Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Most of us believe that eating meat is natural because humans have hunted and consumed animals for millennia. And it is true that we have been eating meat as part of an omnivorous diet for at least two million years (though for the majority of this time our diet was still primarily vegetarian). But to be fair, we must acknowledge that infanticide, murder, rape, and cannibalism are at least as old as meat eating, and are therefore arguably as “natural”—and yet we don't invoke the history of these acts as a justification for them. As with other acts of violence, when it comes to eating meat, we must differentiate between natural and justifiable.

Another way norms keep us in line is by rewarding conformity and punishing us if we stray off course. Practically and socially, it is vastly easier to eat meat than not. Meat is readily available, while nonmeat alternatives must be actively sought out and may be hard to come by. For example, many restaurants still have no vegetarian options listed on the menu, and standard vegetarian fare, such as beans and rice, is frequently cooked with lard and chicken broth. And vegetarians often find themselves having to explain their choices, defend their diet, and apologize for inconveniencing others. They are stereotyped as hippies, eating disordered, and sometimes antihuman. They are called hypocrites if they wear leather, purists or extremists if they don't. They must live in a world where they are constantly bombarded by imagery and attitudes that offend their deepest sensibilities. It is easier by far to conform to the carnistic majority than eschew the path of least resistance.

Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity

all institutions help legitimize the ideology, two in particular play a critical role: the legal system and the news media

The Three Ns essentially act as mental and emotional blinders, masking the discrepancies in our beliefs and behaviors toward animals and explaining them away if we do happen to catch on.

There is a vast mythology surrounding meat, but all the myths are in one way or another related to what I refer to as the Three Ns of Justification: eating meat is normal, natural, and necessary

Violent ideologies are structured so that it is not only possible, but inevitable, that we are aware of an unpleasant truth on one level while being oblivious to it on another. Common to all violent ideologies is this phenomenon of knowing without knowing. And it is the essence of carnism.

Historically, members of vulnerable groups have been believed to have a higher tolerance for pain, an assumption often invoked to justify suffering. For instance, fifteenth-century scientists would nail dogs to boards by their paws in order to cut them open and experiment on them while fully conscious, and they dismissed the dogs' howling as simply a mechanical response—as little different from the noise of a clock whose springs have been struck. Similarly, until the early 1980s, American doctors performed major surgery on infants without using painkillers or any anesthetic; the babies' cries were explained as mere instinctive reactions. And because African slaves were thought to feel less pain than whites, it was easier to justify the brutal experience of slavery.

see them because we're not supposed to. As with any violent ideology, the populace must be shielded from direct exposure to the victims of the system, lest they begin questioning the system or their participation in it. This truth speaks for itself: why else would the meat industry go to such lengths to keep its practices invisible?

Carnism is the belief system in which eating certain animals is considered ethical and appropriate