Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Is It Ethical To Eat Meat?

Recently, the New York Times ran a contest for the best essay on why it is or isn't ethical to eat meat.  You can go here to read the winning essays.  The objections to meat eating center around this:

"Two main ethical objections are to the act of unnecessary killing of sentient beings and opposition to certain agricultural practices surrounding the production of meat. Reasons for objecting to the practice of killing animals for consumption may include animal rights, environmental ethics, and/or religious reasons. One major ethical objection concludes that consuming meat is no longer a necessity for most people living in the developed world therefore the slaughter of animals to please human taste buds is not morally justifiable. Others support meat eating for scientific, nutritional and cultural reasons, including religious ones. Some meat eaters abstain from the meat of animals reared in particular ways, such as factory farms, or avoid certain meats, such as veal or foie gras. Some people follow vegetarian or vegan diets not because of moral concerns involving the production of meat and other animal products in general, but the treatment involving the raising and slaughter of animals." --Wiki


Over the last few years, I have found it difficult for me to justify eating meat, and have slowly weaned myself away from it.  One of the motivating factors was this video I saw narrated by Sir Paul McCartney.  After watching it,  I was overcome with feelings of disgust, grief, and remorse, and the images still haunt me anytime I even think about buying and preparing any meat product.

Our factory-farm raised animals endure unimaginable torture, suffering, and grisley deaths before their carcasses find their way to our tables.  How could any product be enjoyable after that sort of life?  I wonder about the levels of cortisol in these animals from living highly stressful lives and enduring brutal slaughter. 

No wonder I find meat tasteless.

Is it ethical for us to abuse animals in this way when we really don't need to consume the amount of meat that we do?  Not only do the animals suffer, but the feed lots that are needed to support these hundreds of thousands of cows, pigs, and chickens contribute to environmental degradation and pollution.  None of this is necessary for a healthy diet for humans.

I grew up in a family that served meat at every meal--except on Fridays.  My parents came from a region in Italy where people were poor and had very little access to meat, so their main diet, in Italy, centered around pasta, legumes, vegetables, cheese, fruits, nuts, eggs, and some fowl and fish.  When they arrived in this land of plenty, that changed; and meat became the main focus of each meal.  I remember when I was a child, I disliked eating the steak that was served each Saturday night and grumbled when I was told to finish it all, even the fat, because it was good for me.  I remember my brother and I complaining to my parents, "Do we have to have steak again?!" And my parents remarking that only in America could they hear children say such a thing.

Preparing meals not centered around meat products is remarkably easy, creative, satisfying, and fast.  I don't have to spend time waiting for hunks of meat to cook, so I spend less time preparing meals. My meals now consist of pasta, legumes, vegetables, cheese, fruits, nuts, eggs, and some fish.  If my parents were alive, I wonder if they would understand the irony of that.

I don't seek to convert anyone from eating meat.  I believe one has to come to that decision through research and education. 

I welcome your thoughts.

    

34 comments:

Silverfiddle said...

The way we treat animals reflect on our humanity. I don't expect Shaw and her like-minded friends to agree, but animals have no rights; human being do. As such, we have a responsibility to ourselves to treat dumb creatures in a manner that befits our humanity.

Having said that, I respect anyone's choice on how to come down on this issue, I just get bent out of shape when others want to dictate their personal beliefs to the rest of us.

Thank you for not doing that!

Shaw Kenawe said...

"...but animals have no rights ..."

In fact, we have laws against cruelty to animals, don't we.

Michael Vick would certainly disagree with you that animals have no rights, since he went to jail for abusing them. So we can say animals have the right to not be abused.

Animals have rights. We humans have evolved to understand that all sentient beings have the right to not be abused and tortured.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Here are laws, state by state, against cruelty to animals.

What is amazing to me is that we protect cats and dogs from abuse and cruelty, but not cows, pigs, chickens, sheep. Why? They are as intelligent as cats and dogs.

California defines what cruelty to animals is under its state laws, and the definitions are a description of how our meat is raised and slaughtered:

"Cruelty to animals is defined as “Maliciously and intentionally mains, mutilates, tortures, or wounds a living animal, or maliciously and intentionally kills an animal; or overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink, or shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills any animal or causes or procures any animal to be so treated.”

Satyavati devi dasi said...

I have been vegetarian for most of the last 30 years. It began with a boycott against veal, when I was 12, after finding out what the calves go through. From there it moved gradually (my parents were of the persuasion that you would quite literally die if you didn't include meat in your diet) to a three-year stint of veganism. I am not ashamed to say that I couldn't manage it; to be a real vegan requires a commitment and a whole lot of work.

I remained a vegetarian (with an occasional lapse for an omelet) for many years. It wasn't until I became a devotee that my vegetarianism really hardened and became strict-one of our basic regulations is to eat no meat, fish, chicken, eggs or anything containing those things. It's amazing how many people call themselves vegetarians and still eat fish and/or chicken and/or eggs-even vegetarian cookbooks often include eggs. (During the time I was veg but ate eggs I never really referred to myself as a veg-I would say instead 'I don't eat meat, but sometimes I'll have an egg').

The reason we don't eat those things goes back to a basic understanding that all living things have souls, and that those souls are of equal worth, just in different bodies. Anyone who's ever owned a dog or cat can vouch for the fact that animals have emotions, feel fear and love, and pretty much do a lot of the same things we do-eat, mate, sleep, defend. So in our eyes, to eat a cow or bird is no different than eating a rat, or cat, or dog or even your nextdoor neighbor. They're all equal souls. The difference is that as humans we have the ability to understand and to make these choices to not perpetuate the violence on other creatures. We have the intelligence to understand that all life is of equal worth.

I don't try to sit in judgement on people who eat meat (good luck where I live.. it's practically illegal to cook a pot of vegetables without a hunk of ham, or fatback, or some other animal in it) but I do try to show that vegetarians eat really yummy, nutritious meals, that you don't die if you don't eat meat, and that people who eat meat (oh, so many people will tell you THEY WILL JUST DIE if they can't have their meat) consciously choose to participate in that violence, when they don't have to.

In the end, it's their karma, not mine.

Les Carpenter said...

Excerpted from "Animal "Rights" and the New Man Haters" - By Edwin Locke, Ph.D.

"... Rights are ethical principles applicable only to beings capable of reason and choice. There is only one fundamental right: a man's right to his own life. To live successfully, man must use his rational faculty—which is exercised by choice. The choice to think can be negated only by the use of physical force. To survive and prosper, men must be free from the initiation of force by other men—free to use their own minds to guide their choices and actions. Rights protect men against the use of force by other men.

None of this is relevant to animals. Animals do not survive by rational thought (nor by sign languages allegedly taught to them by psychologists). They survive through inborn reflexes and sensory-perceptual association. They cannot reason. They cannot learn a code of ethics. A lion is not immoral for eating a zebra (or even for attacking a man). Predation is their natural and only means of survival; they do not have the capacity to learn any other.

Only man has the power to deal with other members of his own species by voluntary means: rational persuasion and a code of morality rather than physical force. To claim that man's use of animals is immoral is to claim that we have no right to our own lives and that we must sacrifice our welfare for the sake of creatures who cannot think or grasp the concept of morality. It is to elevate amoral animals to a moral level higher than ourselves—a flagrant contradiction. Of course, it is proper not to cause animals gratuitous suffering. But this is not the same as inventing a bill of rights for them—at our expense..."

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_animal_rights

I am afraid Silver is correct. Like it or not.

Jerry Critter said...

I gave up meat and dairy (actually all meat protein) about a year ago more for health reasons than ethical reasons. For the health benefits, read The China Study.

SF is right when he says "The way we treat animals reflect on our humanity." It is not a question of animal rights, it is a question of our humanity. And you can find many cases where abusers of animals are also abusers of humans. Neither one is acceptable behavior in a civilized society.

okjimm said...

I believe moderation is key. I can never be a vegetarian, but I can make it a point to buy grass fed beef when possible, free range chickens eggs and, for that matter, buy cheese from local cheese makers. Fortunately I live in an area where it is mostly available.... and the seasonal farmers market is mere blocks. The fresh produce in season is fantastic. I know this is not possible for everyone, and the meat is more expensive... but it does support a local economy, no doubt better nutritionally. Just sayin.

Shaw Kenawe said...

RN: "I am afraid Silver is correct. Like it or not."


RN, It's not a matter of "like it or not." It's a matter of fact. Animals DO have rights: The right to not be abused. Try kicking a dog on a crowded street the next time you go for a walk and see what happens.

The discussion is about the abuse of animals for human consumption and the ethics associated with that abuse.

It is against the laws in every state to abuse dogs, cats, birds, and other animal "pets." But, if you look at the video I provided, you will see that not only are cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep abused, they're tortured and forced to endure hideous deaths.

Why is this abuse allowed for those animals and not allowed for dogs, cats, etc.?

Anonymous said...

RN's (Rands) egotistical position flies in the face of the Founding Fathers ideology. Man is not the decider of rights. Man's law (Constitution the fathers wrote) is to protect God given rights. Of course the Founding fathers did not think blacks, women, and most others had God given rights. They were protecting rights they wanted themselves, without regard to protecting other's rights.
Man is not Gods only creation. Classical philosophy insists on protection of ALL Gods creations, not just man. That includes the Earth, its water, its animals, plants, and everything else on the planet. If God created it, it has rights. Right? And man's duty (according to God) is to take care of the Earth and ourselves.
This all assumes that there is a God, which Rand and RN say there is not. It also assumes that man is the one and only superior creation of God, if there is a God.
God, or not, Rands egotistical position that only man has rights that should be protected; can only lead to the destruction of Earth, thus man. Irrational thinking at its best.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Actually, Anonymous, RN posted Randian, Edwin Locke's opinion about human and animal rights.

I think Locke is wrong on many levels.

The ones you point to, I am in agreement, but I also know that all sorts of animals are capable of figuring things out. Is this rational thinking? I believe it is.

It was once believed that the prime ability that separated humans from other species was the ability to use tools. That idea was demolished decades ago. Animals use tools to get work done and to feed themselves.

Certain primates practice a "code of ethics," as primatologists in the field have learned.

As we open our eyes and hearts to new information, we are finding that it is extremely egotistical for us to believe we are the epitome of Creation.

Anonymous said...

Well said.
Of course you are talking to people who do not believe in Science, doubt man creates global warming, and want to regulate how people procreate. Other egotistical, irrational positions.

Anonymous said...

I consider myself a compassionate carnivore. I have cut way back on eating meat, and what I do eat I buy from my local farmers market. The farm that sells the meat is 30 miles away--all pasture raised animals. They slaughter one cow and one pig about every other week on the premises so they don't have to endure the horrible conditions of getting to the slaughterhouse.

Have you read Temple Grandin? She is amazing. She is autistic yet earned her doctorate in animal science. She has worked closely with humane organization and the meat industry in order to make the whole slaughterhouse experience less awful for the animals.

My favorite quote of hers is "nature is cruel, but we don't have to be." Frankly, I'd give much more credence to someone like her rather than someone like Edwin Locke who has no educational or work background regarding animals. He is an industrial psychologist and Ayn Rand fan.

Les Carpenter said...

For those who OBVIOUSLY CAN'T READ OR COMPREHEND;

Just where in the hell did I say abuse of animals was acceptable? Did I not say Silverfiddle was correct?

Do you who OBVIOUSLY CAN'T READ AND HAVE ONLY A AGENDA TO SPEAK TO not understand my comment qwas all inclusive?

The issue was about "animal rights", not abuse. They are two distinctly different issues.

Silver said... "The way we treat animals reflect on our humanity." To which I agree.

Now, all you agenda driven closed minded progressives have a good day.

Shaw Kenawe said...

RN: "Just where in the hell did I say abuse of animals was acceptable? Did I not say Silverfiddle was correct?"

RN, no one here said you said that.

You said Silverfiddle was correct in that "animals have no rights; human being[sic] do."

I corrected anyone who thought you spoke for Locke. Locke spoke for himself.

Go back and read the comments. No one accuses you of condoning animal abuse.

Les Carpenter said...

Shaw, "RN, It's not a matter of "like it or not." It's a matter of fact. Animals DO have rights: The right to not be abused. Try kicking a dog on a crowded street the next time you go for a walk and see what happens."

What is the inference?

Good Day folks.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anonymous@4:10: I saw Temple Grandin give a talk on TED. Yes. She is amazing. I've read all of Michael Pollan's book--especially enjoyed "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

The way animals are slaughtered for food today makes it impossible for me to condone meat eating.

Many years ago I used to listen to Alan Watts' lectures on the radio. He was a Buddhist, but did not talk against eating animals. Unusual. But he did say that if we eat their flesh, we must make sure they do not suffer while alive and do not experience torture and hideous deaths. And then when we prepare their flesh, we must honor their sacrifice to us by preparing and cooking them in the most beautiful and tasty way.

This, I think, is in harmony with your comment.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Alan Watts.

Shaw Kenawe said...

RN, there is no "inference." My point is that animals DO have rights, and everyone knows that. You cannot abuse an animal, and if you do, you suffer the consequences of the law. Therefore, animals have rights. And among them is the right to NOT be abused.

No one is blaming anyone for anything.

To say animals have no rights is an incorrect statement.

Les Carpenter said...

In your opinion. But I almost forgot, progressives are right, even when they are wrong.

I'll go with the PHD. Although I held the same position long before I read his.

S.W. Anderson said...

Middle-age adults and beyond would do well to reduce their meat eating. Young people need meat during the growing years. Young adults, 20's-30's, who do very hard physical labor need a generous amount in the diet. The rest of us are better off eating less of it.

I'm not a vegan by any means, but if it would help stop factory farming and other practices that are cruel to animals, I would quit meat altogether. There is no excuse for animal cruelty. It should be made illegal, rooted out and prosecuted whenever and wherever it occurs.

Jolly Roger said...

It's a good question, one well worth asking.

I will say that the family farmer (I grew up thus) was generally a much gentler steward of the doomed than the factory farmer is. I also consider hunting to be far less cruel than factory farm practices.

In a world where people live in regions where to not eat meat means to perish, this may be a very difficult question to answer to anyone's satisfaction.

Shaw Kenawe said...

RN: "In your opinion. But I almost forgot, progressives are right, even when they are wrong.

I'll go with the PHD. Although I held the same position long before I read his."

RN, let me try to explain one more time: I repeat the fact that Michael Vick, a big time professional football player, was sent to jail for abusing dogs. Does that not demonstrate to you that animals have rights?

Edwin Locke, who may have a Ph.D., but has no credentials in animals studies or behavior, disagrees with the premise that animals have rights, and he states it is WRONG to claim that man's use of animals is immoral is wrong.

I have provided a video and other evidence to show that Locke doesn't know what he's talking about. He may be an expert in industrial psychology, but his claims about animals are just that, and opinion.

That's not trying to be right even when wrong, as you state is a liberal's habit.

When I stated animals have rights, I referenced the laws in every state in the Union that establishes this.

Therefore, I have no understanding of your statement about "liberals being right even when they're wrong" in this case where I've provided evidence that animals indeed have rights?

Can you explain to me how you came to make that statement?

Shaw Kenawe said...

S.W. I agree. But I also understand that everyone has to make their own decisions about whether or not to eat meat. Everything I've read about diet and health confirms what you've states.

Jolly Roger, as Anonymous @May 17 4:10 pm stated, it is possible to be a compassionate carnivore. I guess my objection in this discussion is the abuse and torture animals go through before we consume them.

Saty comes from a different point of view. Her religion forbids the eating of creatures--even ova. She's been able to live a productive, healthy life without eating any animal flesh.

It can be done, but it takes commitment and courage.

Infidel753 said...

I've held for many years that the one great central error in all of human thinking is the belief that humans have souls. That is the original error from which all our other errors flow.

This question here is a good example. Most people's thinking about it starts from an unstated premise that there is a qualitative rather than quantitative difference between humans and other animals -- it's not just that we're more intelligent, more emotionally sophisticated, have more elaborate social organization, etc. than other species (just as some other species are "more" each of those things than yet other species -- we're at one end of a spectrum). It's that there's some kind of fundamental, un-bridgeable gulf of difference between, on the one, hand, one particular great-ape species, and on the other hand, the other four great-ape species and all the other animals in the world. Everything from the chimpanzee to the dust mite is in one class, we're alone in the other.

This is biologically absurd, but it's taken deep root in our thinking, even in our language, as in the use of "humans" and "animals" as contrasting categories, as if the former were not a subset of the latter. "Humans have rights, but animals do not" is obviously a mere statement of dogma rather than a description of reality -- but beyond that, the more subtle error is in the very categories themselves. To state the same stance realistically -- "One animal species has rights, all other animal species do not" -- would at once force attention toward all the real questions that such a stance raises.

Today millions of people who would consider cannibalism (and certainly the systematic raising of humans to be slaughtered for food) to be an unspeakable outrage, have no qualms about eating bacon; millions who would march in the streets to protest inhumane conditions in Guantanamo are unmoved by the far more inhumane conditions in factory farms. This is only possible because of that fundamental error in our thinking, that other animals are not just our inferiors in degree but are somehow fundamentally different, not the same "stuff" as we are, so that their sufferings -- and, yes, rights -- can simply be ignored as if they did not exist.

Infidel753 said...

PS. Fish is definitely meat. Not only are fish animals, but as fellow vertebrates they're even fairly close relatives of ours (fellow members of the chordate phylum).

Shaw Kenawe said...

Infidel753, thanks for that thoughtful comment.

Building on it, I will add what Peter Singer, Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, has written on this subject:

"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?[3]

In this passage Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering—or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness—is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language, or for higher mathematics. Bentham is not saying that those who try to mark "the insuperable line" that determines whether the interests of a being should be considered happen to have selected the wrong characteristic. The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is.

If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—in so far as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. This is why the limit of sentience (using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?

The racist violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of his own race, when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is the same in each case. Most human beings are speciesists."


SOURCE

S.W. Anderson said...

An additional thought here, because I'm not sure I can parse justice/injustice for animals the way Infidel does.

When humans inflict cruelty on other living things, there is corrosion and loss of whatever store of decency the humans doing that have. That corrosion and loss can spread, eased outward by the notion others are doing it. As in: "I have to crowed animals because my competitors keep their prices down by doing it. If I don't do it I go out of business."

Or, "It doesn't matter, they're just dumb critters and aren't going to be around that long anyway."

Such thinking facilitates those occasional lapses of civilization wherein some people are demonized and dehumanized, ultimately to be caged and sent to slaughter. A good place to squelch such ideas is at the mistreatment of animals level, before it has a chance to be moved on toward some despised minority.

Shaw Kenawe said...

So correct. When a human animals mistreat non-human animals, it dimishes them to a such a degree that, as you so rightly put it, corrodes their humanity.

No good can come of it.

Our food supply, as we know, has been compromised as a result of the abuse and degradation of non-human animals.

Les Carpenter said...

"I grew up in a family that served meat at every meal--except on Fridays. My parents came from a region in Italy where people were poor and had very little access to meat, so their main diet, in Italy, centered around pasta, legumes, vegetables, cheese, fruits, nuts, eggs, and some fowl and fish. When they arrived in this land of plenty, that changed; and meat became the main focus of each meal. I remember when I was a child, I disliked eating the steak that was served each Saturday night and grumbled when I was told to finish it all, even the fat, because it was good for me. I remember my brother and I complaining to my parents, "Do we have to have steak again?!" And my parents remarking that only in America could they hear children say such a thing.

Preparing meals not centered around meat products is remarkably easy, creative, satisfying, and fast. I don't have to spend time waiting for hunks of meat to cook, so I spend less time preparing meals. My meals now consist of pasta, legumes, vegetables, cheese, fruits, nuts, eggs, and some fish. If my parents were alive, I wonder if they would understand the irony of that."

I am so happy for you Shaw...

Perhaps that is why my wife (also a working and capable as well as accomplished lady) go out for dinner when we desire meat.

So, your eal point is... ?

Shaw Kenawe said...

RN wrote: "I am so happy for you Shaw...

Perhaps that is why my wife (also a working and capable as well as accomplished lady) go out for dinner when we desire meat.

So, your eal point is... ?"


RN, I don't know what you mean by "Perhaps that is why my wife..." What is the antecedent referring to your demonstrative pronoun, "that?" I don't understand your remark.

You quoted my post which explains MY background growing up. And you quoted my explanation of why it is easier to prepare meatless meals.

What does my little family history and my choice for preparing meatless meals have to do with your going to dinner with your wife?

I don't understand your comment.
My point is that I, personally, have made a choice, and I set out the reasons for that choice.

You quoted those two paragraphs where I did this.

I've also very carefully stated: "I don't seek to convert anyone from eating meat. I believe one has to come to that decision through research and education."

Again, I don't understand your question: "So, your [r]eal point is?"

KP said...

<< I don't have to spend time waiting for hunks of meat to cook >>

Sometimes I miss things but I think RN was hinting that the time spent cooking meat isn't an issue for most people. They can go out to dinner and have meat; or, they actually enjoy cooking meat. That is what many people consider a social event or BBQ.

Having said that, Shaw, Infidel and SAW make some great points that really made me think.

I stopped at three chicken tacos for lunch. Then, limited myself to a half meatball tonight with additional antipasto salad.

I don't think I can go cold turkey (pun). Baby steps!

Shaw Kenawe said...

KP, I understand completely, since there were certain foods that are so ingrained in my cultural background that I couldn't think of never having them again--meatballs for example. And I make gorgeously light, savory meatballs.

But my talking about spending time cooking meat was a side issue.

The real issue for me in this discussion is the fact that we humans have decided that abusing animals is wrong; we send people to jail for doing so.

But we have set up this artificial distinction on which animals are okay to abuse and toruture and which are not.

We say abusing, torturing, and killing our "pet" animals is a crime, but to do so to our food animals isn't.

That's nuts. And any thoughtful person understands it.

Our food factory animals live horrendous lives and suffer unimaginable torture and death.

Watch the video.

Americans don't like to think about that as they sink their teeth into a cheeseburger, but it is reality.

And as a result of the way cattle, pigs, and chickens raised, our food has become more toxic.

I made a personal choice to wean myself away from eating meat because of the reasons stated above.

Some commenters have stated that they support small farms where food animals are raised humanely. And other commenters believe there is no way one can "humanely" raised an animal to slaughter it and eat it, especially when we don't need meat to survive.

I encountered these questions in Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

It's worth readidng.

Satyavati devi dasi said...

I'd just like to point this out: no human being, at any developmental stage, from birth through old age, requires meat to survive or develop normally.

To maintain a vegan lifestyle does take some intelligent research to ensure that proper nutritional needs are met, but vegetarians who consume dairy products generally don't have any issues.

It is a complete fallacy that any human being requires meat in order to survive or develop.

Shaw Kenawe said...

You are correct, Saty. I have close friends who've been vegan for over 30 years, and who have lived healthy and happy lives.