Vegetarians Out for Blood

You hit a raw nerve with your article “Getting to the Meat of the Vegetarian Issue” (February 1).

If telling a story with no point feels wrong to you, how about telling a story with a point: Humans oppress every other living thing on this planet. Man’s inhumanity to man is nothing compared to what is done every day to destroy and exploit not only our environment but the “lesser” beings that share this planet with us.

The question is not “Does it think” or “Does it reason.” The question is “Does it suffer?” If “culinary gravity” is the center of your universe, please don’t make an already delicate issue the center of your pompous drivel on what food should be on anyone’s table.

LINDA G. JORDAN

North Hollywood

*

You are being conned by the system; meat is not good for you, nor is milk, nor is cheese or eggs. Support chemists by taking Mylanta, hemorrhoid creams, laxatives: Vegetarians have no need for them--we have learned how to eat sensibly and yet still enjoy food. We base our meals around a carbohydrate: rice, pasta, potatoes, grains, and our meals are fun, tasty, healthy and nutritious. We are not bored by a narrow field of meat and two veg.

You obviously have no regard for animals, the suffering they are put through to provide your prime rib steak of “crown roast of pork.” Visit an abattoir and find out for yourself why vegetarians “don’t eat anything that had a face.” Do you eat dog or cat? Why draw the line there?

Do you care about the rain forests of the world? For every four-ounce hamburger you cram in your mouth, another 55 square feet of tropical rain forest is hacked down to provide another field for pastureland for yet another cow. The fields in the U.S. are being planted with crops, not for humans to eat, but to feed cows, pigs, sheep, chickens. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef; enjoy it, there are millions of hungry people out there.

I would not dream of directly criticizing you for “relishing” meat or savoring the flavor of flesh--it must be comforting to know how you will die--although cancer, a heart attack or a stroke (the top three in the list of “What Kills Us”) are not the way I would choose to die.

--JULIE FISHER

San Clemente