Sorry guys, but it’s true: lobsters are ocean-going bugs.

Another side of the Consider the Lobster colloquy:

Beyond the fact that our current hand-wringing foreshadows an America that increasingly regulates how we live our lives (with a government attempting, via warfare, to regulate how other countries run their lives), which is scary enough, the more insidious danger to me is that we think clams and ducks and lobsters are people too. They’re not. But the flip side to this is that, in a way, we’re not all that far off when we believe such things. This is the height of human arrogance, to think that we’re somehow above the animal kingdom. We have one trait beyond our handy opposable thumb: we know we’re conscious. Ducks are conscious, yes but do they know it? No. Perhaps some very advanced French duck is right now fitting a Gauloise into its cork-tipped filter and adjusting its existentialist beret, but not in America. They’re animals.

And so are we, but in our self-consciousness have become hubristic, and therefore harmful. Make no mistake: we are animals. I am no different from a salmon. Why else would I return to Cleveland!? Cleveland! I had to return. I returned by smell. I returned to spawn. I’m not kidding. There is no other logical justification for the apparently ludicrous decision to live in Cleveland when I don’t have to.

-from Michael Ruhlman’s post at Megnut, by way of the everpresent Mr. Megnut.

I am conflicted about this issue, but I think I side more with Ruhlman: we are meat-eating animals, and although it’s possible to live without eating meat I don’t think we should feel any obligation to do so. Although animal suffering is, to some degree, a problem, the amount of time/energy/money that we dedicate to the issue in comparison to plenty of much more serious issues is disturbing to me (there are a fair number of suffering human beings in the world, too).

That said, I’m pretty sure that the Meat Industry is a non-sustainable disaster on a number of fronts. I’d happily pay more for my food to know that it doesn’t come from a meat factory or a pesticide-soaked field, at least in theory. Which is a nice segue…

If you really want to get down deep into a related issue (basically, the question of whether Whole Foods is good or evil), check out the exhange between a food writer and the Whole Foods CEO documented at this link. It’s fascinating, if not short.