Cowspiracy or how speaking about meat makes environmentalists cross the fine line between “harmless hipsters” and “extremists”

I watched the documentary “Cowspiracy” a couple of days ago. Yes, shame on me for not doing it earlier. I had heard a lot about it and I had seen some fragments, but it was just there sitting in my “to watch” folder. For those of you have not seen it, I'll sum it up: the premise of the movie is that the environmental organizations are not speaking about the impact our meat consumption is having on the planet, because they are either afraid of or being paid by big farming companies. I loved it, but it did not cover an important part of the picture. I’m not a great fan of conspiracies in general, as I usually see them as unsuccessful attempts to make this world a simpler and more organized place, with easy solutions just around the corner. In this case, even if I can not and do not want to deny the impact of the farming industry, there is something more going on, mainly the people and their relationship with food.

I’ve been vegetarian for over nine years now. I still remember the day I was sitting at my PC in my summer job and surfing the internet. To my excuse, I actually had nothing else to do, as my contract was ending. I read some articles on the environmental impact of meat and decided: I have to go vegetarian. I announced it to my colleague, who was quite unimpressed by it, and went out to have my first vegetarian lunch. I announced it to my family and friends as well, and then, before I knew it, it was too late to go back.

During my first years as a vegetarian, when people asked me about my choice, they kind of expected a certain kind of answer. They expected me to speak about the “poor animals” and maybe, just maybe, “the health” or “karma”. The usual suspects. Then, in their head they could place me in the nice, little box of “bleeding hearts” or “weirdoes”. The moment I spoke about the methane emissions, water use and land use change, they did not know what to answer. I was not speaking about emotions, spirituality or healthy food trends, I was speaking about pure and hard data. Of course, data is not the magical bullet that changes habits, but these types of conversations usually concluded on a common ground “we must reduce our meat consumption”.

I’ll not publish the data on the impact of meat industry here, as it is not the topic of the article, but they are really, really impressive. No amount of short showers and LED light bulbs can substitute giving up meat. It is one of the best things you can do for the environment. No buts and no whatifs. That’s just the way it is.

A couple of years later, when I started to volunteer and later work as an environmental educator, I had to learn the unwritten rule at the time: “You shall not speak about the environmental impact of meat”. Nobody said it to me. It was not big farming companies that tried to silence us. It was the people. In any workshop the same thing happened: speaking about organic food was OK. Speaking about local and seasonal produce was more than OK. People clapped their hands and nodded their heads. They saw the point I was making. The moment the topic of meat and dairy came up, I could feel the air in the room change. Silence, closed body positions, slight frowns on the faces. With one click of the mouse the slide changed and I was in safe waters again: “Let’s switch to LED lightbulbs”. The heads were nodding once again. I felt like I was not telling the whole truth, but in the same time I knew that by giving the meat consumption the attention it deserved, I would lose my audience.

Then, at least in Europe, things started to change. I would meet more and more vegetarians and vegans who had made the choice of changing their diet not due to ethical or health reasons, but due to the environmental impact of the farming industry. I would see “Reduce your meat consumption” appearing in the websites and publications of more and more organizations. Soon you had to mention meat consumption to be taken seriously. Now I’m living in Argentina and I feel like being back in the square one: meat consumption is quite a no-no. So why? Why it is so hard to open the discussion on meat and dairy consumption?

I still do not have a beautifully defined answer to this question, but I think it has to do a lot with the social meaning of the food. We do not eat food just because we are hungry. We eat to to celebrate and share and by giving up meat people think they are giving up their traditions. As a vegetarian I can say that I still enjoy birthdays, christmas feasts and barbecues, but I still feel a bit stressed when I find myself in somebody's grandma's home and have to refuse almost all of the food she has prepared. One of the rare meat based foods I still miss is my mom’s meat patties. Nothing can substitute them.

Is it simply the change of habit? It is much easier to switch from supermarket tomatoes to organic ones than to exclude meat from your diet. Eating meat has deep roots in the way we deal with food in our everyday life. Giving up meat means rethinking restaurants you go to, the shopping list and the quick meals you cook without thinking after a long work day. Once more, as a vegetarian I can say that it is not hard, but the decision has to be made.

Is it peer pressure? As all of us, I’m living in my little bubble, where being vegetarian or vegan is more than OK. I’m just “one more”. For a lot of people it is different. They are afraid of being the only ones in their family and group with these “special needs”. I’m happy that I met my husband, who eats meat, when I already was a vegetarian. I do not know if I would be able to make the switch while sharing my life with him. It took time for my family and friends to accept that up to the last month I ate meat and now I do not.

Or is it the air of the words “vegetarian” and “vegan”? Close your eyes. What do you see hearing the word “vegan”? Is it a pure food choice, or do you see a certain personality traits, like being sanctimonious and screaming “meat is murder” during a cousin's birthday party? Do you see hippy-ish clothing and yoga mats? Does going vegan means you have to do that stuff? I’m so happy I’m meeting less and less people who believe that vegans are the cheap jokes in TV and movies try to show us, but the stereotype is still out there.

What I’ve learned is that it is not enough to present the data. We have to understand why people find it so hard to give up meat and accept that their reasons are valid in a sense that they are obstacles and must be addressed. Many times people themselves do not know what is it that it is keeping them from changing their diet or they hide their reasons by trying to prove that eating meat is necessary or that giving up meat does no good.

A profound discussion on meat consumption is still one of the most sensitive discussions I can have with somebody. I try to be as understanding as I can and uncover as many underlying assumptions as I can. I end up exhausted, but happy, as every discussion of this type allows me to understand better the person I am talking to and humans in general.