Is It Ethical To Eat Meat?
The Benefits of Being A Human
First off, congratulations! Because if you're reading this, chances are you're human, or at least a dolphin with an above average intelligence. And that means you beat the odds by merely not being born an amoeba, or exist as a bit of space debris, or a hemorrhoid up my ass, or a mentally challenged dolphin. Considering the sheer amount of biological and abiological matter out there in the universe, what are the chances of any one of us actually being a human? It must be up there with winning the lottery 10 times in a row. We basically hit the jackpot big time.
Found them - the true cause of global warming
I don't think, for the most part, we express enough gratitude for not being a hemorrhoid up someone ass, but I suspect there's an evolutionary reason for this. Caveman who were too preoccupied contemplating why they weren't a mammoth probably didn't fare too well actually fighting them to have many descendants. So unfortunately, inheriting the very genes that allow us to remain miserable after winning 10 lotteries in a row is sort of part of the prize pool of being human. But make no mistake, compared to all the other creatures around here, we're basically Gods. So how have we chosen to wield this power over lesser lifeforms?
Animal slaughter
Well I have good news and bad news: the good news is that the very same brain power that has allowed us to invent the photocopier so we can find out what our own asses look like, has also enabled us to become pretty efficient at killing other animals, over a hundred billion a year, in fact. The bad news is I was lying when I called it good news. Indeed, you'd expect they'd be some very compelling reasons to justify 2000 times more yearly animal deaths than the number of people killed in World War 2. But 2000 animal Hitlers are not being thwarted every year, despite Orwell's Animal Farm trying to convince us otherwise. Ultimately, considering that most research has shown that a strict vegan diet is perfectly nutritious, we have to come to terms with the fact that these animals are killed for one predominant reason: because kale tastes like shit.
Fine, So What?
'Ok, so one or two or a few hundred billion chickens and pigs and buffaloes die, so what? I happen to like buffalo wings!' I hear a hypothetical straw man ask. Well, while animals are not as sophisticated as (some of) us, they are still sentient beings capable of immense suffering. Almost all animals respond to physical pain, except maybe frogs, which are a bit oblivious when it comes to being slowly boiled for some reason. Still, when common practice in the farming industry is to grind up or suffocate countless baby male chicks in plastic bags for the crime of not being able to lay eggs anymore than you or I, it's hard to not sympathize with their physical suffering.
Shhh - I'm pretending to lay an egg, don't tell them I have a pecker
Furthermore, many animals are also capable of experiencing extreme grief and anguish, like when mother elephants mourn over the death of their young, which doubly sucks for them considering their exceptional memory. Millions of cows worldwide are forced to give birth every 9 months just so they can have milk extracted by machines in their tiny crates. These baby calves are taken away from their distraught mothers within the first day so as to not waste any of the latter's precious milk.
Of course most of us are complicit to this process of large scale animal torture and killing just by contributing to market demand. Overall, a non vegan person is responsible for murdering approximately 100 animals a year. Minnesota dentists tend to have a slightly higher batting average here. Remember, this is all pretty much for the sole purpose of us being able to enjoy the momentary pleasure of consuming meat. Maybe we should all try eating Brussels sprouts while masturbating instead?
Wake up sheeple and stop killing us!
Conclusion
Well it certainly seems like vegans also have the moral high ground in addition to the advantage of having an excuse to be the biggest pain in the ass at every dinner party. Needing an entirely separate menu is one thing, but do they really have to preface every sentence with the words 'As a vegan...'?
Am I a vegan myself? I'll answer that after I finish these wicked wings. But hypocrisy aside, I figured if any one of my millions of readers converted to veganism, it would be just as morally good as me doing so myself. I have been trying to eat less meat though. This is sort of frustrating because as a social rule, no one gives partial credit here, even though I'm contributing to far less animal suffering than the average person. It's strangely all or nothing in an almost religious way: a single slice of bacon gets you on the shit list just as quickly as touching yourself in the shower. So despite my efforts to cut down on meat, I don't even get to be an annoying twat by starting every sentence with 'As a vegan...', which annoys me because I like being an annoying twat.
It's hard to deny that the mass slaughter and torture of this many animals for the mere purpose of gratifying our taste buds is probably not going to be seen as a shining beacon of moral virtue by future generations, finger lickin' good or not.
References
Animal Equality
Sam Harris: "I Can't Ethically Defend Eating Meat."
Should we be Vegetarian? - Philosophy Tube
All images from https://www.pexels.com/
If you enjoyed this piece, please Upvote, Resteem and follow me @trafalgar, especially if you believe non steemit/crypto related articles are good for the platform
i love meat but since 3 weeks ive stopped eating it - i need to get more healthy :)
that's also a very good reason to refrain from eating meat
I could lose a few pounds too
Really? Like for good? Amazing!
I've been on meat free diet for years man, and, feeling great. I tell you!
Just keep your carb-protein-healthy fats ratio in balance and you'll be good as new in no time!
is it true, that vegi carb can fatten you done wrong?
Any carb can fatten you, veggie or not. Just keep your intake in check ;)
Let me know if you want a reason to stay in this state, sometimes your mind wins the war against your heart. Cheers to your dedication.
Using the worst possible methods of ranching and comparing them to the best possible methods of veganism is not really fair.
Pasture animals are not tortured, return carbon to the soil and improve diversity, and can be slaughtered humanely - whereas in nature they die of starvation, or fearful, violent, rending predation.
Meanwhile some forms of veganism increase desertification, remove carbon from soil (and it ends up in the air), requires oil based fertilizer, oil fueled harvesting/transport (sometimes across oceans), and ends up displacing and killing millions of smaller forms of life. My beef at lunch kills one 2000th of a cow, my salad may have killed dozens of birds, mice and insects.
The question is not "Is it ethical?" but "can it be made ethical?" If one really wants to stop the torture and pollution, put your money into locally pastured meats. Because those ranchers don't care what vegans want. They care what their customers want. They will switch from CAFOs to Grassfed if they see a profit.
I think the problem is in part ignorance and also people not acting in accord with what they know.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction.
1/3 of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the leading driver. (United Nation)
As many as 40% (63 billion pounds) of fish caught globally every year are discarded.
Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.
The leading causes of rainforest destruction are livestock and feedcrops.
Ten thousand years ago, 99% of biomass (i.e. zoomass) was wild animals. Today, humans and the animals that we raise as food make up 98% of the zoomass.
80% of antibiotic sold in the US are for livestock.
82% of starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, and the animals are eaten by western countries.
1.5 acres can produce 37,000 pounds of plant-based food.
1.5 acres can produce 375 pounds of beef.
Cowspiracy (It's on Netflix and its director is Leonardo Dicaprio)
Wow, looks like you got your talking points from the UN. They are such noted experts that never embellish their statistics or sources of information. The attention grabbing headline here is how people with no scientific background, no statistical background, and no practical experience in the real world have the solutions for everybody's problems. Science is not decisions by conciseness or by feel good sentiments. It is based on hard facts that can be proved with empirical data. Sometimes that data can be interpreted differently, but is should always be based on the facts. Green Peace and Hippies with Agendas are not solid unbiased sources of information when evaluating these issues. Emotions need to be taken out of the picture and we need solid facts put into place. The biggest problem we are dealing with here is a lack of education when confronting each of these problems. Much of agriculture is being practiced with grossly outdated techniques. If you only get 375 lbs or beef from 1.5 acres of land, you are truly a shitty farmer. And if you can only produce 37,000 lbs of plant based food from 1.5 acres, you are again a really shitty farmer. Newer approaches are far more productive. The best approaches are integrated and involve plants/animals/fungus/bacteria/micro rhizomes and the plethora of other organisms working in concert. Take aquaculture for example. With modern techniques, plants, animals and other supporting bio fauna are grown in harmony with astonishing results. By the way, our depleted CO2 levels are actually responsible for much of our desertification. That's right, increased CO2 levels actually make plants much more tolerant of lower levels of moisture. The plants need less stomata for respiration and are therefore more tolerant of drier conditions. Funny how our little snowflake environmentalist-know-nothings are ignorant of how things really work.
Granted, I acknowledge that this little response is rambling, but I just wanted to point out that most of what is taken as religious-environmentalist-zeal is simply not so. Get a real education, something more than the shitty excuse you find for an education in most universities. Get some practical experience, learn what is real science, and understand that real science has nothing to do with feel good pole taking conciseness among "experts". Maybe you can do some actual good in this world instead of just virtue signalling.
The quality of life of an animal comes before CO2, period! Especially when its billions of them to try to feed an ever growing population. People eat TOO much eat in many developed countries. There is no balance and its not even needed. In many countries, like India for example, many families eat meat once a week and then enjoy amazing vegetarian food the rest of the week..
Then also they REALLY enjoy that meat WAY more than you would if you ate it every day.. And guess what, 600% less animals had to die!
So what is "real science"? Your response perhaps, in which you denounce all points and sources presented above and counter with a couple finds of your own, namely that most people are "shitty farmers" and that plants will cope with increased CO2 levels? Also, are you really arguing that CO2 levels are are depleting? They're definitely not. If you're going to ramble and throw some fancy words in, at least get your story straight.
Real science in the case of climate research is not getting some practical experience and talking shit about experts by trusting your gut. It's amassing and analyzing fairly gathered empirical data, weighing their support for central hypotheses and thereby coming to conclusions as objectively as possible, which can then gain support and result in a scientific consensus.
Evidence such as this: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Okay, you sure provide no link to anything but my sources are very bad because you said so. This make no sense.
The numbers I provided are backed up by empirical fact for the most part but you chose not to address most of them.
More info here my friend :)
You Can't be A Vegetarian
So what have i been for 5 years then?
A social justice warrior?
Now that was funny, far from that bro. I love watching SJW compilation vids.
Elaborative delusional
read this guys article before jumping on this one and it's not woth reading he doesn't even know the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian lol
I don't differentiate. plus. the hypocrisy is so big that their lines/boundaries cross more times than you think. debate on eggs, milk etc.
so yeah. your cult has many heresies
Obviously not because you didn't know the difference till i told you. You wrote a post about a group of people who openly claim they eat animal by-products. Clearly proving you didn't even know what a vegetarian was to start with, lol.
I wrote this article in greek including the difference of vegan/vegetarian 5 years ago.
I just don't bother with cult semantics.
may God bless you, since common sense seems evasive these days people sit at home and write up statistics while the vegan community raise placards based on soo many inaccurate statistics, i grew up animal/plant farming tbh iv come to realize a lot of people take this animal rights thing toooooooooo far. Their grandparents lived longer, healthier and still practiced a lot of these so called "crude" agriculture that brought them to existence. vegans still visit the zoos and take pictures why don't they advocate for the animals being returned to the wild? its educative and entertaining and fun to pay to visit caged animals and throw peanuts at the elephants in captivity....hypocrites. @reebo
Vegans visit zoos and take pictures??? That's hilarious! hahaha... where did you find that info? I would love to read that article. I agree with you though, 58 billion animals, not including fish get killed each year because we humans like the flavour. I have no idea what all the fuss is about, it's just 58 billion.
Wake up will you, My Asian friend and his wife went vegan years ago and right next to me i saw them having the time of their life at the zoo back in 2014 on boxing day, humans and their selective ideology, i could bet while we all eat veges and drive off to work going about our other daily non environmental friendly routines we are doing the world a favor, i mean 50 billion + life on earth We haven't considered, but oh lets not eat meat and we mite save the animals who mite not even have a planet to live on pretty soon, i foresee fishes swimming past Jupiter, you all trying to creating space monkeys too? I mean who smokes up some good weed & stumbles upon these things tho? measures have always been put in place to stop the total wipeout of species but nooooo vegans don't see those they only see (UNCONFIRMED) statistics and go into rage & placard mode...There's a "Bigger PicTure", people (non vegan alike) are actually out there making moves to save our "PLANET" while others are tagging themselves by a lifestyle and eating habit, yipeee more veges!
Oh well if your vegan friend visited a zoo then that must mean all vegans go to the zoo. Sorry I didn't realise that fact, my bad, lol. As for the rest of your comment, try eating less meat and calm down a little it's forcing you to speak a load of nonsense!
Except that everywhere you say "animal agriculture", the correct term is "Grain agriculture to feed CAFO animals". That same soy and corn land, returned to pasture, would correct almost everything else you mention.
The way to make that happen is not to stop eating meat, that just makes you not a customer and so not a concern.
The functional, non-totalitarian way is for individuals to buy local, grass fed, humanely slaughtered animal foods. That's what will decrease the CAFOS, restore the soil, replenish desertified lands (which are now only kept in crops by oil based fertilizer and irrigation), end the need for antibiotics, reduce the dependance on 3rd world sources (although that might drive them even deeper into poverty), and produce healthier food for everyone.
People like Saladin and Savory are already making this happen, but the religion of veganism just condemns them and ignores the good they are doing. Because feelings. And famous actors.
Except it takes more grain to feed the animal we eat than if we ate the grain we fed the animal and that most of the amazon deforestation has happen because of the grain agriculture needed to feed the animal we eat.
This has nothing to do between you and me. Saladin and Savory have been rebutted for obvious reasons.
Source: FAO
Since the only thing I said about grain is to stop using it, I don't know what you are talking about. You might not be considering the benefits of a diverse pasture land.
Saladin and Savory are still producing verifiable results so I guess someone needs to step up the rebutting. They better hurry because thousands of other folks are duplicating the results on their own lands.
It take some land for grazing but the land is already taken to the point we have to deforest large part of tropical forest.
If that were true, that would be a good point.
Good news! It is true! :D
sir you are absoluely right :)
@teamsteem thank you!
The way you can tell if something is humane is by asking if you would like it to happen to yourself. No sentient being wants to die unless they're terminally and or mentally ill. Other than that, there no such thing as ethical slaughter. If you think not then you're kidding or lying to yourself, both of which are extremely foolish.
Veganism isn't about being perfect, it's about doing the best you can to avoid cruelty and exploitation. With regards to the displacement and killing of animals accidentally as side effect of agriculture, please stop with the FUD: http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans
Also, beef requires more plant matter to produce then the return in caloric value one gets back from the dead flesh. This makes it an inefficient means of energy transfer. Think about this, everyone in the world could be fed if the feed we used for farm animals was directed toward other humans. We currently have enough resources to feed 10 billion people this very moment but, instead we use it feeding the enslaved, abused, raped, tortured and eventually murdered animals.
We are destroying the future as the livestock industry is the largest contributor of green house gasses, one of the biggest pollution problems we are facing and the greatest waste of water to date. One pound of beef requires 600 gallon of water and in the south western USA, there is a shortage and this will increase in the coming years.
I'm not going to mention the health benefits of being vegan in this post but, i can tell you it's a huge plus. If you do your research you'll find this out yourself. It's selfish to think your taste-buds matter more than the lives of our fellow earthling. As Bill Gates and now many are saying, "Plant based diets are the future!".
Yes, I agree. I would rather die quickly from a gunshot to the head than starve nearly to death, then be pulled down by a wolf and torn open to be eaten while I die suffering great pain. Thank you for making my point.
As for health, without processed supplementation and distance foods, western veganism is not healthy. Try to live off what grows in 30 miles of any US city. Natural full health can only be achieved with meat and leafy vegetables.
For you to imply that starvation and or death by predatory carnivores would only be the outcome of livestock if everyone became vegan/vegetarian at the same time. This assumption would be incorrect:
Farmers markets, which provide fresh, sustainable and locally produced produce are growing rapidly across North America. https://www.greenbeltfresh.ca/news/farmers%E2%80%99-markets-open-2017
According to science. Plant based diets are the way to health, wellness and even reversing hereditary and or environmental conduced pathology. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
The China study debunks itself. That's old and false propaganda. I can do a better job of defending vegetarianism than it did.
Debunk this @baerdric
Other studies show that increased grain consumption is the major factor in some of those same studies. They count a burger and fries as meat, when the meat is only 1/10th of the food eaten.
what studies were they @baerdric?
Okay how about these:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/5/1627S.full
https://www.quora.com/What-peer-reviewed-evidence-is-there-that-a-vegan-diet-is-healthy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/
https://authoritynutrition.com/vegan-diet-studies/
I'm not here to refute veganism. It does take transported, processed, and fertilized food to sustain, but that's not the point. The point is that eating meat is not the world destroying murder of otherwise immortal animals who are more valuable than humans.
Here's the real difference. If I want to eat meat, I eat meat. If you don't want to eat meat, you try to stop everyone else from eating meat or call them murderers.
So be a vegan, I don't care. As I said, and everyone seems to ignore, I was a vegetarian for 35 years. Probably more than most of the commenters on this thread. What you don't know is that I worked in co-ops, started a large sprout business, have always grown my own organic fruits and vegetables, and raised my child vegetarian.
Then I learned better.
So do what you want. Just don't call me ignorant, unconscious, a murderer, selfish, or all the other things people have called me on this thread. Or, at least, don't expect me to take those labels from people who can only see one side. My use of locally produced, grass fed, humanely slaughtered meat is not unethical. It reduces cruelty, improves diversity, and heals the land.
I noticed you said you were vegetarian, however, consuming dairy & eggs is still pretty horrific. Sorry for going there but cows are continually raped in order to keep producing milk and their calves are dragged away from them - it's pretty distressing to watch. Once they no longer produce milk it's off to the slaughter house. Chickens aren't treated much better - have you ever seen a conveyer belt of thousands of male baby chicks being dropped into a grinder because they serve no purpose?
It saddens me deeply.
Since we were just bringing up point and facts, you didn't have to make this personal. Now, since you did here goes.
You say you're not here to refute veganism yet you bring up many arguments to do exactly that. Veganism is about bringing rights to animal which ones that are agriculturally produced, don't have. They should be equal or it makes one a bigoted carnist spiciest.
No one said you can't or your not allowed to eat meat. We merely bring up valid reason as why people shouldn't. If i pay a hitman to kill someone and they get caught and rat on the contractor, guess who else is going to jail? That right so the shoe fits. A spade is a spade and will be call so as logic dictates.
We know you don't care. You were vegetarian and turned your back which makes it quite obvious. It's like saying, "I was a pastor for 55 year but then I needed to kill people because i learned better!" Good job! No one cares what you did. I didn't bring up my personal life to try to prove to people that i was a good person before, so i don't see why there was a need to defend oneself except for the fact that someone got butthurt from the other's truthful comments.
Lastly you tell us we to do what we want but, only you can tell us what not to do? Can you please make up your mind? People are going to say exactly what they think and what they think is quite accurate. Exploiting and murdering anything that doesn't want to die is unethical, unless you think it's okay for someone to kill you right now or soon. What do you say? Yeah i thought so! Wait, it can be done by lethal injection because it's less cruel! YAY! So, do everyone a favour and please can you stop with the superiority complex and the attempt to justify your cognitive dissonance already? You state that you've learned after attempting to refute and then ignoring fact and cites that were provided, I would call that de-education but that's my opinion which I am actually 100% entitled too on blockchain social media.
Thank you!
Implying that starvation or death of livestock by predatory carnivores would only hold true if everyone went vegan/vegetarian almost all at the same time. This premise however would not hold true as per the video in the previously reply
@baerdric Western Veganism isn't healthy? What is western Veganism? Why is it not healthy and where are you getting yet another made up fact from? If a plant based diet isn't healthy does that mean you only eat dead animal to get your nutrients?
there are certainly better forms of farming out there, free range etc that greatly reduce the suffering of animals. However, killing is still a sort of suffering that's inescapable
notwithstanding, the 'worst possible form of ranching' is unfortunately the most economically competitive and therefore, by far the most ubiquitous, so it's not an unfair cross sectional point of comparison
Now if we can grow steaks in labs (we're very close) and completely circumvent the moral issue of animal suffering, I'd have no issue whatsoever
@trafalgar freerange? Oh you mean letting 5% of your livestock outside for 2 hours a day whilst the rest hold each other up because they have no room to do anything else. Google freerange and look at the images, it shall explain why animal activists get charged with terrorism if found taking the picture. Tell me then what is greatly reduced?
There are already some substitute meats that are probably already better than the stakes in a lab are going to be for a long time ;)
When we can grow steaks in labs, all the vegans will need to go adopt cows and start cow sanctuaries because why the hell would cows have survived the evolutionary culling if they weren't so damn delicious?
BTW I really like your idea here:
So basically like when someone rich enough to fly around in a private jet giving speeches on how desperately people like I need to stop driving a car big enough to fit groceries in, pays some third-world native to plant trees? You should call them "Vegan Credits" and start an exchange immediately.
Killing is killing. No matter how you do it.
All life is killing. Even herbivores like deer, horses and cows will kill and eat birds, rabbits and mice. Most vertebrates depend upon, or are willing to eat other animals.
It's part of nature.
Even plants will eat animals if they get a chance. In fact, they could not live if animals didn't die on them, rot down into their roots, and return the phosphorous they need to grow and can't get elsewhere.
Killing and dying is not the worst thing. Disrupting the cycle of a biosphere by refusing to kill or die is the worst thing.
...and when you eat fruit, you are promoting life, not taking it :) Become a REAL human: a better human! Humans need not kill, and that is what makes the human species amazing.
@ Finally the heavens have opened up. If you don't want to harm plants because of their feelings then help the plant and eat its fruit!
Sorry, I don't get it. If I refuse to eat a cow which was, supposedly, killed for my benefit, how am I disrupting the cycle of a biosphere?
We removed millions of herd animals off the land, killed their predators, monocropped their land destroying the biome, and ground the grain into flour to replace our natural food sources. And you only see the last 10 days of the disruption? One hamburger more or less makes that all just fine?
We are the apex predator. We displace wolves and sharks. We need to do their job. Those herd animals should be back on their fields. The only non-totalitarian way to get them there is to buy and eat pastured meats.
"We are the apex predator. We displace wolves and sharks. We need to do their job" - Wow. There's doing their job and there's going too far. I think we've done the latter.
Well, we have certainly done their job wrong. Allan Savory's methods are more like this, where wolves changed the habits of prey and caused an ecological recovery.
We are not the apex predator. We are disruptor.
That's the whole point - being with the nature or against the nature. Killing millions of stock animals for food is against the nature.
We are pretending to be better than the nature. We are not!
We are pretending to know and play our role. We are presumptuous. We are vane.
The original sin of the (western) civilization is constant fight against the nature.
Nature doesn't care about us. Give or take several hundred thousand years we will be history. The nature will still be here.
Even if we destroy this planet from human point of view sooner or later the nature will fix itself.
We humans are not the solution. We are the problem!
@baerdric wild animals kill for survival, humans kill for pleasure. Big difference. Humans are opportunistic omnivores. We ate other animals as a survival mechanism. Today we have a choice not to and enjoy the multiple benefits that come with a compassionate plant based lifestyle.
I highly advise you visit a slaughter house to witness first hand who is disrupting what.
Which humans kill for pleasure? Less than 1%. Most kill for food. I suggest you visit some developing nations to learn what humans really do outside of the corporate brainwashing of the Megafarms who want you to eat food that is cheaper to make, more profitable to sell, easier to store and transport, causes diseases they can treat but not cure, and domesticates the populace with estrogeniods.
@baerdric even Vegans will eat animals if there were no plants! But thankfully we don't need to, we live in a world in which we can grow our own food like myself with just water in over 85 pots. Or one can buy from the supermarket. As for animals needing to die in order forplants to grow on that soil...This spring as I was driving from Vegas to LA, we had had so much rain that I'm pretty sure I sure grass growing all over the dessert...in between the other plants that is. I was shocked to be honest, and I still dont know how it's possible. I mean it was green grass and a lot of it!
Learn about the phosphorus cycle and get back to me.
Not really sure it has any significance, 91% of the Amazon has been chopped down for animal agriculture because people like have decided they like a flavour! My childs existence has been put at risk because of ignorant people like yourself who don't educate themselves! We are as individuals responsible. No government forces meat down the necks of humans. Each and every person is responsible for their actions. Only problem is, my family has to live with the consequences of your need to murder. Then when we say anything we're labeled as a cult or whackos. We are somehow the nutters for wanting to save the earth! Can you understand where I'm coming from? Eating meat is not needed and there is no such way of humane killing. To kill is to kill end of story. That's the issue though with the majority of all you sheep. You search for excuses and ways to get around things. Open your eyes, accept that your local farmer fantasy shall never be a reality! They don't kill 58 billion animals for fun, they do it for profit! There isnt even enough space for 58 billion animals to be grazing in the fields. It's only you that would somehow feel better if you could say, ah me, I only buy local grass fed beef that the farmer has massaged daily and put humanely to rest. It's a fantasy because you would like to be a nice person but fact is, you participate in mass destruction. Again we are responsible, me and you! Please wake up.
I understand what you are saying. I understood long ago. You're just wrong.
Here's the thing. I am well educated on both sides of the issue, you barely understand one side and get most of that wrong.
You dont need to be educated, but still I'm happy for you. Start by sending facts. Links to organisations that are not sponsored by the meat industry. And please calculate the current demand of 58 billion. Not your fantasy of my local farmer. Where are you putting 58 billion animals. Also explain why it's fine to murder 58 billion animals. I'm deeply interested to understand how you think because for me it's mind boggling how you view the opposite when 92% of just the amazon has gone. Im not mentioning usa. I'm haven't even mentioned the top 12 causes of death in the USA. So explain, maybe write your own post and I'll vote it up for your time and effort.
I totally agree with you!
BTW, I was vegetarian for 30 years before I learned better.
I support. Better to improve the lives of those animals that live on farms. Anyway, no one will be able to translate all people into vegetarianism.
Western vegetarianism requires supplementation for good health. You can see in these comments that the recommendation is for highly processed, expensive and non-local products. That's not as ethical as carnivorism, which almost all vertebrate animals either depend upon or will partake in.
You do realise that farmed animals are supplemented? Meat eaters take supplements along with growth hormones and antibiotics with their meat. Omnivores automatically assume their diet doesn't need to be supplemented without doing any blood tests. However no diet is healthy without proper planning and a lot of omnivores are lacking in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants only found in plants.
I probably realised that 30 years before you did. Clearly you haven't read my comments. Come back when you have.
I have asked myself this question many times. I think it is probably not ethical to eat meat. This is why I have been mostly vegetarian last few years. But some friends keep telling me that plants can also feel fear of some sort, so I'm no longer sure... Maybe it is not possible to go through life without inflicting harm on something???
:(
All we can do is minimize the pain. Shooting a cow in the head after a decent life is much better than they get in the wild. After that it's just food. Better food than soy loaf or processed grains.
But that doesn't mean we should try to avoid inflicting unnecessary harm.
That's the gist of it. Though I'd say it encourages one to appreciate the sacrifices a little bit more.
But the leather from dead animals can be reused for nice bags ;-)
some other truly point of view fertilizer from animals
gives the soil nutrition to flourish naturely far better
than Monsanto poisen !
thanx for this post :)
You might want read this
You Can't Be Vegetarian
Billions of mice (sentient life) every year are poisoned for mass agriculture purposes.
We do have lab grown meat now. I am all for it.
I get the idea that artificial meat doesn't kill an animal. But putting more of our food production into the hands of Industrial Chemical companies like Monsanto doesn't seem to be the best idea.
The problem is that people think if we don't eat meat, animals won't die. Yay! Instant immortality!
lol. exactly. emotional arguments.
Eat only fruits, berries and melons for a healthy lymphatic system! You will feel wonderful once your kidneys are actually draining. You have no ideas... Clean your system and enjoy your a healing body!
No
@baerdric u have explained it so nicely .. eating beef is human what is so inhuman about it .animals are made to be slaughtered for meat and afterall they are of the bigest sources of meat although...
I wanted to reply to this, but baerdic wrote an excellent reply which I agree with. Well done!
@baerdric I notice you use the sentence 'be slaughtered humanely'. Is it ok for me to kill your dogs, cats and children, humanely? I can just imagine in a court of law saying, but judge I killed her humanely!
@baerdric 56 BILLION farm animals are killed each year, how many have you seen grazing in the grass this morning, lol. Give me the google location of these pasture fed cows so can count the millions, sorry billions.
@baerdric 'rending predation', we're killing about 56 Billion, and you're worried if we stopped killing them that predation might occur.
Please show me the factual information that claims 1 salad kills 24 birds, 24 mice and 24 insects? I have no idea where your salad is coming from, but I would change supermarkets! Whilst we're on the subject are these air fed cows you're eating a 2000th of? Do these cows you consume eat and drink water? Do you know how much that tiny tiny 2000th of that good for nothing cow needs to be a 2000th? Because I do.
@baerdric Have you ever driven past an animal farm, do you know what a hundred thousand grass fed animals smell like? Because I do. I can also assure you, if you really knew then you wouldn't eat meat in the first place.
You pay for an animal to be killed because you like the flavour and your too weak to kill an animal yourself.
And out of interest what torture do you stop? Death equals death last time I checked!
I own some black people, but i own them humanely u know. I own less black people than the average white person. I feel better :)
You're so ethical. I'm currently doing the No Rape Mondays challenge. It's hard but I worth it because I want to appear like I care, when I don't give a crap.
i will try this next year, thx !
Its hard to live or survive without causing damage. A vegetarian diet is probably less destructive. Old habits die hard, though, because society in general always leads us towards eating meat, poultry, fish, and so on.
I was not aware of this form of logic :D
What an intellectually dishonest, "narcissistic", semi obvious comment, cows poo on the ground around other plantationed animals. Did you not subjectively state, "Pasture animals are not tortured, return carbon to the soil and improve diversity, and can be slaughtered humanely - whereas in nature they die of starvation, or fearful, violent, rending predation."? Do you think this is being COMPLETELY honest with yourself? Please try coming from a compassionate space for sentient LIFE(has emotions, wants to go on living), Please enlighten how murdering(involuntarily taking another life) can in any "unwarped way" be remotely considered "humane"? Or is "what is going on here", massive cognitive dissonance(lying to yourself) to rationalize needlessly torturing, murdering and then consuming animal flesh? Why, for taste pleasure? Imagine you do not consider yourself a sadistic soul that takes taste pleasure over a sentient life. Perhaps something to reflect on.
Yeah, I remember when I said things like that 45 years ago. Wow, religions never change. I won't try to convince you, I just feel it's important to inform you.
"Religions never change" you say. Have little idea what you mean, SATANISM? Which religious practice are you referring? When did murder of innocents become moral for you?
When insults and accusations replace reason and facts, the conversation is over. Goodbye.
Believe I chose my words carefully. I comment how your comment was interpreted, not you personally as a pipe smoking bachelor. It was a sharp critique of ideas to spark conversation, why so sensitive? Please awaken
I re-read my initial comment again. Are there not several ethical questions your "drama(playing the victim) is avoiding addressing? Truth is, I might be miss punctuation somewhere I’m not seeing. I have been quoted by numerous folks as writing quite cryptic/esoteric. I do not apologize my comments are treated as personal character attacks, I write and rewrite with the intentions to criticize words and ideas: NOT individuals, especially not the brotherhood. Is there not already enough unsolicited "mud slinging"? But please don't run! Please re-read my initial comment. If you still feel I was personally attacking you as a man, I will apologize sincerely brother. If however this is not the case, as a man, how might I word different not to "trigger" individuals such as yourself?
I enjoyed your style of writing. It held my attention. It was delightful as well as factual. I was not surprised to that you were in not vegan at end. Keep up the good work.
I've worked on farms and saying that the best possible farm practices are representative of the meat industry as a whole is unfair, given that these farms produce hardly any of the meat consumed. Your argument about salad is illogical, one cow eats 26lbs of "salad" a day. 90 million acres of land in the US is devoted to corn all machine harvested, with most of the crop going to livestock feed. 70% of the deforested land in Brazil is used for pasture and livestock feed is grown on much of the rest. You're criticizing vegans for eating salad while ignoring all the food that cows need to grow to adulthood.... thats whack. Nice cognitive dissonance you got there.
I did not say they were representative.
Cows raised in pastures eat plant life that we cannot eat, and should not destroy. Feeding cows soy and corn wastes 90% of that cropland. If those lands were returned to pasturage we could grow (judging by the bison that lived on that land before, and by the measured return in the recent pastured grass fed beef studies) TWICE as much beef without reducing the acreage reserved for human vegetables. Never mind all the problems soy and corn cause, which need to be treated with antibiotics and other drugs.
I understand your point of view, having lived it for 30 years, but the new science disputes your position.
Wow so ignorant, are you seriously using pre-colonial america levels of bison as your reference? I dont even... your "new science" is bollocks, the stats are all there you just need to open your eyes. you're using a Utopian vision of all grass fed to argue against the hard reality. Believe lies if it helps you sleep at night and have fun eating corpses just dont try to tell me youre doing the moral thing or I'm gonna call BS.
OK dude, don't try to understand. I get that it bothers you. Goodbye, have fun.
Many consumers have yet to see that collectively they are powerful enough to shape markets and the way foods are produced. But human nature would likely forget ethics and animal suffering for a bargain. It doesn't help when meat sold through supermarkets are so disemboweled and indistinguishable from the animal it's hard to imagine the animal and the processes involved in producing meat. If anyone had to look an animal in the eye and kill for their own meat, a lot less people would eat it. Nobody wants to do the dirty job. Only the pleasures of food.
So throughout most of human history, when people had to slaughter their own meats, nobody did it?
I've killed to eat, but I also don't mind paying someone to do that job. Just because you were raised squeamish doesn't mean humans won't relearn their habits almost immediately.
Completely agree I was raised in Mexico and always had organic food available through my childhood. We ate what we harvested and the animals we raised. Now fast forward 20 years and it's very difficult to find true organic food since most farmers gave up since the big corporations brought them to bankruptcy!
#baerdric: "Pasture animals are not tortured, return carbon to the soil and improve diversity, and can be slaughtered humanely" Can be slaughtered humanely - Wake up man there is no such thing as a humanely slaughtering. Animals experience fear and pain as well and they are horrified when slaughtered, plus they deserve better don`t you think? It is one thing if they die in nature, but it is a totally different story if they are raised just for the sake of being slaughtered and eaten when they are grown up.
So you prefer to be starved by old age, chased across the fields, torn down by a pack of wolves and torn open and eaten while still alive? As compared to a bullet in the brain after a long healthy life?
LOL - I have nothing to add.
All the animals we eat would not be raised if they had no purpose
This animals would have no space in a world of vegetarians
because we would need the land to grow our plants on
Yes, I agree - they would not be raised AND they would not be killed.
There would be fewer animals and they would not have to live such horrible lives in the first place. You seem to have no idea how those animals, most of them, live - for examples chicken: they are raised in cages, never see grass in their whole lives yet alone have any kind of freedom. They can barely move in their cages... That is just one example. Go to youtube and google and find out what
s really going on. Dont put the blinders on! I know it is much easier - we are used to things, we are raised and made to believe certain things are just they way they are and they have to be that way - nope they don`t. We have a free choice - everyday. It is our responsibility to make informed desissions which benefit all living creatures not just our short term satisfaction.Good talk
I've never been 100% comfortable with eating meat for many of the reasons which you suggest. Suffering is suffering.
producing grain also involves animal suffering. a lot.
yes definitely
I mean I can sort of understand that one may argue that very basic lifeforms, say oysters, are incapable of suffering as much as a human being.
but most of the factory farmed animals are as advanced as our pet dogs and cats, torturing and killing 100 billion a year for the sole purpose of satisfying our tastes is difficult to defend
I've felt for a while now once synthetic meat is both cheaper and higher quality than what we currently consume, most of humanity will suddenly grow a conscience and future generations will look back at us as barbaric. Until that time though, we'll continue slaughtering animals in horrible ways without remorse :P
We ate meat and that's why our brains evolved. Factory farming is terrible of course but I think all of nature feeds on itself (lions hunting gazelle or whatever) and humans are part of nature. Plus, bacon!
True. I just can't wait for synthetic meat. When I talk to others about this, they say that's gross or unappetizing, but it's just meat lol - I think if anything it's more gross to eat meat that was attached to a suffering animal than grown using scientific means. Synthetic meat has the potential to be tastier and cheaper, and that's mainly what will normalize it for people.
Yes but at least these animals fight for it. We humans, in turn, just have animals caged up for slaughter, pretty much negating any chance of them ever surviving. A gazelle may still be able to escape a lion if it reacts fast enough or something.
True.
Yes, people have both a brain and a stomach - from a predator. Like a bear.
The problem is, these animals living artificial lives suffer more than their counterparts living in nature. And it can be measured by the level of stress, hormones, inflammation levels, diseases, nutritional deficiencies. It is almost a torture to them.
Pigs in the wild can become insanely vicious. Ever heard of HOG WILD? Why not humanely kill them and make bacon?
Also lions rape and kill cubs that aren't their. They aren't a good measure for what is moral or not.
Primate brains may have grown larger and more complex thanks to a fruit-filled diet, a new study suggests.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/27/521423216/what-gave-some-primates-bigger-brains-a-fruit-filled-diet
That article is interesting. The reason they have bigger brains is because it's harder to find fruit. It also said that meat eaters had bigger brains than leaf eaters. That's enough for me!
Your conclusions aren't based on the article or you miss read that article.
When chimps start grilling let me know, maybe then this comparison will be relevant.
If this was the case then why aren't lions and tigers doing calculus, building their own houses and altering their environment. See how stupid that sounds?
Let me know when you find lions and tigers with a hibachi grilling up antelope. -1 reading comprehension, +1 fanaticism.
Maybe if we stop being barbaric there will not be any future generations?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating being cruel to animals or anything, but pure might helped create society as it is. It is a good idea to be as fair and as ethical as possible, but lets not forget that survival is still a thing.
I'm not judging, don't get me wrong. I'm a bit of a nihilist myself. I'm just saying I think future generations will see us as barbaric for taking part. Humans are very good at justifying things, and generations that follow are very good at judging them for it :P. Just the way it is
It is moral to have a measure of what we do. What is happening today is above every measure and it is unethical. Its not what the ordinary people do but mostly what the big companies do to have profit.
I totally agree!
Very convincing.. I can not convert all of sudden but I can choose not to be. I'll try to reduce my dosage of meat intake.
One thing nice about your post, you wrapped up the conclusion in very compact which created impact.
Great thoughts @trafalgar
thanks a lot chandu :)
I love that you tackle topics like this. You've got a great sense of humor. The issue is so complicated when you mix the treatment of the animals with the potential environmental effects from methane gas. But yeah, it's hard as hell to reconcile all of the reasons not to eat meat, with just how delicious bacon is!
Unfortunately human nature need to be fixed, we are killers.
It's not only animals, we are killing and torturing humans today as we done forever before.
We kill for money, love, profits, culture and religious difference, indirectly when we vote for crazy people or let government go to war...
The problem is deeper than vegetarism, we should find a way to respect what and who surround us.
Yes we can't be perfect. Is it a reason to do nothing? where do we arrive to be perfect?
Look like we do a lot of things in life where we don't care to achieve perfection.
Monkey see monkey do
Probably what SS were thinking when they obey to oder.
Think by yourself, don't do what you would not like to surfer, each person is proportionally responsible to humanity condition.
Thanks for the info, unfortunately I love meat too much to ever give it up!
I agree keeping or killing animals in an inhuman way is wrong, my meat comes from local organic free range farms, the animals are cared for properly and there is hardly any CO2 food miles on the meat. Its the same for most of our vegetables and fruit.
But being a vegan, well its not quite so virtuous as it first seems, at least not unless you are extremely careful... eat avocados or lettuce, they take huge amounts of water to cultivate and are often shipped on long distances using up lots of CO2. Sugar is also terrible, pushing ecoststems to the brink through over farming, and soy is linked to groundwater contamination and deforestation of the Amazon.
The point is, there is no single 'lifestyle' that fixes all the problems, you have to care enough to know how your food is produced and where it comes from.
Im personally looking forwards to the implemenatation of block-chain in making this knowable, a company in the UK Provenance are trying to make products including foods have a fully traceable history through block-chain. I also met some guys who invented hardware to track where fishing vessels were to ensure catches were within compliance, so you could then track the catches.
Block-chains will be huge in supply chain, and will tap into customer demand for more informed choices, so stay vegan, but make sure you are the best vegan you can be ;)
EDIT: Upvoted myself here because I feel Im providing some factual information that people may not see if its buried at the bottom of the posts. No hubris intended.
On the average vegan diet produce a lot less pollution than omnivorous diet.
Omnivorous diets on the whole are a bigger problem in regard to world pollution.
I completely agree that free range farming is far superior
nice info, upvoted