The Immoral Whopper: The Immorality of Beyond Meat and Certain Kinds of Veganism

This post is not going to argue that Beyond Meat or Veganism is wrong in general. Instead, I am going to argue that they are wrong when they have a specific motivation for doing them that is immoral.

What could be immoral about food? you may ask. Well, of course, nothing. Food is nothing. It is how or why we use it that can be immoral. The immorality is in the person that uses it for an evil purpose.

What I find to be an evil use of these two things is the motivation to save animals from harm. Why would that be evil? you may ask with a puzzling look on your noggin.

Generally, again, it isn't. If a human wants to produce harm in a creature for the sake of producing harm, i.e., for some fulfillment of a sadistic urge, then that person is evidencing demonic behavior.
However, if a person is inflicting harm and death in order to save himself or others from harm or death, then one must ask whether it is moral to do this in such a situation to an animal.

For instance, if an animal were to attack my child, I have a duty to inflict harm on the animal and even kill it in order to save my child. The reason why this is the case is that I consider my child more valuable than the animal. The life of my child is of greater value than the life of the animal that attacks her. In fact, I would say this for humans as well (the life of the innocent is more valuable than the life of the murderer because he has become a spiritual animal), but right now we're just discussing ontological animals.

Many, although not all, would agree that the life of my child is more valuable in that situation, and therefore, it would be immoral not to inflict harm and take the life of the animal. But what if the animal was not an active threat? What if not harming and killing an animal posed only a potential threat to the life of my family or other human beings?

For instance, if there is a black widow spider in the house, it may not be doing anything to my family at all. It may never bite a single person in the household. A mouse in the household may never bring in a disease that would harm the household. However, the mere possibility that allowing these to live threatens my family, I place the value of my family over the value of the animals.

Now, is this merely a subjective valuing because I simply have a deeper relationship with myself and my family (and other humans) than I do with these animals, or is it objectively the case that these animals have lesser value than humans?

The only objective case one can make must be dependent upon God's valuation of humans and animals. First, in Genesis 1, God makes it clear that humans are to rule over animals, take over their territory, and use it for themselves. Then, in Genesis 9, God makes it clear that animals are to be used as man's food supply in order to expand his preservation. But this is not just a result of an accommodation to fallen humanity because Jesus both says that the humans who follow him are more valuable than sparrows and eats animals, not only while he is on earth observing the festivals and providing fish for the people following Him, but even in His resurrected state (Luke 24:40-43). Not only was Jesus not fallen while on earth, but He certainly was perfect in His resurrected body, and yet, no sin, no even slight evil, was being committed by the capture and killing and eating of an animal.

Animals were made for sacrifice in cases of not only food, but clothing and ritual purity. God has made it a continual picture for us that if we must live, something must die. There must be a trade.

Hence, if there is not only an immediate possibility of starvation, but even an ongoing need of particular proteins, vitamins, hormones, etc. that allow the human to both survive and thrive, it is immoral to sacrifice the human and his health in order to save the animal from harm and death. Such an idea assumes the equivalent value of the animal to the human, and is a rejection of the biblical witness that God, not humans, has the right to, and places the right value on, the living things that He has made and owns.

The reason why this particular movement has gotten steam over the years is largely due to the fact that humans in our culture believe that they assign value, and thus, they are the gods who will decide whether animals have an equal value to humans or not. Hence, both in paganism, where pantheistic monism joins all creation together as one, and in naturalistic atheism, where all things are one from evolution, where everything is connected, all of us are just animals, it can be argued that to kill an animal is to kill one's kin.

This is not the case according to values that God has revealed, and hence, any Christian should reject such a sentiment. Human value determines human priority. Animal value determines animal priority. And they are not the same.

Let me push it further. Even if the animals are mistreated or unduly harmed by those who raise or sell them, it is immoral to reject eating them for this particular reason. The answer is not to do harm to humans because harm may come to animals. Rather the answer is to regulate those who raise and sell animals in a way that would not harm humans, but rather benefit their health without doing unnecessary harm for immoral reasons. However, if greater harm of an animal means the greater benefit of a human life (e.g., think of having to coop up animals on a boat in the 17th Century) then the greater harm is moral and refraining from it in order to place an animal's well-being over a human's is immoral.

Let me push it even further. Even if a human can get his nutrition from other sources, and even if it is acceptable for individual humans here and there to do so, it may even be wrong for all of humanity to do so because it may communicate the idea that animals are equal in value to humans. Furthermore, humans have become the dominant predator in the world by God's design. As man takes over areas of land, he replaces the predators that God seems to have placed there only to maintain the ecosystem. If man no longer functions as predator, however, the ecosystem will be set off balance, and that imbalance will not only ironically bring undue harm to animals, but also to humans. Hence, it may be immoral for all humans to stop eating meat.

Now, let's bring in Beyond Meat. The reason why this is immoral is simply because the amount of chemicals and salt in Beyond Meat is less healthy (or should we just say, more harmful) to humans than regular meat is. So why do it? I can see no other reason other than the motivation of saving animals from harm and death at the expense of human health and well-being. This means that it is immoral.

Now, if someone wants to eat Beyond Meat because they like the taste of it, etc. that's up to them. I do think we should consider what we eat and whether it is moral for us to do harm to our own bodies. It certainly is immoral to destroy the body intentionally when it can be preserved; and I am sure we are all guilty of doing harm to ourselves and families in that way, but that is for another day.

What I am addressing here is the very motivation to save animals at the expense of humans.  One sees this every once in a while when someone who has been radicalized by their paganism or naturalism promotes the idea that humans are merely one species on the planet and they are to be exterminated if the planet is to survive. Humans are a plague, an infestation, etc. Neo-Malthusian overpopulation sentiments are usually tied to this idea. This sort of idea was seen well when a little boy fell into a gorilla enclosure and many argued that the gorilla should have been preserved at the possible cost (or even actual cost) of the boy's life. In this idea, humans are not the purpose of creation, and therefore, its primary beneficiaries, but the chaos that destroys it (the very opposite of what Scripture tells us of humanity's relationship with creation). At the very least, in the modern animal activist's view, humans are allowed to coexist with their fellow animals, but should never use them to advance their own health and well-being.

One wonders what the argument would be about a lion that kills other animals or any sort of carnivore for that matter. Some go so far as to consider it murder to kill an animal. Does that mean that all carnivores should be tried and sentenced, and then forced to eat Beyond Meat? A fate worse than death I'm sure.

If Beyond Meat is about humans enjoying a snack that won't damage them, or Veganism is about health concerns about added hormones in meat that are more harmful to humans than not eating the meat, then engaging in these things is fine and even good.  The issue is that very unbiblical assumptions are being made in emotional reactions to seeing animals treated a certain way because our culture has been brainwashed by propaganda both from philosophical arguments rooted in the Enlightenment and their favorite Disney movies that present animals as humans too.

It is immoral to refrain from doing harm and killing an animal at the expense of human health and well-being because it is immoral to value an animal as much as a human. That doesn't make a Whopper suddenly healthy for you, but it does say something if doctors are arguing that Beyond Meat is even worse for your health than the Kentucky Fried Chicken or the Whopper it seeks to substitute. To create and sell it for the sole purpose of saving animals is evil. That's like replacing sugar with Aspartame because one wants to save sugar cane from being harvested. For the reasons above, at the very least, the "Impossible Whopper" should be renamed the "Immoral Whopper."