Writings of Mass Deduction

I haven’t posted anything to this site for a long time, so I thought it was about time. And it’ll be a topic change, and then some.

Growing up, I was taught that hunting for “sport” was cruel. Hunting for sustenance was OK, but doing it for pure pleasure was not.

This has led to an interesting epiphany for me. In our modern world we can easily construct a diet that is nutritionally complete and contains no animal products. We don’t need to eat meat, dairy, or eggs, se can easily construct a nutritionally complete diet that’s entirely plant-based. There’s no nutrient that’s unique to animal products. In fact, growing evidence suggests it’s healthiest to do so. It’s also generally cheaper to avoid animal products in one’s diet (suggestions to the contrary are usually comparing organic produce against non-organic meat, which is hardly a fair comparison). And the United Nations, among many organizations, have crunched the numbers and suggested that a plant-based diet is best for the planet.

That leaves the only reason to eat animal products as pleasure. When I talk to people who eat meat, they often cite the taste as their primary motivator. The number one response I hear is “Oh, I could never give up meat, I enjoy it too much.” There’s a word for someone who can’t give something up *no matter what* (the word that comes to mind is ‘addict’).

So if one doesn’t need to eat meat, but chooses to do so for pleasure, then isn’t that the same motivation as someone who hunts for sport? Neither of them needs to do it, and each of them does it for pleasure. It sure sounds like eating for sport to me.