Vegan Practically

Is there anything wrong with eating roadkill or other “found food” that is not vegan? Food waste is another important issue, and there is a whole “freegan” movement that is based on the idea of eating food that will otherwise be thrown out or wasted. The larger issue of food waste (and freeganism as a response to it) needs its own discussion.

Today I want to focus specifically on roadkill, which raises a whole bunch of different issues besides food waste. I read another article last week from Bramble and Fischer’s edited volume, The Moral Complexities of Eating Meat (Oxford 2016). In Chapter 2, “Strict Vegetarianism Is Immoral,” Donald W. Bruckner attempts to turn vegan arguments back on themselves. The author makes a surprising claim about what follows from vegan arguments against factory farming that are based on harm to animals or harm to the environment. The surprise: It’s not just permissible to eat roadkill, it’s morally obligatory.

Let me just start off by saying that I disagree and won’t be eating roadkill anytime soon. But also, I can say up front that in my experience when people start saying things like, “what about roadkill?” they’ve lost the thread. Is it permissible to eat roadkill that would just sit at the side of the road and rot anyway? Is it permissible to dumpster dive and eat discarded KFC? Does either of these actions support factory farming in any direct way? Roadkill certainly doesn’t. Eating someone else’s leftover KFC probably doesn’t. And so?

On balance these are not questions I feel the need to spend a lot of time on since neither is a sustainable way to feed the population of the world. And ultimately, “solutions” to the harms of factory farming that aren’t adequate to the task of feeding over seven billion people aren’t going to serve anyone particularly well.

Bruckner’s main quibble is with the conclusion that the harmful practices involved in factory farming (both to factory-farmed animals and to the planet) mean people should be vegetarian or vegan (or, as he puts it, “should eat only vegetables”). He rightly points out that there are other sources of meat besides factory farms (his main concern is meat):

• humanely raised and slaughtered animals
• hunted wild animals
• roadkill

He discusses the first two in other published work so gives them no air-time here. I have thoughts, but will limit my discussion as well. Focusing on roadkill, he argues that arguments in support of plant-based eating equally support eating roadkill. Why? Because eating roadkill “avoids supporting factory farms” (33). And so it does. The logistics of picking up dead deer carcass from Highway 401, where cars and transport trucks are clicking along at about 120 Kmh aside, anyone who has ever gone on a road trip will know that there’s quite a bit of roadkill out there. Assuming it is still intact.

He draws the conclusion that roadkill consumption is required, not just permitted, based on claims about the harm that farming vegetables causes. Crops like corn and soybeans are grown in unnatural monocultures. Plowing and harvesting the fields injures and kills wildlife including rabbits, mice, ground-nesting birds, and reptiles (35). If picking up roadkill harms no animals (they’re already dead), but farming vegetables harms animals, then roadkill is less harmful even than plant agriculture. Therefore, argues Bruckner, a vegan’s own argument requires that “replacing some vegetables with meat is morally obligatory” (36). I don’t see that that follows when the main concern is the systematic harm that takes place in the context of factory farming.

I have a few further comments I’d like to make in response:

• On the monoculture and harms to field animals point, 40% of US soy production and 60% of US corn production goes to feed livestock (this is from a Beef promotion site). So it’s hard to draw any conclusions about how the harm footprint balance would look if there were significantly fewer livestock. Bruckner acknowledges this uncertainty and doesn’t let the argument rest there. Of course there is also the environmental harm of livestock farming (particularly of ruminants).
• People with a concern for animals may have legitimate reasons also worry about the fact of so much roadkill. I myself feel horrified every time I see anything dead on the road, whatever size it is. Bruckner notes this point, considering the objection “we should put up fences.” He responds that trying to do anything about it would be too financially costly.
• I noted above that there are logistical questions, considering that the real issue is to find a way not to support factory farming AND to feed the world. For a number of reasons, roadkill seems ill-suited to the task. First, presumably roadkill is not something desirable that we aim at. We do not wish for our roads effectively to become hunting grounds. We do not, I imagine, wish to encourage it as a significant source of food. If it became a central part of our diets, then we would be right to extend a higher level of concern than we might already have for animals who die on our roads. Second, are drivers meant to stop, collect up the roadkill, check it for rot or disease, and butcher it? I might see a lot of roadkill, but I see a lot more vehicles. It’s hard to imagine the free-for-all (assuming people were game, which is doubtful). If ought implies can, then the logistics of everyone trying to feed themselves and their families by scavenging for roadkill suggests there is no obligation about it.
• Let’s come back to the issue of feeding over seven billion people, and attempting to do that in ways that do not destroy the planet and do not harm and exploit animals. The conclusion that anyone / everyone / everyone who is worried about the harms of factory farming is required to eat roadkill is very far off the mark. Even a systematic approach to collecting, processing, and distributing roadkill will fall very far short, destined only to be a niche cuisine for a relatively small number of people.
• The author does not try to defend factory farming. And yet he makes clear towards the end that it is not he, but “the usual arguments for vegetarianism/veganism” (i.e. that factory farming harms animals and the planet) that yield the conclusion that eating roadkill is obligatory. We are to conclude from this insistence, I gather, that he doesn’t share the concern for animals on factory farms. He suggests as much at the end, offering that if vegetarians don’t want to be morally required by their own logic to eat road kill, then they need to give up their objection to factory farming on the grounds of harm. Since he doesn’t think it’s obligatory, he presumably doesn’t share the worry. But this line of reasoning assumes that we are not trying also to find a sustainable way to feed the world’s population. This is not just a philosophical game.
• Though not central to the argument, there is a strange fixation throughout the paper on “eating only vegetables,” as if all plant-based foods are vegetables. As if there is no fruit. As if becoming vegan means you’re going to eat a big bowl of peas for lunch every day. I kept having a picture in my head of being forced as a child to eat my greens. Or how about a plate divided into three parts, broccoli on one third, potatoes on the other, and a sad blank space where the meat used to be?

The author and I have one area of common ground. We both know what it’s like to hold a view about food that people regard as so extreme that it might be dismissed out of hand. I dare say even more people will feel that way about roadkill than about veganism. This paper made me feel almost mainstream. I went to an omni restaurant on Friday that had an extensive plant-based menu alongside its regular menu. The plant-based menu included three legit desserts–fruit crumble with “ice cream,” a brownie with “ice cream” and fudge sauce, and “ice cream” or sorbet — none of which are made of vegetables. I had tons of choices, ranging from tacos to burgers and all sorts of in-betweens. I had a delicious meal. The omnivore menu is a bit bigger, but guess what? No roadkill.