1. Read the text.

Hold the Meat

MK: More and more people - especially young people - are deciding to cut meat out of their diets for a variety of reasons. Some people are concerned about their health and diet. Others feel a moral responsibility to animals. 1 asked three people, one a complete vegetarian, one a non-meat eater, and one a meat-eater, to discuss with me the reasons for their differing diets.

MK: Dave, can you tell us what are the reasons you became a vegetarian?

Dave: Well, um, there are two main reasons. One is health because the ways that most animals are reared and treated on farms is very unhealthy, um, not only for them of course but for us.

MK: You mean additives and steroids?

Dave: The additives, yeah. Yes 1 also disagree with the way they're kept, sort of

battery farming and this kind of thing. That's on one side. On the other side of it, 1 think that it is actually morally wrong to eat another living thing.

Justine: But wouldn't you say that plants were living things as well? Where do you draw the line?

Dave: Ah, well, okay, perhaps 1 should qualify that by saying a sentient living thing. MK: Sentient-Dave: Something that can think and feel, because it has a life and if there's no need to end its life then I don't think we should.

MK: Does that include all living things, say insects, fish, mammals equally or are some animals more sentient than others?

Dave: Well, no. I think you've got to include all sentient creatures which for me just includes all animals.

MK: What about you, Jane? You eat meat, right? Do you think it's wrong to kill an animal for its meat?

Jane: In my head I know it's wrong to kill an animal to eat meat but, um, when I'm sitting down in front of a piece of steak I don't actually think about that too much because I've been brought up all my life eating meat. I mean I don't go out desperate to eat meat three times a day but certainly I don't feel sort of moral pangs when I'm sitting in front of a plate of food that's got meat on it.

Justine: Well actually I must... I eat fish. I don't eat meat but I do eat fish. But, um, I do feel hypocritical about it. I'm not sure that I should eat fish, but somehow I feel that there is a difference between sea creatures like that... The reason that I eat fish really is a health thing because of my lifestyle and my laziness. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about diet and I know that if I didn't eat fish then I'd get really run down.

But can I just ask, do you think it's, David, do you think it's wrong to eat animals which run freely? You just think it's morally wrong?

Dave: I think it's morally wrong to eat any animal, because well, I don't think we have to.

MK: I mean, I kind of think law of the jungle states that you know, plenty of other animals eat each other so why shouldn't we?

Dave: Ah, yeah, but this is it. I mean, but um because, I mean, we are the only creatures supposedly that are above the law of the jungle, I mean, we have morals. We can decide what we want to do and what we don't want to do and what's right and wrong. An animal has to live by its nature. I don't think we do have to live by our natures. I mean, yeah, in certain respects...

MK: A lot of people argue that it is our nature to eat meat, to eat other animals, that that is our nature.

Dave: But we can control our nature... There's no, there's no pressing instinct that makes you have to eat it. I mean, I could walk past a plate...

Justine: Oh come on David, come on David. Don't tell me you haven't... don't you ever get pangs for meat.

Dave: Yeah, okay, I do, but...

Justine: 'Cause I do, 1 get dreadful, dreadful pangs.

Dave: I suppose, yes, you're right, you do have pangs for meat and you, you know, you'd really like a nice bacon sandwich or something but there's no kind of over-riding instinct that makes you have to do that. I think you can say I don't want to.

Jane: I would be a little bit concerned I suppose about my diet if I became a vegetarian or especially if I had perhaps an old person or a child to feed. Um, I would get a little bit concerned maybe about the sort of balance, the dietary balance. I can see that one can exist quite happily not eating meat but existing is different from getting all the necessary bits and pieces and vitamins, that your body needs. And I don't think, you know, just bottles of pills to supplement is the answer. But 1 certainly don't really know enough about sort of balancing up a diet, a vegetarian diet.

Justine: I do think that since I've been a vegetarian I've got run down much more easily and more often. I think I'm more tired and less fit, less healthy probably.

MK: What do you think, Dave?

Dave: I don't, I mean, um, I don't know, I think that this, in a way is more a psychological dependence on meat than anything else. You just think I must have meat. It's a kind of a part of our, it's been a part of our culture to have meat on the plate for so long ... I mean, I know plenty of people who've been vegetarians nearly all their lives and they're as healthy as anyone.