With Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) protesting Lark over Foie Gras, and the (expected) backlash, I feel like it’s time to have a pro-animal rights post. Not pro-NARN, mind you. I want to praise the animal rights activists who created, implemented and supported the research animal use regulations.

Rather than go after an outright ban on animal use in labs, these effective activists came up with a regulatory structure—a set of rules an overwhelming majority of people could agree with. Animals used in laboratory research have strict housing and care guidelines—requiring a vet checking over things, no overcrowding, fresh food and water and as disease-free of an environment as can be created. All animal research must be pre-approved by a panel—including vets, fellow scientists and citizens (i.e. animal rights activists.) Everyone working with animals must undergo extensive training—renewed at least once a year. And so on. Animals used in a lab are treated better than children in the care of most States.

It was an adult path to take—recognizing the ethical interest in both developing new cures or health knowledge through scientific study of animals and the preventing cruelty to animals. This path took much work—time spent talking to vets, scientists, reading and writing laws, lobbying politicians and building public support. It’s much less fun than meeting up with your buddies for a Friday night protest outside a small business.

It worked in almost every way possible. By forcing all labs to engage in the highest level of animal care practices, animal research became more expensive and onerous. As a result, the decision to start an animal study is a profoundly serious one in labs—with every alternative exhausted. Fewer animals are used, and those used are cared for in the best and kindest way possible. Labs that violate these rules are subject to the severest penalties—including a total loss of funding.

Imagine what the twenty or so NARN activists—currently wasting hours with childish comments on SLOG, or purposeless protests of a single restaurant serving a single dish—could do if they switched tactics. Most of us—omnivores and vegetarians (such as myself)—are totally and completely disgusted with the practices of industrial farms: the use of hormones and antibiotics, the use of disgusting industrially rendered and non-physiological feeds, the overpacking, the mutilation to allow overpacking into cages, the total lack of concern about disease and health. The details coming out about this month’s salmonella outbreak could be applied to outbreaks in hamburgers, berries, or a dozen of other abusively produced foods.

How about NARN—these same small handful of people—sitting down with vets and food safety experts and drafting up a set of realistic regulations for industrial farms: no clipping of beaks, no overcrowding of animals, no pro-acidic diets for ruminants, no autophagy—for example. Demand that any industrial farm directly or indirectly receiving federal subsidy follow these guidelines. Go after people’s hearts through their stomachs.

It would take work—long boring hours reading scientific documents, writing proposals, lobbying politicians, and educating the public. More importantly, it’ll take an adult recognition that while you might not want to eat meat, others will. If you are serious about the betterment of animals—instead of whining about silly bans—focus on small, broadly agreeable changes in how food animals are treated. By crafting regulations that both vegans and omnivores can agree upon, you’ll genuinely help animals and actually advance your cause in a meaningful way.

It worked for your fellow activists concerned about laboratory animals. You should learn from them, NARN.

Jonathan Golob is an actual doctor.

110 replies on “Oh NARN.”

  2. Protesters like NARN go after Foie Gras because its easy not because facts are on their side. Its trivial to spin about a product few people eat. The thing is that they can’t even get Foie Gras banned then they are not going to be effective actually impacting real change in the food industry. NARN’s priorities are completely out of wack.

    Without these protests – I wouldn’t of known of this restaurant in Seattle. I’m out there in a few weeks – I’ll make sure I stop buy and order some.

  4. I don’t comprehend why people see vegans as this aggressive force that “hate your freedoms.” if you are keen on meat, ok! I do find your activities unnecessarily cruel, certainly. but I absolutely do not judge you. I would hope to engage you in meaningful conversation about my convictions but I by no means feel that you are less moral than me, nor would our relationship be based on evangelism. I am excited about veganism, damn it, and I’m tired of people being so fucking dismissive.

    if you want to check out a little more about it, not so much to “convince” you, but simply to engage in higher dialogue, please take an hour and download an episode of the “vegetarian food for thought” podcast. it is a very positive podcast that discusses veganism in simple, kind terms. check it out and please stop calling vegans “insufferable.”

  5. “If I offer a child the choice between a pear and a piece of meat, he’ll quickly choose the pear. That’s his atavistic instinct speaking.”
- Adolf Hitler. December 28, 1941. Section 81, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “The only thing of which I shall be incapable is to share the sheiks’ mutton with them. I’m a vegetarian, and they must spare me from their meat.”
- Adolf Hitler. January 12, 1942. Section 105, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “One may regret living at a period when it’s impossible to form an idea of the shape the world of the future will assume. But there’s one thing I can predict to eaters of meat: the world of the future will be vegetarian.”

    Adolf Hitler
    1941

    “At the time when I ate meat, I used to sweat a lot. I used to drink four pots of beer and six bottles of water during a meeting. … When I became a vegetarian, a mouthful of water was enough.”
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “When you offer a child the choice of a piece of meat, an apple, or a cake, it’s never the meat that he chooses. There’s an ancestral instinct there.”
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “One has only to keep one’s eyes open to notice what an extraordinary antipathy young children have to meat.”
- Adolf Hitler. April 25, 1942. Section 198, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “When I later gave up eating meat, I immediately began to perspire much less, and within a fortnight to perspire hardly at all. My thirst, too, decreased considerably, and an occasional sip of water was all I required. Vegetarian diet, therefore, has some obvious advantages.”
- Adolf Hitler. July 8, 1942. Section 256, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “I am no admirer of the poacher, particularly as I am a vegetarian.”
- Adolf Hitler. August 20, 1942. Section 293, HITLER’S TABLE TALK

    “An extended chapter of our talk was devoted by the Führer to the vegetarian question. He believes more than ever that meat-eating is harmful to humanity. Of course he knows that during the war we cannot completely upset our food system. After the war, however, he intends to tackle this problem also. Maybe he is right. Certainly the arguments that he adduces in favor of his standpoint are very compelling.”

    Joseph Goebbels
    1942

  6. I guess I’ll keep posting this in every foie gras post on Slog just like the lunatic that is posting this b.s. Hitler was a vegetarian nonsense.

    Free postcards from The Humane Society…you know, that radical terrorist fringe group? You can fill them out and send them to restaurants that serve foie gras and urge them to stop.

    Order them here: http://www.hsus.org/forms/foie_gras_card…

  7. The irony of this is that fatty livers were one of the most highly prized parts of the aniimal for our hunter gatherer ancestors, precisely because it was rich in essential fats, oils and nutrients our brains needed to grow. In fact there is more of an argument to eating liver than there is flesh, going by our evolution.
    Incidentally, despite apes being our nearest ancestor, our guts are closer to that of a lions than an apes. Why? Because we evolved into dedicated omnivores, apes are herbivores with the occassional bug thrown in. Bug eating was how our ancestors most likely became omnivores, so in few million years our simian cousins may be chowing down on steak (or fois gras) too.
    Also the statement that Hitler’s vegeterianism is untrue is an absolute, shameless, outright, lie. Should Hitler’s vegeterianism be used to discredit vegeterianism? NO! Can it be used to poor scorn on the argument put forward by SOME vegans that being a vegan makes you a more moral person? Yes. Was Hitler a vegetarian? Yes. Does this make him any less evil? No.

    Please bear in mind that because some fois gras manufacturers abuse animals, not all do. I can show you videos of ecstatic geese waddling to the gavage as fast as they possibly can. There are fois gras producers out there which mistreat their animals, and more regulation is required, not bans and not petty protests. Protests may work when the overwhelming weight of public opinion is behind them, but a few dozen vegans complaining about a food the majority have not even heard of is not effective.

    @106 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitle…
    Historical debate= B.S? Nice logic. He was not a strict vegeterian, and sometimes ate meat, but bearing in mind vegans do not consider people who eat cheese proper vegetarians there is some leeway in definitions. I know people who call themselves vegetarians who do sometimes eat meat, most often to fit in and not ause trouble for caterers or because their will power simply lapses. Hitler was not always a vegetarian, and by some definitions could not be considered a vegetarian, by others he could. The simple fact is it is utterly irrelevent to the modern debate. Stalin was a meat eater, that does not make meat eaters evil. Hitler had vegetarian tendencies, that does not make vegetarians evil. But BS? No.

  8. 106 …and urge them to stop dolloping out butter to fat people, and rich desserts to adiopose diabetics, and brains to the mindless. Yes – do that…make those restaurants bow to your will. Make them think about getting into a different business like making retread tires or aluminum siding. Show them how you will improve the world by forcing everyone to eat Grape Nuts washed down with Evian water.

  10. Read the P-I article about the litigation NARN is spearheading against animal cruelty exemptions, filed on 2/6/09:

    “In an attempt to expand animal cruelty criminal laws to cover the treatment of livestock, a Seattle-based animal rights group has filed a lawsuit arguing that existing laws give industry undue control over how animals are housed and slaughtered.”

    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/4009…

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