The problem with Reducetarianism
We need to talk about ‘reducetarianism’. Reducetarianism is - as defined by the Reducetarian Foundation - the practice of eating less meat as well as less dairy and fewer eggs, regardless of the degree of motivation.
“And I bet many of you here today are already reducetarians,” said Brian Katemen, who coined the term, when speaking to a Ted Talk audience in 2014. When talking about the reduction or elimination of animal products. There are three main angles that come up: the environment; personal health, and morality. Everyone who is a part of this debate from the Reducetarian Foundation to the Vegan Society agrees on this, and they're all important.
However, we want to talk about morality. Why? Because it's the thing that's most relevant to the primary victims of the industry that produces animal products: the animals.
We don't typically think about animals as victims, but if we honestly consider the issue from their point of view, what else can they be? They're not willing participants. Today we use and kill somewhere in the region of 80 billion land animals and around two trillion marine animals per year. We confine them, separate them from their families, mutilate them, exploit their reproductive systems, and ultimately kill them. For what? For products that we don't even need. If we did what we did to farm animals to dogs or cats. It wouldn't just be a moral outrage. It would be illegal.
These animals don’t choose to be there and try as they might they have no chance of escaping. If this doesn't make them victims of an unjust and cruel system then we don't know what does. Herein lies the first flaw of reducetarianism - it reframes the issue from an injustice that must end as soon as possible for the sake of the victims, to simply be a problem of scale. Is saying that simply reducing the number of animals we use, hurt and ultimately kill enough? Imagine this represents all the farm animals in the world.
Now fast forward in time, and imagine we live in a reducetarian world. The number of farm animals would decrease, maybe even quite a bit and obviously, that's good. But imagine that you are one of the remaining animals. Would you feel any better about your plight because instead of being one in 80 billion, you are one in one billion or even one in 100?
If we recognise that this issue is not simply one of scale, but is instead about the injustices that have been carried out on individual animals, then this is clearly far from enough. The whole point of injustice is that we must end it not simply just reduce it while still fundamentally allowing the injustice to continue.
Case in point: would we say that someone who beats their dog should be allowed to continue beating their dog, as long as they do it a little less? Now imagine we fast forward again, but this time we land in a vegan world. Isn't this the outcome that best fulfils the overall aim of reducing suffering and creating a more equitable food system? And with all the food innovation happening, we wouldn't even have to sacrifice any of the taste pleasure we experience from consuming animal products. So if this is the best outcome, shouldn't this be the one that we advocate for?
However, in opposition to this, the main thrust of reducetarianism is that “not everyone is able or willing to follow a completely vegetarian diet,” as Kateman says, so offering people something of a compromise is more likely to get them to make changes. But the problem with this mentality is that injustice is injustice, and what is wrong is wrong. Sure, it can be inconvenient and even challenging to confront injustice, but that doesn't make doing so any less important. On top of that, even if it is better to be a reducetarian than to be a hardcore carnivore, that doesn't mean there is any merit in actually advocating for it.
Imagine someone comes across information about how harmful animal agriculture is and then considers doing something about it. There are three courses of action they could take. They could do nothing. They could reduce their consumption of animal products, or they could become vegan. If we advertise reducetarianism as the end goal, the prospects of that person becoming vegan decrease - essentially it would actually get rid of this option. However, if we advertise veganism as the end goal, all three options are still on the table.
It accomplishes the same thing as advocating for reducetarianism, but there's a chance that a person would actually become vegan instead, which would increase their positive impact on the world. It also gives them the opportunity to also oppose other industries that exploit animals as well, such as fashion, entertainment and animal-tested cosmetics.
Put simply, promoting veganism won't stop people from reducing, but promoting reducetarianism will stop people from going vegan. Also, if the point of veganism is to reduce the suffering of animals, what is the point of reducetarianism - to claim it is fine to still cause needless suffering as long as you are causing a little less needless suffering than in the past?
Finally, advocating for reducetarianism assumes that people are unwilling to confront reality and take action to change it if it causes them an inconvenience. Of course, this is the case for some people, but not for everyone. As campaigns like Veganuary show every year, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who are more than willing to change to end the unjust exploitation of animals. Not to mention, treating people like they're not capable of making a significant change in their life is actually incredibly condescending.
Now, of course, there's nothing wrong with praising people for the positive changes they are making. However, reducetarianism promotes those changes as being enough when, for the animals still being exploited and killed, those changes are obviously not enough.
Your support makes a huge difference to us. Supporting Surge with a monthly or one-off donation enables us to continue our work to end all animal oppression.
