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Economics of Vegetarianism
Nov. 17th, 2005 12:54 pmI just wanted to make a few remarks on a subject that more than a few of my friends will be interested in: the economics of vegetarianism in our society. If you think I'm wrong about something, please let me know. I welcome attempts to correct my ignorance and banish Teh Stoopid. Anyway...
Today at work we ordered Chinese food. I didn't have much money in my wallet and wanted something more substantial than fried rice, so I ordered from the vegetarian menu. The restaurant we ordered from makes very good imitation meat dishes, and the vegetarian alternatives are as substantial as the real thing. But they don't cost as much.
That made me think about meat in the Western diet, historically. Back before the Industrial Revolution, most folks couldn't afford to eat meat, or at least not much, while the well-to-do and aristocracy had a lot of meat in their diet. The higher up on the economic scale you were, the more meat you had.
Nowadays the situation is quite different, at least in America. People lower down on the economic scale eat a lot more meat than their preindustrial equivalents. As far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of vegetarians are from the priveleged, educated classes (also, most of them seem to be women, but I went to a women's college so my perception may be skewed). The same is essentially true of bread - white bread used to be a luxury, and now brown bread is the more expensive and hard-to-find foodstuff. Once upon a time poorer people ate brown bread and little or no meat: nowadays they eat white bread and a lot of meat, while there are people among the priveleged classes who eat brown bread and little or no meat.
Why is this? Does it have to do with our modern understanding of how diet relates to health - an understanding that educated people are more likely to have? Does it have to do with the mass production of food? The 60's counterculture? Aliens messing us up with psychic rays? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Today at work we ordered Chinese food. I didn't have much money in my wallet and wanted something more substantial than fried rice, so I ordered from the vegetarian menu. The restaurant we ordered from makes very good imitation meat dishes, and the vegetarian alternatives are as substantial as the real thing. But they don't cost as much.
That made me think about meat in the Western diet, historically. Back before the Industrial Revolution, most folks couldn't afford to eat meat, or at least not much, while the well-to-do and aristocracy had a lot of meat in their diet. The higher up on the economic scale you were, the more meat you had.
Nowadays the situation is quite different, at least in America. People lower down on the economic scale eat a lot more meat than their preindustrial equivalents. As far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of vegetarians are from the priveleged, educated classes (also, most of them seem to be women, but I went to a women's college so my perception may be skewed). The same is essentially true of bread - white bread used to be a luxury, and now brown bread is the more expensive and hard-to-find foodstuff. Once upon a time poorer people ate brown bread and little or no meat: nowadays they eat white bread and a lot of meat, while there are people among the priveleged classes who eat brown bread and little or no meat.
Why is this? Does it have to do with our modern understanding of how diet relates to health - an understanding that educated people are more likely to have? Does it have to do with the mass production of food? The 60's counterculture? Aliens messing us up with psychic rays? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
