RE The Face On Your Plate…I am eating!

Re: Mr. Mason. I’ll stop eating animals when they stop eating each other. Ever watch a cat torture a mouse before eating it? I wonder why so many animal “loving” vegans own … ugh … cohabit with cats that they let out to attack and eat local birds. And, yes I’ve met a couple who justify it with the ‘it’s needs to be free to realize its instinctive behavior’ argument.

Thank you for having Jeffrey Masson on the show–he has done so much for animals and his books are stunning, but I’d never heard him on the air. I loved his intelligence and enthusiasm and his message.

Re: Rick Evans comment: That’s a new one; I’ve never heard anyone justify their carnivorism by blaming it on what cats do to their prey. Creative rationalization, and as he eats that bloody piece of cow or pork, he can block out the image of their slaughter by thinking of those evil cats.

“Nature red in tooth and claw.” I don’t have to justify my eating meat on the backs of cats, or dogs, or chimpanzees, or what-have-you. I come from a culture that considers it acceptable, as do essentially all mainstream cultures.

I do know where the meat on my plate comes from, thank you. I find lambs to be cute and cuddly, and goats to be enchanting, and chickens to be amusing. They also have the disadvantage of being tasty. So do carrots.

Listening to the interview with Jeffrey Masson was interesting but not a compelling defense for veganism.

Masson has taken the old belief of anthropomorphism and attributed it to some living things. Broccoli would be excluded as I assume all plant life would be excluded from “protected life” lists. Masson beliefs reflect his perspective on his relationship with other living creatures. It does not reflect my perspective or many others that he considers wrong. This philosophy would be a variety of existentialism. You want to eat a vegan diet, by all means, enjoy yourself. You want me to be a vegan? All compromise by eating a well balanced meal that contains animal and plant protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, that can be found in many homes around the world.

Mr. Masson blithely asserts that it is wrong to eat animals because they feel pain and that it is right to eat plants because they do not. It seems entirely hypocritical of him to chastise come vegans for eating fish stating that cutting edge research indicates that fish eat pain and immediately afterward defending his eating of plants because there is no research on plants feeling pain. He conveniently ignores current research that clearly indicates that plants indeed feel pain (albeit a different type of pain than felt by animals). If his reason for not eating animals is because of the pain they feel and their inability to fulfill its life role, then he should also abstain from eating plant because they also feel pain and most plants we consume are not in the original/natural form.

Mr. Masson’s position sounds more on religion than on real science.

Your presentation of Phillip Masson was more than a little disingenuous. Your program introduced him as a Freudian psychoanalyst. In fact, Mr. Masson’s degrees are in Hinduism and Sanskrit – more consistent with his dilettante views than with any presumed credibility as a psychoanalyst. Had you presented him more accurately as the Hindu wannabe he clearly is, but can never be, the bizarre views and misconstrued metaphors he espouses would have had more context.

Lots of defensive reactions – ease up already, Jeffrey Masson is not going to see any of your comments anyway.

And to be fair, Thomas, I believe he did train for 8 years as a Freudian analyst at the University of Toronto.

RE Mr. Masson’s opinions on food.

His comment that fish feel pain is completely without peer reviewed substantiation.

His statement that chickens have personalities and are intelligent is ludicrous. The only reason the hens were scratching at his door is because he fed them inside. One wonders what the inside of his house is like: chickens cannot be house trained.

His statement that plants cannot feel pain may be incorrect. Some research on trees indicate rudimentary nervous systems.

Mr. Masson’s base problem is that he is a food bigot and intolerant of other people’s diets. It is fine for him to be a vegan. It is highly offensive for him to tell me what and what not to eat.