How many vegans can you name who live in Southeastern Montana, where cattle outnumber people by a ratio of about 100-to-1? (Conservative estimate.)

Think that’s tough. Try this one:

How many religious studies professors can you name who research what our sacred texts say about the proper treatment of animals?

The Beet-Eating Heeb hates to show up his beloved readers, but he can name someone in both categories. It helps that it’s the same person.

Lisa Kemmerer, with a friend

Meet Lisa Kemmerer.

Tenure-track positions are hard to find in academia, which might explain why the professor who has written one of the most authoritative books on the intersection of animal welfare and religion is on the faculty of the Montana State University – Billings.

BEH, as one of the very few bloggers who writes about the theology of veganism, feels fortunate to have found Lisa.

Her book “Animals and World Religions” (Oxford University Press) is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the role that religion can play – make that, should play – in ending the oppression of animals.

Lisa and The Beet-Eating Heeb recently talked about her important work – and about what it’s like to be a vegan advocate in cattle country.

BEH: Lisa, what’s it like to be vegan in Billings, Montana?

Kemmerer: My social life is limited. It’s a ranching place, very conservative—not always comfortable.

I know there are other vegans out there, but they’re students, in a different space in life. They can’t provide a community for me. I don’t know any vegans in Billings that I have commonality with, and of course I simply don’t eat out.

BEH: Many of your students are cattle ranchers themselves. How do they respond when you tell them that the widespread suffering of farm animals is a violation of religious principles?

Kemmerer: I have lots of ranching students in my classes and they bristle at animal ethics. They especially bristle at hearing that what they’re doing is inconsistent with their own faith.

Why am I beating my head against a wall with a bunch of ranching students? I’m needed here. It’s not socially comfortable for me, but I think it’s necessary.

BEH: If the major religions emphasize the compassionate treatment of animals, how did we get into a situation where we’re slaughtering 9 billion farm animals in the U.S. alone?

Kemmerer: People can ruin any religion. There is no religion that teaches us that what is happening in animal agriculture is OK.

Humanity has a tendency toward ignorance of religions. We have a tendency toward selfishness. We tend to be arrogant. Between ignorance, selfishness and arrogance, we create a recipe for the dismissal of religious teachings.

The religions themselves can’t do anything. They are only powerful through believers.

In Genesis 1:29, after creating a vegan world, God said creation was “very good.” People can read these passages three times, but they aren’t hearing that the world was intended to be vegan. That’s where arrogance and selfishness come in.

One of my frustrations is that the religious community isn’t generally interested in these issues. It’s frustrating and sad because it’s so important—the suffering is so great.

BEH: The Beet-Eating Heeb knows a lot about the emphasis in Jewish texts on the compassionate treatment of animals, but what about Christianity?

Kemmerer: It is true that the Jewish tradition is rich with how to relate to nature and animals. Christians share these texts with the Jewish tradition. I wish they would pay more attention to this part of scripture. Too many Christians are ignorant of Jewish texts, but they are foundational to Christianity.

BEH: Was Jesus a vegetarian? There seems to be some debate about that.

Kemmerer: The Bible doesn’t tell us what Jesus ate. And what he ate doesn’t make much of a difference, no more than it makes a difference what Jesus was wearing on his feet.

The real question is: What would Jesus think of what we’re eating today? What would Jesus think of our slaughterhouses? No sincere Christian can say, “Those slaughterhouses are fine. Jesus would only worry about human needs and suffering.”

Jesus would not like what we’re eating today, based on the suffering of animals.

BEH: What about Islam?

Kemmerer: Though Judaism does, Christianity doesn’t have laws for the protection of animals, and Christians ignore the ones they’ve inherited from the Jewish tradition.

Islamic law is very strict with regard to animals. Muslims are supposed to satisfy the basic needs of domesticated animals, which goes right to the heart of factory farming. Animals are not supposed to be targeted in warfare; we have no right to cause animal suffering through human conflicts. These are wonderful teachings! Such direct laws are very important for the protection of animals.

Muslims tend to restrict their focus to laws governing the slaughter of animals, but this is not the only issue covered by Islamic law.

BEH: That’s a problem in Judaism, too. Sigh.

Now what about Hinduism? Many of the Hindus whom The Beet-Eating Heeb knows are vegetarian, although not vegan.

Kemmerer: Hinduism has the wonderful ideas of ahimsa (not to harm) and karma.

Hindus are ahead of most of the world’s people in terms of actually living up to some of their basic religious beliefs. But milk is a huge part of their diet, and in contemporary times milk is associated with tremendous suffering. That is something Hindus need to look in order to adhere to the central tenets of their religion.

BEH: One last question Lisa. Some people in the animal-rights and veg-advocacy movement blame religion for our society’s horrible treatment of animals. That’s the wrong place to put blame, if you ask The Beet-Eating Heeb. But if we’re ever going to have a more compassionate and merciful relationship with animals, can religion be part of the solution?

Kemmerer: Yes, religion is critical to bringing change for animals.

When I show people want’s happening on factory farms and point out how these methods are inconsistent with their most fundamental religious beliefs, they’re inclined to change — they feel compelled to change. But if you are talking to an atheist, you don’t know what their ethical code is, and they can simply say, “I don’t care.” Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus—they can’t say they don’t care. Religious teachings call us to care — require that we care.

If we’re going to talk about religion with others, we need to be informed so that we can be sensitive to the beliefs and practices of others. If we are educated, we will be more effective advocates for the animals. I would like to believe that “Animals and World Religions” can help us to be more effective in our advocacy, which is to say, I hope that this book will help bring change for animals.

OK, so he is a little biased.

But he is willing to say that farm-animal sanctuaries rank right up there, especially after reading the “The Lucky Ones,” the poignantly titled 2012 autobiography of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary Co-Founder Jenny Brown.

Whether it’s out of ignorance or indifference, carnivores are blind to what – make that “who” – they are eating. But farm-animal sanctuaries yank the blinders right off.

At a typical such sanctuary, visitors see and feel for themselves that cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys have unique personalities, just like our dogs and cats. And these farm animals can be every bit as affectionate.

In addition, these sanctuaries vividly and intimately convey the same idea that the authors of the Jewish sacred texts sought to convey: That the gap between humans and animals is rather small.

The Beet-Eating Heeb would never say that humans and animals have equal standing, Jewishly speaking. And frankly, all but the most extreme animal-rights activists, when push comes to shove, value human life more than animal life, if ever so slightly. (If your house is on fire, you’re going to make sure your kids are safely outside before you go looking for your pets.)

But it’s also true that human beings have a unique and unfortunate tendency to exaggerate their superiority over other sentient beings. Indeed, meat-eating itself is based on the faulty premise that animals are vastly inferior and thus should be killed if we like the way they taste.

The wise authors of the Torah and other sacred texts recognized that egocentric human beings have a tendency to view themselves as the be-all and end-all. So these authors – who, if you’re Orthodox, would include God Himself – repeatedly told us that animals should be treated with compassion, and that animals have almost equal standing in the Divine hierarchy.

It’s a busy new year. Neither you nor The Beet-Eating Heeb has time right now to explore the entire theology of animals in the Jewish tradition.

So let’s just consider three of the many verses that define the proper human-animal relationship:

Genesis 9:8 – “And G-d said to Noah and to his sons with him, ‘I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and with every living thing that is with you – birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well – all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth.’ “

Exodus 20:10 – “The seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God: You shall not do any work – you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements.”

Shulchan Aruch, Book 4 — “It is forbidden, according to the law of the Torah, to inflict pain upon any living creature. On the contrary, it is our duty to relieve the pain of any creature.”

Just to review, animals are included in God’s covenant with human beings, animals are entitled to a day of rest on Shabbat, and it is our duty to relieve the pain of any creature, not inflict it.

Jenny Brown with one of the steers at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary.

All of these teachings are followed to a T in a farm-animal sanctuary like Jenny Brown’s.

What The Beet-Eating Heeb finds to be particularly moving in her book are her accounts of her extraordinary efforts to relieve the pain of injured and sick animals – animals who were subjected to abuse and deprivation in factory farms and even in smaller farms.

Jenny is not Jewish, but she is fulfilling a Torah mandate, bigtime.

The only problem with farm-animal sanctuaries is that relatively few people ever visit one. Unlike reading a blog, which is available to anyone with an Internet connection, visiting such a sanctuary usually requires schlepping out to the countryside.

Jenny has found a way around that problem by writing a compelling book.

The book in itself is a pretty valuable addition to the veg-advocacy movement, The Beet-Eating Heeb would have to admit.

This backlash can be traced at least as far back as 2002, when Aish.com, one of the most popular Jewish Websites, posted an essay that attempted to defend meat-eating from a Jewish perspective.

Then as recently as two weeks ago, none other than the Vice President of Communications for the Orthodox Union launched a direct yet feeble attack against Jewish vegetarianism.  The Orthodox Union (OU) is the world’s largest kosher certification agency, so the fact that it posted an essay condemning vegetarianism on its home page is interesting, although not altogether shocking.

BEH views these anti-vegetarian screeds as a positive development. The only reason these rabbis are writing articles in defense of killing animals is because an increasing number of Jews are waking up to the horrors of factory farming.

Moreover, what these articles show, by the very weakness of their arguments, is that Jews are standing on very solid ground, theologically speaking, when we advocate for plant-based diets.

To illustrate just how weak their arguments are, let’s take a closer look at the Orthodox Union post, written by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran, their VP of Communications.

Rabbi Safran starts out with a doozy of a logical fallacy. His anecdote about an elegant-looking woman fussing over her small dog is, first of all, totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. There is no evidence that the woman is a vegetarian. In fact, odds are she is a meat-eater, like Rabbi Safran.

Moreover, the story is a perfect example of what’s known in logic as a straw-man argument.

With the anecdote, the rabbi is clumsily implying that vegetarians and vegans care more about animals than they do about people. The only problem with that implication is, it’s simply untrue. Or, as British Friends of BEH might say, “What rubbish!”

Generally speaking, veg*ns who abstain from meat for ethical reasons also care deeply about their fellow human beings.

It’s not like God gave us a limited, finite capacity for compassion. It’s not a zero-sum game. Caring about animals does not preclude caring about people.

In fact, both God and our Sages recognized that someone who is compassionate toward animals is more likely to be compassionate toward people, not less.

The two greatest leaders in Jewish history – Moses and King David – were selected for leadership at least partly on the basis of the compassion they demonstrated as shepherds.

Like those two shepherds, veg*ns have expanded their personal circles of compassion to encompass animals as well as people, exactly as the Torah commands us to do. The merciful treatment of animals is a major point of emphasis in the Torah. Or has Rabbi Safran forgotten this?

Actually, it’s not the vegans and vegetarians that the rabbi should be concerned about. He should worry about himself and his fellow meat-eaters.

Perhaps it was Rabbi Joseph Albo, the great 15^th Century philosopher and Torah scholar, who put it best when he wrote:  “In the killing of animals there is cruelty, rage, and the accustoming of oneself to the bad habit of shedding innocent blood.”

Well said, even if it’s obvious.

Let’s face reality. Eating meat in our modern era entails either hardening your heart to the suffering of animals or blinding your eyes to it.

Rabbi Safran devotes about a third of his essay to a description of the ancient Egyptians’ attitudes toward animals, which is about as irrelevant as the woman-and-dog story.

Yet in his entire essay, he doesn’t devote so much as a syllable to the pervasive abuse and heinous mistreatment of animals in factory farming. As a leader of the OU, he is surely aware that kosher slaughterhouses get the vast majority of their animals from factory farms.

The Beet-Eating Heeb refuses to either harden his heart or blind his eyes to this reality, to this cruelty. Yet Rabbi Safran, on behalf of the OU, sees fit to attack vegetarianism. That’s chutzpah, folks. Or something worse.

And here’s the kicker.

Rabbi Safran, out of either surprising ignorance or sheer audacity, tries to justify meat-eating as an “exercise of dominion” over animals.

Surely he must know that the granting of “dominion” in Genesis 1:28 is followed immediately by the injunction to eat plants and only plants in Genesis 1:29. The Torah could not be clearer. “Dominion” explicitly excludes the right to kill animals for food.

This piece by Rabbi Safran is typical of the anti-vegetarian genre. Time and again, when rabbis seek to defend their consumption of meat, they take Torah quotations out of context, deviate from the principles of logic, and ignore the realities of modern farming.

Ah, but there is no point in getting upset at Rabbi Safran or the OU.

Rather, we owe them a debt of gratitude for showing the world, if only unintentionally, that vegetarians and vegans embody the highest ideals of the Torah.

Now can’t we all just enjoy some seitan brisket?

He can chop onions and watch Brian’s Song, simultaneously, with dry eyes.

But he shed a tear last week at the Hazon Food Conference.

What caused this stoic beet-eater to show some emotion – at a conference, of all places?

The killing of a goat.

Hazon did not permit photography at the schechting. But this is about what the goat looked like, just before he was killed.

On a cold, dreary morning, Hazon presented a demonstration of the schechting (kosher slaughter) of a young goat in front of about 30 conference attendees, including The Beet-Eating Heeb.

It is true that the goat was raised humanely and that he suffered for only a few seconds.

But BEH still found the slaughter of this beautiful, golden-furred animal to be troubling. Deeply troubling. On many levels.

It was particularly disconcerting to see Jews killing an innocent, gentle, affable animal – in a completely Jewish context, no less.

Judaism is about celebrating life, not about causing unnecessary death. At least as The Beet-Eating Heeb understands his religion.

But here were Jews, taking a goat in the prime of his life and slitting his throat. Panicked and anguished, the goat immediately lurched forward and dropped to his knees as blood gushed from his neck. The shochet’s assistants then threw a tarp over the goat – and a tear streaked down The Beet-Eating Heeb’s cheek.

The goat’s corpse was then strung up in a shed, skinned and disemboweled.

Savage. How else could you describe this entire scene?

And to think this was the gold standard of slaughter. As good as it gets. Try to imagine the scene in an industrial slaughterhouse, where the vast majority of farm animals are killed and dismembered, often by the thousands in a single day.

But, ironically, had BEH witnessed the slaughtering of an animal in that kind of slaughterhouse, it would not have bothered him as much.

To see Jews engaging in an act of unnecessary violence and chilling betrayal . . .

Yes, betrayal.

This goat had been raised by young Jewish farmers who had engendered the animal’s trust with their humane care. Then, in an instant, these same Jews turned on the unsuspecting goat and killed him.

If that isn’t an act of supreme betrayal, what is? Is this any way for members of a religious community to act in relationship with one of God’s fellow creatures?

And for what purpose was this animal killed? That’s an easy one: Because some people like the taste of goat meat. Never mind that we live in an era and in a country in which an incredible variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains are available – all you need for optimum health.

Don’t get The Beet-Eating Heeb wrong. He supports Hazon’s decision to conduct a slaughter at the conference, if only because meat-eaters should be confronted with the reality of their dietary choices.

The demonstration helped BEH realize that the whole kosher- meats business is a morally problematic enterprise, to put it mildly.

So what’s the solution?

Should Jews get out of the slaughtering business and eat non-kosher meat?

Of course not.

The only solution is for Jews to abstain from meat altogether, which just happens to be the Torah ideal, anyway.

Well, maybe “dying” is a poor choice of words.

My fellow Jew, BEH asked, do you think it’s morally OK for humans to kill animals for food?

JSF

His answer was profoundly disappointing. Disillusioning in the extreme.

Safran Foer said, “The answer doesn’t really matter. Maybe it’s fun, intellectually, to consider the question. But let’s talk about what’s actually in front of us. The question is the least relevant to the choices we make on a daily basis.”

What? The matter of killing sentient beings for food “doesn’t really matter”? It’s “least relevant”?

This, from the sensitive soul and gifted writer who wrote “Eating Animals,” the book that has probably created more vegans than any other written work in history?

The veg advocacy movement can ill afford to engage in internecine warfare, outnumbered as we are by the forces that are promoting meat eating. So The Beet-Eating Heeb will try to engage in some self-restraint (wish him luck) as he critiques Safran Foer’s answer.

Here goes.

To state the obvious, the issue is of ultimate consequence and of grave concern to farm animals, who literally moan, bleat and otherwise beg for their lives. It’s one thing for their desperate but futile pleas to fall on deaf ears within the blood-soaked slaughterhouse. It’s quite another for these innocent animals to find a heart of stone inside the likes of Jonathan Safran Foer.

However, while his answer certainly seems surprising, even bizarre, it’s actually exactly what you would expect – when you consider the morally hypocritical corner that JSF has painted himself into.

Much to the chagrin of his legions of vegan fans, Safran Foer has firmly hitched himself to the “humane” farming movement. This movement, of which Farm Forward is a part, maintains that it’s OK to slaughter animals, as long as you raise them in a humane fashion. It’s a response to factory farming.

Click on the photo to see JSF selling chicken.

Safran Foer discussed this movement in “Eating Animals” with a glowing profile of Niman Ranch. Since the release of the book, he has become a spokesman for Farm Forward, even doing a YouTube video that endorses consuming poultry.

The problem with Safran Foer, Farm Forward and the rest of the “humane” farming movement is the contradiction inherent in their position.

Please explain to The Beet-Eating Heeb how you can care about an animal’s welfare for a few years, then turn around on a day of your choosing and stick a knife into the innocent creature’s throat.

The Beet-Eating Heeb, as all Jews should, finds this Jekyll-and-Hyde type of morality to be troubling, even scary. BEH favors a transcendent, consistent morality.

This whole “humane” farming movement reminds The Beet-Eating Heeb of the parable of the woman who rescued an injured rattlesnake and nursed it back to full health. For the next few months, the snake would curl up in the woman’s lap as she watched TV at night, just like a pet cat.

Then one night, out of the blue, the rattlesnake lifted its head and plunged its venomous fangs right into the woman’s neck.

“My God, how could you do that to me, after we spent all these nights together?,” the woman gasped as she died.

“Hey lady,” the rattler answered, “you knew I was a snake.”

Jonathan Safran Foer has aligned himself with the snake, metaphorically speaking.

Given all this, his answer to BEH’s question isn’t surprising, after all.

He has put himself in a position where he can’t say killing animals for food is wrong. But nor, given his obvious concern for animals, can he say it’s OK.

Characterizing the question as irrelevant was just a way of dodging it. Given the morally untenable position he has staked out, he didn’t have any good options when confronted with BEH’s query. Dismissing the question as frivolous, as he did, might very well have been the least bad option for him.

Of course, Safran Foer is entitled to believe and espouse whatever he wants. But BEH, as a big fan of his book “Eating Animals, would ask him to reconsider his ties to the “humane” farming movement and give animals the moral consideration they deserve – every day and always.

Will it soon take its place alongside the feminist and civil-rights movements as a source of genuine, positive and lasting social change?

The Beet-Eating Heeb is not quite prepared to answer with an unqualified yes.

However, after attending last week’s annual conference of the Farm Animals Rights Movement, BEH is feeling decidedly more optimistic.

Known as the Animal Rights Conference (ARC), the four-day event drew approximately 500 people to a Hilton in Alexandria, VA.

The Beet-Eating Heeb, in his previous career incarnations, attended more national conferences than he can possibly count, including some much larger than ARC, such as the massive AIPAC Policy Conference.

But never has he witnessed such energy, emotion and commitment at a conference as he did last week.

Author Roberta Kalechofsky, a key advisor to Jewish Vegetarians of North America, discusses her books in the exhibit hall at the Animal Rights Conference.

The exhibit hall bristled with activity as conference goers jammed the narrow aisles to buy vegan books and t-shirts, pick up brochures, and trade stories with fellow activists. Several speakers received rousing standing ovations as they discussed their work on behalf of animals. More than one speaker broke down in tears in describing the horrific cruelty inflicted on cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys. A high percentage of the attendees, perhaps half, were under 40 years of age.

To paraphrase legendary hockey announcer Mike Lange, “You would have had to be there to believe it.”

So, what is the source of this vibe, this passion at a conference devoted mainly to vegan advocacy?

There are two sources, the way The Beet-Eating Heeb sees it.

One, vegan advocates are feeling the momentum as our movement accumulates significant gains. Veganism, relegated to the margins of society for decades, is suddenly becoming mainstream as more and more thought leaders promote its benefits and as vegan options proliferate in grocery stores and restaurants.

Two, vegan advocates are drawing energy from the sense of moral outrage we justifiably feel, aware as we are that 9 billion farm animals are being brutally murdered in the U.S. alone this year, aware that about 8.5 billion of them are subjected to lives of abject misery before they are trucked to the slaughterhouse.

The pieces are indeed falling into place to create a social-change movement of historic proportions.

As was the case with the historic social-change movements of yesteryear, there exists a deeply rooted, pervasive, absolutely unacceptable condition in society.  And there exists a growing awareness of the problem.

Joy, unbridled

“History will look back at veganism as one of the most important, transformative movements in human history,” Melanie Joy, a vegan author and psychologist, said at the conference.

A couple of week ago, The Beet-Eating Heeb might have dismissed such a statement as wishful thinking.

But after spending a few days with his fellow advocates, BEH can see the seeds of something big, very  big, starting to bloom.

Which leads to a final, and, in The Beet-Eating Heeb’s mind, a very important question:

As the movement matures and gains ever more adherents, will people of religious faith be at the vanguard or on the sidelines?

There were several  Jews at ARC. May there be many more next year. Compassion for animals is not just a Jewish teaching, it’s a core concept of our religion. Our Torah narrative, Mishnah and Talmud express exquisite sensitivity to the suffering of animals. We should be overrepresented in this new social-change movement, just as were in the feminist and civil rights movements of prior generations.

Will we be?

The anti-dairy position stands on at least three very sturdy legs: animal welfare, personal health, and logic.

In brief, dairy cows are continuously subjected to horrendous treatment in today’s factory farms, dairy products are inherently unhealthy, and it is logically insane for humans to be consuming something that is designed to turn a 50-pound calf into a 500-pound cow.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, much admired by The Beet-Eating Heeb

Now Shmuly Yanklowitz, a crusading Orthodox rabbi, has introduced another reason to eschew dairy products, causing The Beet-Eating Heeb to kick himself for not thinking of it first.

Simply but profoundly put, Rabbi Yanklowitz opined this week in the pages of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that today’s dairy products are unkosher.

He rests his argument on Exodus 22:30, which states “you must not eat flesh torn by beasts in the field.” Over the millennia, rabbinic authorities have interpreted Exodus 22:30 as a prohibition against eating a diseased animal.

Now, consider modern dairy farming. Dairy cows are repeatedly raped to induce pregnancy, confined in small stalls, and hooked up daily to milking machines, which extract about 15 times the milk that a cow would naturally produce. Worse, those machines often cause mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder. And that’s just to name a few of the horrors.

Suffice it to say, more than a few dairy cows are diseased.

Now take a look at the cheese on your cracker or the yogurt on your granola. The milk used to produce that is usually a mixture from several different cows.

So who can possibly say that no part of their dairy products came from diseased cows?

The Beet-Eating Heeb does not pretend to be a Talmudic scholar, but it seems to him that Rabbi Yanklowitz is exactly right. Modern dairy products should not be considered kosher.

Shmuly, whose many professional titles include Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel, isn’t the only Orthodox rabbi making this case. But much to his credit, he may be the one making it most loudly, most assertively.

In The Jewish Journal, he stated, “It seems to me that, from a halakhic standpoint, it is no longer acceptable to support the dairy industry. We must communicate to the industry how we, as kosher consumers, feel about these abuses and support healthier, more ethical options. We must also consider moving toward soy, almond, rice and coconut milk alternatives until the dairy industry cleans up its act. Today, we have affordable, healthy, tasty alternatives so it is relatively easy for us to become more ethical consumers.”

The Beet-Eating Heeb would only quibble with Rabbi Yanklowitz on one small point. Realistically, the dairy industry is not going to “clean up its act,” not unless far more human beings come to their senses and wean themselves off of dairy products altogether. As long as demand for cow’s milk, ice cream, cheese and yogurt remains sky-high, the dairy industry literally cannot provide sufficient supply without industrializing the milking process. People need to be prepared to give up dairy products permanently.

That minor difference aside, The Beet-Eating Heeb applauds Rabbi Yanklowitz for challenging conventional thought and applying theology to reality. After all, that’s what Jewish theology is for.

Here’s hoping that the Orthodox rabbinate takes a close look at this dairy issue, for the sake of suffering cows.

Genesis 9:3 is the Biblical invitation to a Texas buffet. It plainly states, “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat.”

The Beet-Eating Heeb cannot pretend that this verse doesn’t exist. In fact, faithful readers of his blog will tell you that he has never, ever stated that Judaism or Christianity prohibits meat eating.

But he is not afraid to address Genesis 9:3 head-on – and show that carnivores should take little comfort in its words.

Consider the context. In language, context matters.

For instance, if The Beet-Eating Heeb announces that he is “on fire,” it could mean that he either fell into a barbecue pit, or bowled five straight strikes.

Compare the contexts of Genesis 1:29, in which God prescribes a vegan diet, with Genesis 9:3.

Genesis 1:29 culminates the Creation story and takes place in the Garden of Eden. God describes his vegan menu as “very good.”

Flesh eaters were drowned in The Flood.

Fast forward to Genesis 9:3, which comes immediately after The Flood, in which God exterminated virtually all of humanity to put an end to its licentiousness. God was clearly not smiling when he granted Man permission to eat meat.

Indeed, it is a widespread view among rabbinic authorities that God granted this permission with profound reluctance, after sadly observing the flesh-eating ways of humans in the years before The Flood. If God were going to promise to refrain from wiping out humankind again, as he did in Genesis 9:11, He would have to lower his expectations and his standards.

In short, a carnivorous diet is clearly not God’s preference. It a God who is deeply disappointed in humankind’s behavior who authorizes meat eating.

The Beet-Eating Heeb isn’t finished dismantling Genesis 9:3.

This verse cannot be understood apart from Leviticus 11, in which the laws of kashrut are laid out. Those laws put meat-eating inside some narrow boundaries. Pork? No way. Shrimp? Not allowed. Cheeseburgers? Forget about it.

What is the overarching message of Leviticus 11? God wanted to make it difficult for us to eat meat, in hopes that we wouldn’t eat too much of it. You can only eat certain animals slaughtered under certain conditions.

But if God gave an inch, most of The Beet-Eating Heeb’s fellow Jews have taken a mile. So have a little meat once in a while, if you can’t live up to God’s highest ideals.  But do you really think God wants you to be eating animals two or three times a day, seven days a week?

C’mon, man.

One last thing.

The Beet-Eating Heeb could not help but notice that life spans recorded in the Torah became dramatically shorter after God granted people permission to eat meat. Adam, for instance, didn’t check out until after his 930^th birthday, long after he had drained his 401(k). Abraham, in contrast, passed away at the tender age of 175.

Whether or not you interpret these life spans literally, the message is clear, and verified by modern scientific research: Vegetarians and vegans live longer. And The Beet-Eating Heeb would say that’s God’s will, and His clearly expressed preference.

Recently, two things The Beet-Eating Heeb read – one in The New York Times, one in a book called “The Pathfinder” – intersected in his mind and compelled him to think hard about the excuses people offer for rejecting veganism.

The New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope sees lot of challenges in going vegan.

New York Times health blogger Tara Parker-Pope captured BEH’s attention with an April 16 post titled “The Challenge of Going Vegan.” Parker-Pope examines – some might say exaggerates – several challenges, which The Beet-Eating Heeb dissects below.

Meanwhile, “Pathfinder,” written by acclaimed career counselor Nicholas Lore, clawed its way to the top of The Beet-Eating Heeb’s book pile. BEH found himself stroking his maroon chin again and again while reading a chapter about “Yeahbuts.”

Say what?

“Yeahbuts” is the term Lore uses to describe the voice in our heads that is constantly offering us reasons to avoid change. (Example: Yeah, it’s crazy for a human to be consuming secretions from a cow’s udder, but I love cheese.)

Career counselor Nicholas Lore writes about the Yeahbuts in his book "The Pathfinder."

If this incessant excuse-maker were just a voice, it would be bad enough. But as Lore points out, it is actually a powerful biological force, what scientists call homeostasis. Our bodies want to maintain their equilibrium, or the status quo.

The problem is, if you constantly succumb to that primal force, and if you constantly obey that voice in your head, you will remain forever mired in bad habits and self-destructive behavior.

Fortunately, God endowed human beings with souls, with consciousness, so that you can overcome the “Yeahbuts.” Once you become conscious of that excuse-maker in your head, it begins to lose its power over you.

So what happens when you confront “The Challenge of Going Vegan” with an awareness that there is a self-defeating voice chattering away in your head?

Let’s take a look at Parker-Pope’s Yeahbuts.

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P-P Yeahbut No. 1: “The struggle to give up favorite foods like cheese and butter can be made all the harder by harsh words and eye-rolling from unsympathetic friends and family members.”

THE BEET-EATING HEEB: If your friends and family members are mocking your efforts to improve your health and live more ethically, then shame on them. But this does not give you an excuse to lower your personal standards and sink to the lowest common denominator.

Internally, fortify your backbone and stand by your convictions. Externally, patiently and calmly explain the basis for abstaining from animal products. It helps to educate yourself about the health, environmental and animal-welfare benefits of veganism.

One more thing: When friends and family members roll their eyes, refrain from giving them the finger, if you can resist the temptation to do so.

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P-P Yeahbut No. 2: “Substitutes like almond milk and rice milk can shock the taste buds.”

THE BEET-EATING HEEB: Can something as relatively bland as almond milk “shock the taste beds?” BEH is rolling his eyes. (Somewhere, Tara Parker-Pope is sitting in front of her computer, tempted to give him the finger.)

In fairness, Parker-Pope expressed herself better elsewhere  in her essay when she wrote, “it’s hard to give up favorite foods and adjust to the taste of substitutes for butter and dairy products.”

You don’t need to tell that to The Beet-Eating Heeb, who would have told you five years ago that nothing beats a carne asada burrito.

However, BEH is here to tell you that if you just stick to a vegan diet for a few months, the sound of The Yeahbuts will grow fainter in your head and your desire to consume animal products will diminish, if not disappear altogether.

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P-P Yeahbut No. 3: “She has to drive 20 miles to find stores with vegan specialty foods for cooking.”

THE BEET-EATING HEEB: It is true. Not everyone lives within walking distance of a store that sells nutritional yeast. Cue the violins.

What Parker-Pope doesn’t tell you is that it is exponentially easier today than it was as recently as 10 years ago to find vegan specialty foods. Rather than whine, today’s vegans should feel grateful and should bow in deep respect whenever they meet anyone who was a vegan in the 1990s or before. (So no need to bow in deep respect to The Beet-Eating Heeb.)

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P-P Yeahbut No. 4: “Vegan ingredients and cooking techniques can be overwhelming for beginners, even if the changes are relatively small.”

THE BEET-EATING HEEB: Parker-Pope’s Yeahbuts must be taking steroids. Again, to be fair, it is not unusual for Yeahbuts to take performance-enhancing drugs. Just listen to the Yeahbuts in your own head.

But c’mon, Tara. It’s not like switching to a vegan diet entails abandoning everything you consumed as a carnivore. Surely, you indulged in the occasional fruit or vegetable, or maybe even wolfed down some peanuts.

Sure, it behooves new vegans to look up some recipes online or maybe even buy some vegan cookbooks. Does that sound so stressful?

And if you have an exceptionally bad case of the Yeahbuts, allow yourself to gradually convert to veganism in stages. Or just try a vegan diet for a month and see how you feel.

Truthfully, The Beet-Eating Heeb has only found two lingering challenges to maintaining a vegan diet.

One is carrying around the weight of the realization that 99 percent of the population is misguided, if not downright savage, for continuing to consume animal products.

The other is the challenge of eating purely vegan outside the home, especially at the dinner tables of friends or relatives.

Other than that, you can be pretty sure that the voice in your head telling you it’s too hard to be a vegan is nothing but a nasty ol’ Yeahbut.