An Animal’s Place (2002)
Of the arguments Pollan presents for why it&#x27;s okay to kill animals for food, the most persuasive is that domesticated animals evolved in symbiosis with humans — that they essentially made a deal with humans whereby we would take care of them in exchange for their &quot;products&quot; and their lives:<p>&quot;[...] domestication happened when a small handful of especially opportunistic species discovered through Darwinian trial and error that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own. Humans provided the animals with food and protection, in exchange for which the animals provided the humans their milk and eggs and–yes–their flesh.&quot;<p>The problem with this argument is two-fold. First, only one party in this &quot;deal&quot; has a full understanding of what the deal consists of and the endless cruelties and indignities inherent in it. Second, the terms of the &quot;deal&quot; have changed tremendously for <i>both</i> parties since it was first &quot;signed&quot; (that is, when humans and animals first entered into the symbiotic relationship of domestication).<p>The way in which the terms are different for animals is obvious (e.g. CAFOs), but the terms for humans have also changed tremendously, including in the past 20 years since the article was written. An Impossible Burger is so similar to a beef burger that when I first tried one, I thought perhaps the restaurant had screwed up my order and given me beef accidentally. It is, for almost all intents and purposes, meat: with the exceptions that eating it doesn&#x27;t serve the interests of the cruel and planet-destroying agriculture business, and it doesn&#x27;t involve taking the life of an animal. (His argument that ruminants are ecologically beneficial is also very outdated; raising cows in particular is a major environmental problem.)<p>What this means is that it&#x27;s increasingly difficult to claim that eating meat is anything <i>other</i> than a gastronomic preference. There is no <i>need</i> for it, but if we feel we must, we have &quot;meat&quot; that doesn&#x27;t come from animals with which to satisfy that desire. He writes,<p>&#x27;[...] we should at least acknowledge that our desire to eat meat is not a trivial matter, no mere “gastronomic preference.” We might as well call sex–also now technically unnecessary–a mere “recreational preference.” Whatever else it is, our meat eating is something very deep indeed.&#x27;<p>Just like birth controls means we can have sex without procreating, plant-based meat allows us to eat meat without killing. If we wish to satisfy the &quot;deep&quot; desire to kill and eat animals (I find this silly — scarfing down a burger is hardly a spiritual or evocative practice), we can.<p>The world has changed: the terms for the &quot;deal&quot; we made with domesticated animals are no longer relevant and ought to be renegotiated.