Veganism and Evolution

The Overview

Veganism in some forms can be traced back to Biblical times (e.g., the book of Daniel in the Old Testament) and is alive in, for instance, an ancient Indian religion like Jainism. Vegans avoid harming or eating animals or exploiting animals for their skin, fur, or bodies. Other than for religious reasons, vegans are motivated by diet or health, ethical concerns, psychosocial responses to celebrities or fads, or identity politics in the form of activism. Most corporations and many people see no profit in ethics, so the weight in this argument for ethical veganism falls on establishing the resilience and sustainability of human and environmental health. Issues include uneven food consumption, collective implications of animal farming, and personal gain over community ecology. Corporations and entrepreneurs are capitalizing from a plant-based trend, but often their actions are not fostering the conservation but the exploitation of resources. Minds, eyes, voices, and hands should be on how a vegan economy across industrial nations can prevent poor health and mitigate climate change. Certainly, ethics are constituents of sustainability goals, as the United Nations is well aware. For developing countries where food instability is a concern, wealthy nations could help them adapt to veganism in the wake of global warming without relinquishing cultural beliefs or practices. Technology and laws are not primary solutions for achieving a healthy environment. Recycling is not of itself a final solution. Energy loss and food waste, especially from animal agriculture, must be eradicated. This is an argument demonstrating how in our ancestral hominin lineage we were plant and fruit eaters, just like our living relatives, the great apes. Biologically, we can survive on a plant-based diet. More so, with the mechanism of cultural evolution, the arts as much as the natural and social sciences can educate young people about the benefits of a vegan culture to generate advantageous shifts in attitudes about physical, environmental, and animal well-being. 

From the Conclusion

We evolved from plant-eating species, and our primate cousins remain committed to a mostly plant-based diet. Humans have dominated the earth because they have no special adaptations, like insects, to a particular locale. Rather, from about 10kya humans have adapted to their environs by capitalizing from the habitats of others – fishing, hunting, and then razing forests to farm animals as food. Some people would say this ecological dominance was a successful strategy to diversify populations across the globe. However, the pace at which humans have engineered the environment solely to their advantage, whether through oil and gas drilling, massive deforestation for cattle ranches or palm oil plantations, is not advantageous for the health or longevity of earth’s inhabitants.

The good news is that because humans are a cultural species on a grand scale, we can alter beliefs and values to redesign food production. In fact, because there already are vegetable farms, food factories, and product distributors, the infrastructure for a vegan economy is in place. We are excellent social learners, so a shift in attitude to a vegan culture will help humans conquer poor health and a diminished environment spiraling into irreversible climate change. Humans recognize social groups and norms, fairness and punishment, so we have the psychological capacities for cultural evolution. Natural selection has shaped our cognition to observe and copy not only workable tools but also intelligent behavior that enhances survival. The human brain can adapt psychologically to a new cultural paradigm, so the saving grace of veganism is feasible for groups that, in turn, can influence others.

What you eat is a political statement. If you call yourself a progressive or liberal thinker, reconsider eating animal flesh. If you call yourself a feminist, avoid drinking cow’s milk. If you call yourself a vegan, shun in-vitro lab meat in boycott. Although we have culturally accepted the maladaptive behaviors of meat and dairy farming we can, nonetheless, use cultural evolution, our primary adaptive mechanism, to direct our habits and values toward the healthful and environmentally considerate ethos of veganism. In order to understand one’s behaviors and thinking, it’s often useful to study others, as through this book. No one is born vegan: that’s an ethical, rational choice made after having eaten animals. Omnivores could gain a better perspective of themselves if they were to peer at the world from the vantage point of a plant-based eater, a carnivory convert. 

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