how to respond: “But lions eat meat!”
“What about lions? They need to eat meat.”
“Wild animals kill each other all the time. Do you have a problem with that?”
The “wild animal rationale,” as I like to call it, is a fairly common argument against veganism.
In this blog, we’re going to break down the emotional motivations behind this argument and how to effectively respond.
This argument is often coming from an emotional attachment to power through dominance (apex predator). This argument can also come from a place of appealing to nature.
Behind the Argument: Apex Predator
People, and especially men, like to think of themselves as an “apex predator.” We are the most powerful, most intelligent, most dominant species on this planet. And people believe that gives us the power to do whatever we want to other animals.
But technically, we are not the most physically powerful. There are many animals, such as lions, that can physically overpower us if we were to go up against them one on one. However, it is true that through our technology, we can overcome physically powerful species like lions.
This is how people view themselves.
But technology isn’t personal. The average person had no part in the invention of guns or concrete or camouflage. Technology makes them a part of the most dominant species on earth, but it doesn’t give them a sense of ownership and pride. It’s not personal to them.
By likening themselves to lions or wolves (those are the two most common animals you’ll hear mentioned), people are trying to reclaim a sense of physical dominance over others. The lion eats meat, and so do I, so I’m not only powerful because of technology (which isn’t personal to me) but I’m also as physically powerful as a lion (which is personal to me).
Carnivorous animals, apex predators, they just have an allure about them that people love. People want to be powerful and dominant in their own lives, just like these animals are in their own ecosystem.
For my fellow Game of Thrones fans, why do you think the most power-hungry and ruthless house likened themselves to lions!?
Tywin Lannister servin’ up his domination.
Being like these animals (in what they eat) gives people a sense of power and control.
Which actually tells you a lot about a person. This attachment to apex predators and eating meat as a source of power reveals how much they lack power and control in their own lives. If someone is seeking power and control from what they eat, there are probably some unresolved issues lying underneath the surface.
It’s important not to challenge their sense of power, because that’s what they crave so dearly. If you challenge their power or control, they will fight you and never come to your side. The strategy should be to empower them to see protection as a source of power, not domination.
Behind the Argument: Appeal to Nature
People are trying to assert that eating meat is a part of the natural life cycle, because other animals, such as lions, eat meat in the wild.
Does this, in any way, resemble a human!?
This is coming from an emotional attachment to an idealized image of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and is often peddled by hunters, outdoorspeople, and “locavores.” As we all know, this is not the reality of the modern world.
The strategy should be to divorce them from their fantasy of hunter gatherers and bring them back to reality: the vast majority of farmed animals today are factory farmed, which is not natural and does not in any way resemble an apex predator’s experience. And if necessary, delve into human evolution and that we evolved to eat predominantly plant based diets.
How to Proceed
If someone specifically mentions an animal, whether that’s a lion, wolf, tiger, etc, I like to start with a little humor and respond with, “Yeah, lions absolutely eat meat…are you a lion?”
Usually they laugh and it’s kind of a light moment in which we can relieve some tension.
Then, I want to get to the root of why they chose this argument. I ask them why they think we should model our lives based on what lions (or whatever animal they mentioned) do. Their answer determines the course of the rest of the conversation.
How to Proceed: Apex Predator
If their answer includes any of the following terms, they’re likely attached to the “apex predator” as a means of power and control: food chain, apex predator, animal kingdom, predator and prey, carnivore…
As I mentioned before, it’s important not to challenge their need for power and control. If you challenge that, they will only fight you. The strategy is to present an alternative means of achieving that goal of power and control: being a protector.
Start by acknowledging that lions (or whatever animal they chose) are powerful and dominant. This agreement disarms them and makes them more willing to listen to you, because you’re agreeing with their premise that these predators are powerful in the wild.
Even Disney says that lions are the king of the animal kingdom!
Next, it’s important to divorce humans from their apex predator of choice. I like to do this indirectly, by presenting anthropological information that they’ve likely never heard.
In April of 2023, John and I were lucky enough to meet Joseph Pace, writer and producer of The Game Changers Documentary, which is the MOST VIEWED documentary in the history of the world! Joseph also helped to launch Dr. Gerger’s Nutritionfacts.org.
Joseph spent almost two hours talking with us about documentary filmmaking, activism strategy, effective communication, and the upcoming sequel to The Game Changers.
Joseph explained an anthropological phenomenon to us that we’d never heard before.
Human ancestors (hominids) and humans are dimorphic. Meaning, males and females look different. The males are bigger and stronger than the females.
But if you look back further into our evolution, primates weren’t always dimorphic. And most other modern primates are monomorphic (males and females appear very similar with limited variability).
The hominid family tree.
Some anthropologists now have a very interesting theory as to why humans and our ancestors evolved to be dimorphic.
The theory suggests that early hominids did not understand that sex led to procreation. They didn’t connect the dots between intercourse, pregnancy, and babies. They just had sex because they had instincts driving them to do so! And females would get pregnant and give birth, which must have seemed like magic to them. They thought that females just magically produced babies sometimes.
So there wasn’t a sense of ownership of the babies on the part of the males. The social group would have many children that clearly belonged to certain females (they visibly gave birth to particular individuals), but the concept of fatherhood or ownership for the males was nonexistent.
As early hominids evolved to have bigger brains, the childhood phase of development elongated. Babies were helpless for longer periods of time, and required a longer period for breastfeeding, and more care and protection.
(Side note - hominids developed big brains by eating cooked starches, not meat. Read more here).
Because the females did have a sense of ownership over certain children and breastfeeding was the primary source of food for babies, the females would stay at the “home base” of the social group and care for the children. It then became the male’s responsibility to protect the group of vulnerable females and children from outside threats.
Essentially, the females turned inward toward caring for the children, and the males turned outward toward protecting the social group.
Fighting off external threats requires power and strength. And so the males started to evolve to become bigger and stronger, because that’s what their evolutionary role as “protectors” required.
Fast forward millions of years…and you have a dimorphic species!
Sexual dimorphism in two different hominids.
The evolutionary role of the male in our species is a physical protector.
Now, I understand that raises all sorts of gender identity issues.
And let me say clearly and emphatically that we totally understand and support that gender is a spectrum and everyone’s gender identity can be different and complex. We absolutely 100% support anyone of any gender identity and validate the assertion that gender is a spectrum!
But pre-homo sapiens sapiens evolutionary development is different from the gender spectrum, and that’s what we’re dealing with here.
This theory of the development for the dimorphic form of our species is fascinating to people. It’s usually something they’ve never heard before. It’s like story-time. AND it’s indirectly presenting a different perspective on what true masculinity and power and control really is. And it’s rooted in nature, evolution, and science, which appeals to someone who is trying to argue that we should be more like wild animals such as lions.
Once you tell of this theory and give them time to react and interject, you can connect it back to modern day with something like:
“In modern society, people don’t really need that kind of protection anymore. But there are other beings who do need that protection. Farmed animals are the most helpless, vulnerable, and abused population in our society. And in my opinion, protecting those who can not protect themselves is the truest expression of our power and responsibility as the most dominant species on this earth.”
Emphasizing protection as the truest expression of power is the key here. We’re trying to shift their perception of power as defined by domination, to defined by protecting those who can not defend themselves.
The attachment to domination as a source of power and control is deep rooted and profoundly emotional. It will take a while to unpack and probably take many conversations to engender real behavioral change. But I’ve found this is the best way to start that process.
How to Proceed: Appeal to Nature
If their answer includes any of the following terms, they’re likely attempting the “appeal to nature” argument: natural, life cycle, circle of life, ancestors, hunting, hunter gatherer, ecosystem, wild, evolution/evolve(d)...
The first checkpoint that we need to hit is that factory farming is not natural and is not reflective of the way any apex predator lives in the wild. The second checkpoint is that factory farming is the way that the majority of animal products are produced.
Start by asking them if they believe that factory farming is natural and if it reflects the experience of whatever animal (e.g. lion) they had previously mentioned. Most people will say no, so that checkpoint is accomplished very easily. In the unlikely scenario that they say yes, you can list the following practices and ask them if these practices resemble nature:
Eating cultivated feed crops (wheat, corn, soy, oats, etc)
Artificial insemination
Antibiotics
Steroids
Nutrient supplements
Bodily mutilations
Confinement
Slaughterhouses
This does not occur in nature.
Any reasonable person would agree that those practices do not resemble nature. If they still don’t agree, it’s best to end the conversation gracefully, because it just won’t be productive and it will get real emotional real fast.
Second, deliver the information that in the US, 99% of farmed animals are factory farmed. Globally, 90% of farmed animals are factory farmed.
Then, give a summary of the situation as it stands.
We both agree that factory farming can not be characterized as part of the “natural life cycle” and is not the experience of apex predators in the wild (checkpoint one). And we both acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of farmed animals in the world are raised on factory farms (checkpoint two).
Therefore, the current food system is not a reflection of the natural life cycle and is certainly not a reflection of an apex predator’s experience in the wild.
At this point, you’ve gotten them to agree to the most important checkpoints. I like to tie it all together by indirectly pointing out that comparing humans to lions (or whatever animal they chose) is not really a relevant or apt comparison.
“So based on our mutual agreements about the current food system, I don’t think that likening ourselves to wild lions is a very relevant comparison.”
Getting into human evolution and how we are actually designed to eat plants is a whole other “can of peaches,” so to speak. And if they directly bring that up, it’s important to be prepared. You can read more about that in this blog here.
Humans are anatomically frugivores, and have no specialized adaptations to eating meat, dairy, or eggs.
But in order to avoid a long winded conversation that could become heated (people are very emotionally attached to the idea that meat was a substantial part of our evolutionary history - SPOILER ALERT - it wasn’t), I like to cite the position of the American Dietetics Association.
The ADA is the largest association of dietitians in the world. They state that a vegan diet is “healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”
They also state that a vegan diet is healthy at all life stages, including pregnancy, lactation, and childhood.
So at this point, we’ve agreed that the current food system does not resemble nature or the experience of an apex predator, and there is a healthful alternative (veganism).
Conclusion
As a vegan advocate, it’s important to be prepared to answer any and all questions, arguments, or concerns that people may confront you with. It’s important to be able to communicate clearly and calmly, in a manner that inspires people to reevaluate their belief systems, and hopefully make different choices in the future.
As of 2023, there are approximately 88 million vegans in the world. If we all inspired just ONE other person to become vegan each year, the entire world would be vegan in less than 7 years!
We have a tremendous amount of power to affect change. And meaningful conversations with those closest to us is a great place to start.
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