One of the themes of my
studying seems to be critical thinking.
In practice, this means I am often annoyed with my textbook.
I offer the following
paragraph for analysis:
“Most nutritionists
consider vegetarianism a routine variation of a normal diet, particularly if the
vegetarian’s motivation is religious or philosophical, the result of a concern
for animals, or an aversion to animal products.
When a meat eater goes vegetarian in an attempt to prevent or cure
disease, that’s ‘alternative.’”
Class, what is wrong with
this picture? Does the intent of the
eater have an effect on the nutritional content of a diet? Attempting to prevent or cure disease with
vegetarianism may or may not work, but the health effects of a vegetarian diet
do not change based on why a person chooses to eat a vegetarian diet.
By the way, there is a whole
bunch of real evidence out there that vegetarian diets can be as nutritious and
healthy as meaty diets and possibly more so, depending on the actual foods
consumed. One of the things on display
in the quoted paragraph is cultural bias; Americans, on the whole, love our
meat no matter what. When we compare our
diets to the people of Asia and Africa, for example, where far less or even no
meat is consumed, we find that people manage to live perfectly healthy lives on
the nutrition provided from plant sources.
Another possible
underlying bias to consider has to do with lobbying. The governmental food guidelines on which
much of this text relies have had heavy input from the food industry. Recommendations to eat less meat have been
phrased as “choose lean meat,” for example.
We get a consistent “Eat More” message from industry and successful
lobbying has embedded it into the guidelines.
We need to be ceaselessly
vigilant about our information. We need
to use our big brains to evaluate what we read.
And I probably need to
meditate a little more in order to avoid throwing the book…
