"What ethical reasons?" 
How I stopped eating animals.

On November 22nd 2012 I attended my first PhD dissertation party. I had been a PhD student for a little over a year and Johanna Hasmats, a colleague of mine, had just defended her PhD thesis titled Analysis of genetic variation in cancer. Truth be told, I do not remember the defense itself clearly but as these defenses tend to go Johanna was awarded a doctoral degree for her project. As expected, such milestones are celebrated with a party and I was invited to this one.

These parties were a bit different than the ones I was used to. The conventional PhD dissertation parties in Stockholm resemble a one person wedding party. There is organized seating and guests are served a three course meal with wine. The dinner is interrupted by several speeches; at least one mandatory speech from the supervisor and additional speeches from family and friends. Unlike conventional weddings the guests are expected to pay money to attend. This I found very strange and such an arrangement is unheard of where I come from. Still, I was not deterred, paid my dues and looked forward to attend my first PhD dissertation party.

Interlude 1
The day before, on November 21st, I had met up with Karl Ægir Karlsson, my supervisor from my master’s studies at Reykjavik University. Karl is a neuropshycologist with an interest in the phenomena of sleep and, using zebrafish as a model, is focusing his efforts on the discovery and development of drugs to affect sleep and treat sleep disorders. Karl was visiting Stockholm for a Nordic zebrafish symposium where he was giving a talk. We met at a bar where we had burgers and beer and discussed the talk he was going to deliver the following day. I can’t remember if the burger was particularly bad or even if it was exceptionally good. I am certain I tasted it but I have no memory whatsoever of how the burger tasted. Still, there is no burger that exists as vividly in my memory; it was the last burger made from animal flesh that I ate.

Back to the party
Johanna has an obsession with the color pink and appropriately the theme for her dissertation party was that every guest had to sport something pink. I had a suit with a pink striped inner lining. While subtle I decided it would fulfill the requirements. I showed up in a timely fashion for the reception and, not knowing many people, kept to myself. Fortunately we were welcomed with pink sparkling wine which was as good a company as any, I guessed. A while later, when we were seated to dinner, I was pleased to notice that one Sverker Lundin was appointed to the same table as I. Sverker’s left pinky had pink nail polish.

Interlude 2
I started working at Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) in September 2011 and after working there for a few months Sverker was one of the few people I knew by name. My prejudice told me he was a good guy. There had been some talk about a vegetarian working at SciLifeLab and I remember my disappointment when I found out it was Sverker. In my mind Sverker was this cool, witty and confident character and I saw no good reason why he should bother being a vegetarian. Once during lunch he mentioned in passing to some other people sitting there that he was a vegetarian; not for health reasons but for ethical reasons. To this my brain responded in silence: “Yeah sure, what ethical reasons?”, and I continued to eat my lunch which almost certainly was not vegetarian.

Even though Sverker and I spent good deal of time together, the skiing trip to Davos being particularly rememberable, I continued to ignore the fact he was a vegetarian. That is, until I sat down with him for dinner at Johanna Hasmats dissertation party, November 22nd, 2012.

Back to the party
During dinner it came up again that Sverker was a vegetarian and again he emphasized it was for ethical reasons. This time my brain responded as before but vocally instead of silently and I popped the question: “What ethical reasons?” To which Sverker responded: “What do you mean, what ethical reasons? Are you being serious?” and I said that I was. Sverker then asked me if I really wanted to know or if I was not just pulling his leg. I was rather confident that my eating habits were defensible and justifiable, and was willing to take on this discussion. I do not remember the exact details of the conversation but it probably went on, with intermissions, for over 2 hours likely to the dismay of other people sitting at the table who were not thrilled or interested nor did they participate in the conversation. One of my unfounded arguments against vegetarianism was that there was not enough plant based food to feed everybody so we needed animal products. To this Sverker replied: “And what do the animals eat?” to which I admitted: “Plants”, and saw the flaw in my argument. The discussion touched upon penguins, Hitler and invading aliens.

The alien argument goes something like this: If the people on Earth would ever be visited by aliens would we prefer the aliens to be vegetarians or meat eaters? This hypothetical question implies that if the aliens were meat eaters they would surely see us humans, or at least our chubby little human babies, as a tasty food source. And, hey, perhaps they’d want to experiment with human dairy and how would we feel about that? This scenario can also be turned around to ask how will we treat aliens if we were ever to encounter them.

Sverker kept returning to how the animals we eat have to endure horrible conditions, torture and suffering. How did Sverker know they were suffering when he doesn’t speak cow language? So I asked him and he said that beside all the uncomfortable evidence available, he could see it in their eyes. I guess I was unconvinced because Sverker was determined and said “Look me in the eyes, what do you see?” I saw Sverker was happy. And, now, when I look in the eyes of farm animals I see they are not. Most can see it too by just looking. It isn’t hard to see but it can be hard to look. Sverker continued by saying he had absolutely no doubt that the world would be a better place if more people were vegetarian and finished off by saying that this course was proving difficult because of “evil, immoral and ignorant” people like myself.

Now, I suppose Sverker was getting fed up and annoyed with my ill-considered arguments against vegetarianism but I didn’t feel I deserved being called evil. I think if somebody would call me evil I would not take it seriously at all. Sverker, however, was not joking nor did he seem to make the comment lightheartedly and I do recall actually being offended. How could anybody, let alone a person that knows me well, call me an immoral and an evil person? Did he really mean “evil” evil?

After the conversation was over I had a lot on my mind. Sverker had presented many valid arguments against eating animals and I had not taken the time, like he obviously had, to obtain knowledge on the subject. If there was the slightest chance Sverker was right and I was wrong it became clear to me I should not, nor anybody else for that matter, continue to eat animals. I decided then and there I would not continue to eat animals until I had gathered further information on the matter. I entertained the thought that perhaps the internet would have some good counterarguments to the claims Sverker had put forwards.

Epilogue
The next day I was giving a talk titled Dissecting the transcriptome and I was to present it at the DNA-corner, a small conference/symposium for PhD students. During lunch at the DNA-corner I stuck to my plan to not eat animals until I had found some good arguments for it so, for the first time in my life, for ethical reasons, I asked for the vegetarian option. It felt strangely liberating.

That evening, November 23rd, I met Iðunn, my girlfriend, in downtown Stockholm near Slussen. I had not told her about my conversation with Sverker or my decision to stop eating animals. We had been out separately and decided to meet up before heading together home. Iðunn wanted to get something to eat and went to a nearby hotdog stand to order a hotdog. She insisted I get one as well but I was adamant and said I didn’t want one. I never tasted the hotdog that Iðunn ate but still I remember it vividly; it was the last hotdog made from animal flest that she ate.

The day after, November 24th, Iðunn was out and I started googling for good arguments for eating animals, trying to see if Sverker was possibly wrong. He was not. Simply put, in a modern affluent society there are no good arguments for raising sentient animals for the sole purpose of eating their flesh or otherwise extracting their bodily fluids for our own satisfaction. What I did find, however, was some very convincing arguments for not exploiting animals, resonating with the ones Sverker had expressed before. It was through this same Google search that I got introduced to the moral philosopher Peter Singer. After that it was settled. I was not going to continue to eat animals at all. The same day Iðunn and I discussed on Facebook what to have for dinner. She suggested some veal recipe. I replied that I had kind of stopped eating animals. She was not vocal about it but she must have thought I was nuts. I prepared grilled sandwiches with vegetables and fries. It was hard ‘coming out of the closet’, so to speak. That week we watched Earthlings, the documentary. Afterwards Iðunn did no longer think I was nuts but instead we both agreed that a lot of the world was.

Two weeks later, December 7th, it was time for my second dissertation party. This time it was Sverker himself who defended his PhD thesis Methods to Prepare DNA for Efficient Massive Sequencing and was hosting a party and serving only vegetarian food. This time I was particularly excited since I had prepared a speech for the occasion. The toastmaster at Sverker’s party was one very charming Jimmie who I was told was his ‘sambo’. After knowing Sverker for all this time it had never occurred to me he was gay. That is how well my “gaydar” works and it has been argued that this is perhaps how “gaydars” should work. Anyways, I approached Jimmie and said I wanted to give a speech and he put me down as a speaker. I sat nervously, kept silent and avoided alcohol, until I was announced as a speaker. In the speech I said I had not eaten animals for two weeks and told the guests about the impact of the conversation from before and concluded: “…in the end of the conversation Sverker said I was immoral, ignorant and evil. For that I want to say: Thank You!”. And still today I am grateful that he had the audacity to tell it like it was.

Concluding remarks
Since that time I have often rationalized my former habits of eating animals as being based on ignorance. Reflecting on that today I do not think ignorance alone can cover all the immorality and evil sustained by those eating habits. The fundamental explanation for my former habit of eating animals is that I was never pressed to give any valid reasons not to. It’s the same for most people. So I maintain that it was not through a lack of information but rather a lack of reasoning that kept me supporting unethical animal agriculture.

The alien argument referred to above raises an ethical question which, while often used, is not generally condsidered among the A-list arguments in the animal/plant food debate. I had not thought about it before my conversation with Sverker but at that moment I granted the invading aliens permission to eat me if they so pleased. Today, after thinking on the topic to some extent, it is my sincere hope that when we encounter aliens that they, like us, will be vegetarians.