Lip service to animal welfare
I’d like to respond to two points Robin Grant made in his letter defending meat-eating.
First, it is not true that I left out certain facts when I wrote that a low-fat vegetarian diet has reversed heart disease in patients. While it is true that Dr Dean Ornish’s programme included exercise and meditation in addition to the vegetarian diet, I’ve noted many times that other doctors achieved the same results without the exercise and the meditation.
My second point is that while Robin Grant pays lip service to animal welfare, as long as he continues to eat the suffering animals, his “concern” is irrelevant and hypocritical.
I once met a vegetarian who told me she didn’t think it would be wrong to eat animals if they didn’t suffer. But because they do suffer she refused to eat them. That’s the difference between her and a hypocrite.
Eric Bahrt
Chiang Mai
