Would You Eat Meat On a Desert Island?

This post is part of an ongoing series where I'll respond to common logical fallacies used to oppose veganism and avoid questioning the morality of consuming animal products. For the full list of vegan fallacies, visit yourveganfallacyis.com.

I've been asked this many times by family friends to get me to give an answer that will allow them to remove that imposed vegan halo. They don't expect me to say I wouldn't, they are trying to back me into a corner.

The fallacy: There are situations in which vegans would eat meat if they had no other choice.

When I feel like surprising them with a funny retort, I say "well, what are the animals eating?" "are there any coconuts?" or "I think finding freshwater would be more important since I would die of thirst before I die of hunger".

However, this is a futile thought exercise, an incredibly unlikely scenario. It is not our reality.

Most humans now live in society. They longer have to hunt and gather; they are no longer trying to survive in the wild. Instead, we live in civilization were a lot of people have access to plant-based food such as pasta, rice, and beans.*

So if I told you we lived in which you have the access to plant-based foods and that switching your diet would not only spare the lives of millions of animals being killed for sensory pleasure but also...

increase available clean water, reduce rainforest destruction, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase available farmland, decrease the threat from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, reduce land and waterway pollution, and potentially improve your health, would you stop eating animals?

That's our reality.

*I would like to add that I'm speaking from a position of privilege. I know some people live in survival mode every day, barely making ends meet or live in food deserts, where accessing a grocery store is a struggle. In my experience, the people asking this question have access to water, shelter, and plant-based food and do not fit these categories. With privilege comes responsibility and would not hold these two groups of people to the same moral standard.