Public Health, Ethical Vegetarianism, and the Harms of the Animal Food Industry

Abstract

Food is and always has been a serious issue for public health, agriculture, the environment, and ethics. First, a brief sketch of the history of the philosophical vegetarianism is offered. This overview will allow several contemporary concerns about agricultural systems, resultant environmental harms, threats to public health, food insecurity, and dietary choices to be historically contextualized and interrelated. The conceptual map presented more or less chronologically here does not pretend to be comprehensive. But despite its necessary incompleteness and unavoidable selectivity the hope is that it may prove of modest use to inform food-secure consumers who enjoy a range of healthy food options, desire to safeguard public health, support sustainable agriculture, maintain ecological integrity, and work for climate stability.