The butcher in parliament: How Mike Egger is messing up the meat debate

SVP National Councillor and butcher Mike Egger (33) has difficulty mentally processing even the simplest things.

A year ago, the Federal Office for Food Safety and Veterinary Affairs (BLV) already ensured a future with its new food pyramid.

Mike Egger's argument is a prime example of intellectual laziness and moral blindness.

Egger's description of the BLV proposal as "proselytizing" would almost be amusing if it weren't so transparent. He's constructing a drama that exists only in his mind

• Nobody wants to ban meat.
• Nobody wants to educate parents.
• Nobody wants to re-educate children.

But Egger reacts as if officials in Bern had personally arrested his refrigerator.

This is not a political argument, this is a knee-jerk reaction. And one that shows how little substance lies behind his outrage.

While Mike Egger theatrically speaks of "dietary freedom" on blick.ch , he firmly closes both eyes to what meat consumption really means:

• Violence
• Sorrow
• exploitation
• Environmental destruction
• Stress for children's bodies and minds

These aspects apparently don't exist in Egger's world. He defends meat consumption as a relic of the past, a symbol he places above any ethical consideration. Every year in Switzerland, over 80 million farm animals are slaughtered for unhealthy meat consumption, which is a huge driver of health insurance premiums.

A politician who doesn't even mention violence in food hasn't understood the core of the debate.

While Mike Egger goes around in circles, common sense has long since formulated answers that go far beyond his thinking:

• Violence in food poisons the mind.
• Meat makes you sick.
• Food without suffering teaches people compassion.
• Animal-based food clouds the mind, makes one irritable, and lowers consciousness.
• Purity begins with food.

These lessons are older than any political reflex Mike Egger will ever have.

While he clings to meat like a drowning man to an old board, cultures have understood for millennia: those who want peace must eat peace.

Forcing meat on children is not freedom, it's intellectual stagnation. Children always prefer the apple to the rabbit. Anything else is conditioning. Children don't need meat-related rhetoric.

Children need:

• Peace
• Security
• clarity
• Purity instead of meat
• Food without suffering
• an environment that fosters compassion, not numbs it

Egger completely ignores this. He prioritizes the right to meat over children's right to a non-violent, peaceful environment. This is not only outdated, it is irresponsible.

The truth is bitterly simple: He doesn't care about children. Not about families. Not about health. And certainly not about awareness.

This is about artificially preserving a cultural reflex that is long outdated. At a time when the world is crying out for peace, sustainability, animal welfare, climate and environmental protection, or compassion, Egger sits down and seriously fights for more meat in kindergartens.

This is not politics. This is a denial of reality.

The BLV recommendation is not coercion, not dogma, not an attack on freedom. It is a step towards awareness and peace.

Egger wants to pull us back into a dark past that no longer works.

But the future belongs to those who have grasped what common sense has known for millennia: non-violence is not a moral luxury. It is the foundation of all progress.

And anyone who doesn't recognize this has nothing to offer in the nutrition debate, and especially in the future, except noise.

Meat is an important part of a healthy diet. It contains iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and many other nutrients that are essential for the development of the human body. With a consumption of one kilogram of meat per week, we are far from overconsuming it. That's why I oppose this outrageous meat-bashing. Mike Egger – National Councillor, Swiss People's Party

That might be true for a dog, but certainly not for a human. Meat is energetically dead matter and therefore not a healthy food for body, mind, and soul. Mike Egger only needs to take a close look in the mirror; then he, too, would notice the anatomical differences between a true carnivore and a human. Many people feel nauseous at the mere sight of blood, let alone a dead animal carcass. Dead bodies repel us. Of course, a person can eat anything, but they are not a garbage disposal.

Humans don't have true canines and claws like carnivorous animals in nature. Carnivores have sharp, pointed incisors for tearing, but no chewing teeth for grinding. Carnivores typically swallow their food whole, without chewing, and raw. By consuming meat, we force our bodies to eat an unnatural diet for which they weren't designed. A diet that goes against genetics, like the one advocated by Mike Egger, has only disadvantages and promotes cancer and other diseases. Meat is, at best, a filler in times of scarcity, but hardly a food for humans. Cattle, in particular, developed mad cow disease as a result.

Our anatomy therefore does not show typical characteristics of a highly specialized carnivore.

The science is clear: High meat consumption drives up chronic diseases and, with them, the health insurance premiums we all have to pay. Anyone who still pretends that eating meat is a harmless habit is supporting a system that costs billions, makes people sick, and causes mass suffering for animals. The meat industry conceals its true costs, while the public has to bear the health and financial consequences. It is high time to call this destructive business model what it is: a lasting risk to health, society, the environment, and the future.