The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Vio - By Steven Pinker Page 0,285

always been incurious about the lives of chickens. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of the animals that provide us with the other white meat.

But the tide has begun to turn. One sign is the increase in vegetarianism. I’m sure I was not the only dinner host in the 1990s to have had one of my guests announce as he sat down at the table, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I don’t eat dead animals.” Since that era the question “Do you have any food restrictions?” has become a part of the etiquette of a dinner invitation, and participants at conference dinners can now tick a box that will replace a plate of rubber chicken with a plate of sodden eggplant. The trend was noted in 2002, when Time magazine ran a cover story entitled: “Should You Be a Vegetarian? Millions of Americans Are Going Meatless.”

The food industry has responded with a cornucopia of vegetarian and vegan products. The faux-meat section of my local supermarket offers Soyburgers, Gardenburgers, Seitanburgers, Veggie Burger Meatless Patties, Tofu Pups, Not Dogs, Smart Dogs, Fakin Bacon, Jerquee, Tofurky, Soy Sausage, Soyrizo, Chik Patties, Meatless Buffalo Wings, Celebration Roast, Tempeh Strips, Terkettes, Veggie Protein Slices, Vege-Scallops, and Tuno. The technological and verbal ingenuity is testimony both to the popularity of the new vegetarianism and to the persistence of ancient meat hunger. Those who enjoy a hearty breakfast can serve their Veggie Breakfast Strips with Tofu Scramblers, perhaps in an omelet with Soya Kaas, Soymage, or Veganrella. And for dessert there’s Ice Bean, Rice Dream, and Tofutti, perhaps garnished with Hip Whip and a cherry on top. The ultimate replacement for meat would be animal tissue grown in culture, sometimes called meat without feet. The everoptimistic People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has offered a milliondollar prize to the first scientist who brings cultured chicken meat to market.288

For all the visibility of vegetarianism, pure vegetarians still make up just a few percentage points of the population. It’s not easy being green. Vegetarians are surrounded by dead animals and the carnivores who love them, and meat hunger has not been bred out of them. It’s not surprising that many fall off the wagon: at any moment there are three times as many lapsed vegetarians as observant ones.289 Many of those who continue to call themselves vegetarians have convinced themselves that a fish is a vegetable, because they partake of fish and seafood and sometimes even chicken.290 Others parse their dietary restrictions like Conservadox Jews in a Chinese restaurant, allowing themselves exemptions for narrowly defined categories or for food eaten outside the home. The demographic sector with the largest proportion of vegetarians is teenage girls, and their principal motive may not be compassion for animals. Vegetarianism among teenage girls is highly correlated with eating disorders.291

But is vegetarianism at least trending upward? As best we can tell, it is. In the U.K. the Vegetarian Society gathers up the results of every opinion poll it can find and presents the data on its information sheets. In figure 7–28 I’ve plotted the results of all the questions that ask a national sample of respondents whether they are vegetarians. The best-fitting straight line suggests that over the past two decades, vegetarianism has more than tripled, from about 2 percent of the population to about 7 percent. In the United States, the Vegetarian Resource Group has commissioned polling agencies to ask Americans the more stringent question of whether they eat meat, fish, or fowl, excluding the flexitarians and those with creative Linnaean taxonomies. The numbers are smaller, but the trend is similar, more than tripling in about fifteen years.

FIGURE 7–28. Vegetarianism in the United States and United Kingdom, 1984–2009 Sources: U.K.: Vegetarian Society, http://www.vegsoc.org/info/. Excluded are polls that ask about households, ask students, or ask about “strict” vegetarians. United States: Vegetarian Resource Group, Vegetarian Journal. 2009: http://www.vrg.org/press/2009poll.htm. 2005 and 2003: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2006issue4/vj2006issue4poll.htm. 2000: http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/poll2000.htm. 1997: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj97sep/979poll.htm. 1994: http:www.vrg.org/nutshell/poll.htm.

With all the signs of increasing concern with animal welfare, it may be surprising that the percentage of vegetarians, though rising, is still so low. But it really shouldn’t be. Being a vegetarian and being concerned with animal welfare are not the same thing. Not only do vegetarians have motives other than animal welfare—health, taste, ecology, religion, driving their mothers crazy—but people who are concerned with animal welfare may wonder whether the symbolic statement of vegetarianism is the best way to reduce animal suffering. They may feel that the hamburgers they altruistically forgo are