meat ... but if the vast choice array that's available now, where Australia grows or imports nearly every conceivable food, wasn't available... would things be different? So Western society here has created the ability to support a vegan/vegetarian choice, in that sense... iykwim

If the only foods available in Australia were traditional foods, how would that impact on people's 'choice' to become vegetarian/vegan? iykwim, and how would it impact on their health if they chose to remain vegan/vegetarian etc...

And I guess this q is impacted on why people choose vegetarian/vegan - animal cruelty, sustainability etc etc but if you can see what I mean, WDYT?

Is being vegan/vegatarian in Australia a luxury/neccesitycreated by Western society?
I'm sure there are some flaws in my thinking, but you get what I'm saying and I'm wondering what you think...

Thanks for reading.

[MGlatte]

I'm not vegetarian/vegan but you do raise some good points. I will be interested to see what other people think.

A bit OT, I know, but talking about availability, I remember on Carbon Cops they were saying how much energy is used to produce meat products and they encouraged a household to go to their local markets. It made me wonder about how much energy is used to produce and fruit and veg. Admittedly, I haven't been to our local farmer's markets yet because I never remember on the right weekend.

It was different when everyone grew their own fruit and veg, but now everything seems to go right round the country before it gets to us.

[kirrily]

Is there an icon for someone's brain exploding?!

[bamboogal]

great topic.

I've often had relatives tell me that because traditionally humans have eaten meat for many thousands of years that that is what we are supposed to do. And you're right in pointing out the luxury idea.

Because we have advanced our production methods and become educated about how to get those nutrients, and having all those vegetarian food combinations available to us, we have the luxury(if we choose) to be vegetarians and support our moral and ethical reasons for being vegetarian.

It would indeed be very difficult to eat a traditional diet and be healthy. Doesn't mean the traditional diet is the best for us though. just that some civilisations don't have the choice.

Now, due to the population of countries like Australia now, it would be pretty much impossible for the whole of Australia to embark on a traditional Aboriginal diet for the area they live in (aside from people's choice issues, availability of knowledge etc) for the simple supply/availability issue.

But hypothetically IF it was possible, those things aside, would vegatarians/vegans still continue to be so, and would they sruvive to be healthy? Does the 'real life' of traditional living change things that much?

I'm pretty sure it would be impossible for the whole country to survive on a traditional Australian diet. Vegetarians can grow and eat all the food they need to survive, but i'm not sure if they would survive just eating veg option bush foods. Not entirely sure what is in a bushfoods diet. And i'm not sure how healthy a native Australian who does eat a traditional diet, really is either.

[mum2one]

Very interesting thread Kristy. I want to comment but today I can't get my head around what I want to say. So I'll wait.

[johT]

interesting. yes i bet there were few aboriginal vegetarians...lol.
i bet they didnt eat dairy and thered be times when they did avoid meat, and certainly didnt eat mostly meat either

easy enough to grow a few nuts/seeds/beans here nowadays if you wanted though - is that what you mean??

if lived in australia in early settler days would i be able to be vegetarian?? yes, i think so.i would be able to eat fruit/veg/grain/dairy - and you can thrive on that diet if there is adequate food being grown and available imo
eta - im not sure how/if the average person got that adequate food, growing it themselves?
i always joke i could never go to prision as id sarve lol - so maybe you are right!

[KristyMum]

I know it's a bit of an odd kind of q so thanks for humouring me.

Trish I look forward to your reply when you sus it out. I know it's frustrating sometimes trying to get thoughts to behave lol!

heya Joh, I'll try and clarify for you

easy enough to grow a few nuts/seeds/beans here nowadays if you wanted though - is that what you mean??

nup lol just that (a) would vegan/vegetarians be 'viable' in a traditional (Aboriginal Australian, but Indigenous generally) society - remembering animals not just for food but also tool-making, skins etc and (b) so has Western society created (by it's consumption, population, now-need for sustainability, farming and animal cruelty practices etc) a perceived 'need' for vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, which is in truth a luxury or a 'created neccesity' iykwim... hope I explained that better.

ie in this time of sustainability and living simply, one of the things coming up more and more as a (viable) option to reduce our demand on the world, is vegan/vegetarian living... so the q is ... 'is it not so much that veg living is part of the answer, but rather a consequence/option of where Western living has gotten 'us'... so are we imposing an unnatural diet in order to live more sustainably with nature, because 'we' exceeded nature in the first place...'

Generally (and I know, it's a generalisation) tho Joh, a vegetarian Aboriginal diet wouldn't be the norm you'd agree? Yes there would be times when meat wouldn't be eaten but you're either vegetarian or not, ie not part-time vegetarian lol (as Brooke came home one day and said lol) and yes you could probably survive as a 'first settler', but that's not a traditional diet, it's still a non-Indigenous diet, with ag and cultivation.

As to dairy, one reason why some (not all) Aboriginal people have dairy issues - much as to why other food-related health issues arise. 60,000yrs+ (min) of fine tuning one's body and lifestyle, and then bang a heap of new foods inconsistent with that - anyone here with food issues/chem sensitivities will understand how massively that can impact the body, health/food wise.

The prison analogy is an interesting one Joh.

hey Meg,thanks for your reply

And i'm not sure how healthy a native Australian who does eat a traditional diet, really is either.

umm... very Very very.
60,000 years+ is a good long time to harmonise and evolve the body to live well with what's available - and there is far more available in what's there, than many people think. To be able to live and hunt and survive in such a range of environments, for so long...

Because we have advanced our production methods and become educated about how to get those nutrients, and having all those vegetarian food combinations available to us, we have the luxury(if we choose) to be vegetarians and support our moral and ethical reasons for being vegetarian.

It would indeed be very difficult to eat a traditional diet and be healthy.

as a vegetarian you mean? Yep I think I agree, hence the original question... it would be an interesting thing to explore further I think.

Doesn't mean the traditional diet is the best for us though. just that some civilisations don't have the choice.

So your answer would be yes, that it's a luxury we have created?

Also a little off-thread but in terms of overall, where has that 'choice' gotten Western worlds..? which really is better/more sustainable long term? A civilisation that doesn't have the 'choice' (or rather, and more accurately expressed, knows the limitations of living in the region they do, and don't exceed them), or the civilisation that has the 'choice' and the 'advanced' and 'educated' methods, and has pretty well munted the world in a little over a couple of hundred years. no?

Aboriginal people's education and knowledge of native foods available in this country, would easily rival Western education and knowledge of foods available in Western culture, if you compare the two on equal terms rather than one being more 'advanced' than the other. You have to compare apples with apples (pardon the unintended food pun). So just addressing those things you mentioned.

And yep I agree as I said above, that it would be difficult for the whole of Aus to survive on a traditional diet - supply/availability, choice, etc but you know, playing hypothetical that IF it were possible (less people, knowledge available etc) would vegan/vegetarian people need to forgoe (sp?) that 'choice', in order to survive? I guess that's another way to exprese part of what I was asking.

in terms of your q about how healthy an Indigenous person would really be, DH's comment would be that life expectancy is/was/would be less than in Western culture. The flip side of that is where has prolonging life expectancy gotten Western society as a whole?... individually perhaps, it has it's advantages... but overall, and long term, it's gotten us with an exceessive population who's 'need' for resources + waste produced far outweighs what the world can support... (I know answering your reply takes the thread a little off topic).
I also wanted to answer it because (correct me if I've read you wrong) it seems people often don't see the simple genius/ingenuity in living within the means of the area - rather than being all advanced and exceeding it... iykwim? People see it more as primitive vs advanced, when it's really not that at all - rather quite clever to be able to exist where people do, with what's available.

Kirrily you made me laugh lol I wasn't expecting that reply at all!

Melanie yep, and what you're saying about food miles, local markets and meats is all part of what Australia has created... which is the precursor to some choosing a veg lifestlye iykwim so we have created one thing, which has created a need for the next.

Thanks again for your replies guys, I wasn't sure if I had managed to express it properly

(eta pardon the spelling error in the thread title, I promise I know how to spell 'vegetarian' lol - if any mod would mind kindly fixing it for me so it's correct that would be appreciated... 'neccesity' on the other hand I always think there's meant to be two 's'? or something? yell out if that's wrong too lol)

[bamboogal]

Also a little off-thread but in terms of overall, where has that 'choice' gotten Western worlds..? which really is better/more sustainable long term? A civilisation that doesn't have the 'choice' (or rather, and more accurately expressed, knows the limitations of living in the region they do, and don't exceed them), or the civilisation that has the 'choice' and the 'advanced' and 'educated' methods, and has pretty well munted the world in a little over a couple of hundred years. no?

well ideally...

knows the limitations of living in the region they do, and don't exceed them

this would be best. Certainly allows for greater diversity of animals and plants and if they understand the limitations of the land is very sustainable. Being hunter gatherers means that they move from one area to another, only taking what they need.

or the civilisation that has the 'choice' and the 'advanced' and 'educated' methods, and has pretty well munted the world in a little over a couple of hundred years. no?

hmm see this isn't really a vegetarian issue as such as it is relevant to how the general populus who are omnivores obtain their food too. yes vegetarians don't have to try as hard to get what they need nutritionally now, but i believe a vegetarian diet is attainable traditionally. though it may be very hard, don't know for sure.

The real problem lies in methods that are unsustainable like farming animals for meat, crop farming that doesn't take measures to ensure long term use. Also the population of the world is ridiculously out of control yet our government is pushing families to have more and more children. very dumb.

see i think the 'choice' which isn't exclusive by any means to vegetarians but to all of the western worlds diets. Certainly the choice given to people who eat meat has been a much more destructive 'choice' (animals that aren't right for the land, mass production, disease etc) than the 'choice' given to vegetarians.

So yes i do think the option to be vegetarian is a luxury but so is the way most people eat. All depends on your idea of luxury. For some that means being able to go to KFC and have a ready made meal. For me my being vegetarian is a luxury because not everyone all over the world has the knowledge or environment to be able to live a vegetarian lifestyle. I have the knowledge and my country can produce all the food i need to be vegetarian so i have the choice to live more sustainably by being vegetarian.

hope i make sense.

[Clarielle]

Interesting question!
Some of my rambling thoughts to add to the mix:

I think it is a luxury to be a vegetarian. It is a luxury that we can make such choices about the food we eat. We, in Australia, can buy any food, from anywhere around the world, for only a small proportion of our weekly income.

It could be hypothesised that there would be no need to be vegetarian in a traditional society because there is no moral objection to the killing of animals for food. I understand that many traditional societies have great respect for animals and thus may be more 'ethical' in the way they use animals.

Would a traditional society welcome and nurture vegetarians? Would a young man be accepted if he didn't participate in the hunt? Would a young woman be accepted if she wouldn't fish or gather grubs? Would an individual survive if they weren't willing to kill a predatory animal?

Also, could it be that the choice to be vegetarian can only be made once our other basic needs have been met? (Maslow's hierarchy of needs) so in that way too it is a luxury.

[becboo]

I don't think being a vegetarian is seen as a luxury for other cultures who are predominantly vegetarian ie hindu's. The whole issue for me is that we are eating too much meat, too frequently and this demand 'needs' unsustainable practices to be met. AFAIK our ancestors would gorge on meat when it was available infrequently unlike us (generally speaking here!) who have meat with nearly every meal. A lot of Australian/Americans/English don't feel that a meal is complete without meat. We also need to take into account the way we get our food. Hunting for hours as opposed to hoping in the car and reaching for a clingwrapped pack of meat is very different energy-expenditure and that should reflect in the food we consume and unfortunately that isn't the case for many people. Easier said than done. I firmly believe that in coming years 'meat' is going to dramatically increase in price and seen as the luxury that it is. We lack respect for meat, if we are meat-eaters and we come by it too easily.

So much more to say but need to get ready for the party tomorrow!! Maybe we can chat about it over a brew tomorrow Kristy

Bec.