Feel bad about them, don't hurt them

[WildCat]

Whether or not anyone likes it, people have eaten meat in the past and will continue to eat meat as long as it's available. I think easing the suffering of live animals being harvested for food is a noble effort, but that still doesn't change the final outcome. There's still a market revolving around it with big money and it's going to continue to happen regardless of anyone's moral beliefs. Never mind those pesky insects, which I think nearly everyone here at least once has inadvertently slaughtered. Have they gotten any love lately?

I don't know enough or pretend to know enough about vegetarianism to go into depth about that, but I do know that definitely is not a wise idea for your furry friends. We as omnivorous humans have that choice fortunately, right along with that crud on the floor we put in our mouths as babies. People get judged for it, sure, but what doesn't get scrutinized these days? If you want to poke holes in it, at least accept that it's not always going to go over well with others. As for the rest of nature, the choice has already been laid out for them.

 

[oregano]

The main problem I have with meat is the horrifying conditions in which meat animals are raised and slaughtered, ie "factory farming". Chickens are shoved into barns where they can barely move, and then they are stuffed into plastic cages, taken by truck to slaughter, then chopped up en masse in filthy conditions by illegal immigrants who eventually suffer horrible repetitive stress injuries that permanently disable them, and all the compensation they get is a free bus ticket back to Guatemala. Other animals are raised and killed in similar ways.

One big reason I will eventually become a hermit living off the land is to give proper respect and treatment to the food I handle and eat. A chicken needs 3 sqft per hen to live comfortably, for example. As for veganism, it's a false sense of security since plants in the supermarket get their "nutrients" mostly from petroleum based fertilizers.

The filth and blood of slaughterhouses is the worst part of meat factories, imo. Humans were made to eat meat, but we had to hunt for it. The slaughter of meat animals has always been strictly regulated in most human civilizations, how to kill and butcher and distribute it is governed by very stringent rules.

Middle Eastern cultures have for millenia considered the handling of meat to be almost religious, with shamans overseeing it. Vestiges of this can be seen in modern Judaism, where specially trained "schochet" rabbis oversee the killing of animals. The only way to eat properly is to handle the process yourself imo. The Paleo Diet people are moving towards humane treatment of meat animals.

 

[asperagus]

Whether or not anyone likes it, people have eaten meat in the past and will continue to eat meat as long as it's available. I think easing the suffering of live animals being harvested for food is a noble effort, but that still doesn't change the final outcome. There's still a market revolving around it with big money and it's going to continue to happen regardless of anyone's moral beliefs. Never mind those pesky insects, which I think nearly everyone here at least once has inadvertently slaughtered. Have they gotten any love lately?

I don't know enough or pretend to know enough about vegetarianism to go into depth about that, but I do know that definitely is not a wise idea for your furry friends. We as omnivorous humans have that choice fortunately, right along with that crud on the floor we put in our mouths as babies. People get judged for it, sure, but what doesn't get scrutinized these days? If you want to poke holes in it, at least accept that it's not always going to go over well with others. As for the rest of nature, the choice has already been laid out for them.

I agree with most of this.

Wanted to bring up the agriculture argument many use suggesting to cut out the middle man (the livestock, which are fed with crops) and instead feed humans with those crops. The issue is the vast majority of those crops are unfit for human consumption, based on my understanding. Converting those fields to produce crops to feed humans is not feasible with current technology.

Perhaps one day we'll be able to reduce meat consumption. Maybe shifts in the environment may push us to that for survival. The future is unknown. But for now, we might as well enjoy meat.

 

[Aspychata]

I agree with most of this.

Wanted to bring up the agriculture argument many use suggesting to cut out the middle man (the livestock, which are fed with crops) and instead feed humans with those crops. The issue is the vast majority of those crops are unfit for human consumption, based on my understanding. Converting those fields to produce crops to feed humans is not feasible with current technology.

Perhaps one day we'll be able to reduce meat consumption. Maybe shifts in the environment may push us to that for survival. The future is unknown. But for now, we might as well enjoy meat.

Again, l am not putting down meat eaters, just asking we substitute one nite a week noodles, beans,eggs, tofu, breadfruit *meat* or even a healthy salad with nuts and cheese.

 

[asperagus]

Again, l am not putting down meat eaters, just asking we substitute one nite a week noodles, beans,eggs, tofu, breadfruit *meat* or even a healthy salad with nuts and cheese.

For a healthy diet, sure. I do have meatless days every so often. It's not deliberate, but some days I just end up working down a meatless dish.

But as a means of lessening footprint regarding animal consumption, I don't think we're anywhere near that. Agricultural technology would practically need a revolution to get us anywhere close to that vegetarian Utopia.

 

[oregano]

During World War 2, the federal ration board enforced a rule that people had to have "meatless days" two, maybe three times a week. The day I remember reading about was "Meat Free Friday". No meat could be sold on meatless days, and butcher shops had to close. People could not buy extra meat the day before to ensure that they ate no meat the next day. The point was to free up meat for military rations. Also, people were encouraged to grow "victory gardens" to free up produce for military consumption.

I personally have been thinking of a national mandatory ration system similar to the WW2 system as a good way to limit consumption and reduce the pressure on the environment. The problem is that Americans today think they have a right to shop and overconsume. Any concerted attempt to end the shop-til-you-drop mentality by the govt could result in riots.

 

[Loren]

Like you, I adore cows. I love this photo, thus, thought I'd share with you

 

[oregano]

If you want cool pix of cows, check out rangemagazine.com. Range is a magazine catering to cattle ranchers in the USA "Intermountain West" and northern prairies ("Midwest"). Their commentary is very skewed towards the "eat as much red meat as you possibly can!" line, but the only dead cow pix they have are ones killed by wolves. The rest of their cow pix are very cool, sometimes they have paintings showing cows too. One of my favorites is a little bull calf who wandered a short distance from the herd during a cattle drive and got stuck in a creek, and a cowboy is getting ready to lasso the calf out of the creek to get him back with the herd.

 

[OrdinaryCitizen]

This is stupid, and if cows were chocolate , l may think differently.

But l feel bad about cows being killed for meat, and used for leather. l don't eat pork either. Does anyone else deal with this? l try to save animals: one duck, one baby bird, turtle , three cats, one dog, ( my record currently). Sadly, unable to save a second turtle in my lifetime.

What a paradox a fellow aspie helped to invent cow killing machine scroll video to 2m 20s

Edit: Well on other hand after seeing the trailer to this movie it seems like she actually make them suffer less because int he past slaughtering animals was more brutal.

 

[onlything]

What a paradox a fellow aspie helped to invent cow killing machine scroll video to 2m 20s

Edit: Well on other hand after seeing the trailer to this movie it seems like she actually make them suffer less because int he past slaughtering animals was more brutal.

She was quite an activist. Some consider her as the one that upstarted the movement towards more humane treatment of cattle in slaughterhouses and she kept working on that and many other issues long after her initial design.

 

[Aspychata]

Like you, I adore cows. I love this photo, thus, thought I'd share with you

View attachment 58509

That cow has little brown eyebrows on the forehead. l love their docile nature. Thank you for posting that picture.

I am seen as slighty off because l even talk to the lizard family outside my door. They are extremely curious. One time l thought it was a lizard pile up on the sidewalk. It was a family sunning themselves belly up laying on each other. Too cute. We must be extremely sensitive to animals being on the spectrum.

 

[DuckRabbit]

"Everyone has the right to live their life how they want."

Including cows, pigs, and chickens? What sort of argument do you think they would make re: being free to live their lives as nature intended?

"Everyone has the right to live their life how they want." - How does this apply to humans and not equally to animals? How are people able to discount the animal's perspective and the animal's rights? This is how ego-centric, human-centric conversations usually go:

"What do you think about the fox-hunting ban?"
"I'm against it."
"Why?"
"Well, it encroaches on people's freedom."
"What about the fox's freedom?"
"Huh?" - an unheard-of concept.

Imagine if this were one racial group talking about another. Totally one-sided.

If you have enough empathy to see things from the animal's perspective, you can never unsee it. Eating them then becomes as unconscionable as cannibalism. This is a view which has expanded beyond human species-specific interests to consider the interests of all species - a more Earth-centric perspective.

This sort of human 'racism' (species-ism) against animals is also likely due to the unexamined human assumption that animals are lesser - an assumption which people don't WANT to examine because it would make them too uncomfortable; they'd have to question themselves and change their ways - if the full implications of what they were doing were admitted to their conscious awareness.

To quote a fellow vegan: If a powerful alien species came here and said, “We want to eat you guys. We’re more intelligent than you, more powerful, and we have the ability to force you to submit. So we have the right and even the obligation to eat you and experiment on you and hunt you for sport, etc.” Would people say, “Yep, fair enough. They’re smarter. That’s all that matters. It’s their choice to eat us. And they’ve been eating humans on other planets for thousands of years, so it’s definitely okay for that reason alone. Right, which way to the factory farm? I’ll be first in line.”

I don't believe humans are smarter than animals. Animals are the ones who are able to live in harmony with their ecosystems if left to their own devices; it's humans that wreck the ecological balance, endangering the planet, cutting their noses to spite their own faces. We need to be more intelligent about using our so-called intelligence.

 

[Bolletje]

I eat meat. However, it’s not a required part of a meal for me and I don’t eat it every day. I’m a huge fan of eggplant, cauliflower, mushrooms and lentils, which are great on their own without meat. I like the challenge of recreating my favorite dishes without meat. I don’t use recipes, I want to figure it out by myself.
I managed to make a very tasty alternative for ground beef with finely chopped onion, celery, carrot and whole lentils, which was a victory for me. I often use it for pasta or casseroles.
Also, boyfriend and me like experimenting with different ingredients to make veggie burgers. Our best one till date was made with pointed cabbage, it had a great bite to it.

Most of my favorite comfort soups are vegetarian and/or vegan. I always have a large supply of legumes and fresh and frozen vegetables around the house so I can whip up a healthy meal when I feel like it.

 

[oregano]

@DuckRabbit, yes I am aware that animals also have feelings and emotions. However, there's something called "the food chain" where more powerful animals kill/eat less powerful animals. Do you think the owl considers how the mouse he's hunting feels about being swallowed whole and digested alive? Does the spider consider how the fly feels being literally turned into mush and drank by the spider?

The thing is, on this planet there are predators and there are prey. The predators eat their prey in sometimes horrible ways. I doubt that the prey likes being consigned to a short life of eluding predators only to be eaten in the end anyway. The predators really don't care about the feelings of their prey-the prey exists to be eaten by the predators, that's just the way it is.

Humans have been trying to rewrite the laws of nature since the mid 60s, trying to erase gender and natural ways of eating, for starters. Humans have failed at all such attempts, and will keep failing, since the laws of nature are part of the existence of the planet. Some have advocated for destroying most of the planet by nukes in order to erase the laws of existence, but that would fail too. Sorry.

 

[DuckRabbit]

@DuckRabbit, yes I am aware that animals also have feelings and emotions. However, there's something called "the food chain" where more powerful animals kill/eat less powerful animals. Do you think the owl considers how the mouse he's hunting feels about being swallowed whole and digested alive? Does the spider consider how the fly feels being literally turned into mush and drank by the spider?

The thing is, on this planet there are predators and there are prey. The predators eat their prey in sometimes horrible ways. I doubt that the prey likes being consigned to a short life of eluding predators only to be eaten in the end anyway. The predators really don't care about the feelings of their prey-the prey exists to be eaten by the predators, that's just the way it is.

Humans have been trying to rewrite the laws of nature since the mid 60s, trying to erase gender and natural ways of eating, for starters. Humans have failed at all such attempts, and will keep failing, since the laws of nature are part of the existence of the planet. Some have advocated for destroying most of the planet by nukes in order to erase the laws of existence, but that would fail too. Sorry.

It was once "the law of nature" that a third of women died in childbirth; it was once "the law of nature" that people died of countless plagues, diseases, tumours, infections, injuries and premature births. Technology has altered "the law of nature" so that we can now save lives and live for many more years, decades than "nature" intended.

Invoking "the law of nature" to justify this or that is like when people cherrypick from the bible to justify this or that. The fact remains that technology has freed us up considerably from many "laws of nature".

Your argument reminds me of the religious man who caught a ride in a taxi but asked the taxi driver to switch off the radio, explaining that he must not hear music because in the time of his prophet, there was no music. The taxi driver turned off the radio, stopped the car and asked the passenger to get out. Stunned, the passenger asked why. The driver replied that in the time of his prophet, there were no taxis either. Would you turn down life-saving medication or surgery because it's against "the law of nature"?

It seems that when it suits us we're the same as animals (we're predators, at the mercy of our instincts) and when it suits us, we're higher than them (on top of evolutionary pyramid and therefore justified in killing them for our palates and stomachs or because our forebears did). Everything in humans' favour - just as in the days when everything were in men's favour, and women and children were their property; or when everything was in the slave-owner's favour, and slaves were their property. I still believe we will one day look back upon our abuse of animals for food with embarrassment. We now have the technology and the brains to make tasty food of endless variety that does not entail animal suffering.

@Fino's comment hits the nail on the head: "Any argument involving evolution or what we're "naturally," inclined to do as a species or within the food chain is laughable. Look around you, look at the society we live in. Our evolutionary instincts are irrelevant; it's a debased argument to do whatever you find easiest to do. The only thing to do as a supporter of meat-eating is to admit it's because you want to, and that's it. There is no other justification. It's all self-soothing lies. And that's okay. I understand. But the rationalizations are a joke." *Brilliant, pithy overview of the debate*

Perhaps the biggest step forward we can hope for among the committed animal-eaters is that they will distinguish between a rationalisation and a rational reason.

I can't get past the fact that animals have feelings and emotions. That's all I need to know. No "But", no "However". To me, that silences all debate.

 

[Debrah]

I believe whatever created humans made us to be both meat eaters and vegetable consumers.
Had we continued being hunter gatherers, I don't know which species would have declined in populace,
humans or animals.
Probably animals since humans have a history of rapid need to reproduce.

Maybe in the next world we won't need to eat anything?

Our entire physiology, from tooth design to jaw strength, including the type of digestive acids and design of our digestive system, including its extreme length, points only to plants as our correct food.

Those tiny little canines of ours are used for stripping fruits off tough skins, etc., but there is no way that we could use them to rip out an animals throat. Our hands don't have claws and we aren't faster than any prey. We've learned because of circumstances that humans have found themselves in, to include small amounts of meat to avoid starvation, but our physiology is built for plants alone. A carnivore makes their own Vitamin C but we can't, we need to eat it from our fruit and veggie diet.

Even the Bible recognizes this fact (despite the sacrifices), when God gives His newly created man and woman directions on what is there for them to eat. He says they can eat every herb bearing seed, Genesis 1:29,30. Interesting discussion by the way.

 

[Aspychata]

"Everyone has the right to live their life how they want."


"Everyone has the right to live their life how they want." - How does this apply to humans and not equally to animals? How are people able to discount the animal's perspective and the animal's rights? This is how ego-centric, human-centric conversations usually go:

"What do you think about the fox-hunting ban?"
"I'm against it."
"Why?"
"Well, it encroaches on people's freedom."
"What about the fox's freedom?"
"Huh?" - an unheard-of concept.

Imagine if this were one racial group talking about another. Totally one-sided.

If you have enough empathy to see things from the animal's perspective, you can never unsee it. Eating them then becomes as unconscionable as cannibalism. This is a view which has expanded beyond human species-specific interests to consider the interests of all species - a more Earth-centric perspective.

This sort of human 'racism' (species-ism) against animals is also likely due to the unexamined human assumption that animals are lesser - an assumption which people don't WANT to examine because it would make them too uncomfortable; they'd have to question themselves and change their ways - if the full implications of what they were doing were admitted to their conscious awareness.

To quote a fellow vegan: If a powerful alien species came here and said, “We want to eat you guys. We’re more intelligent than you, more powerful, and we have the ability to force you to submit. So we have the right and even the obligation to eat you and experiment on you and hunt you for sport, etc.” Would people say, “Yep, fair enough. They’re smarter. That’s all that matters. It’s their choice to eat us. And they’ve been eating humans on other planets for thousands of years, so it’s definitely okay for that reason alone. Right, which way to the factory farm? I’ll be first in line.”

I don't believe humans are smarter than animals. Animals are the ones who are able to live in harmony with their ecosystems if left to their own devices; it's humans that wreck the ecological balance, endangering the planet, cutting their noses to spite their own faces. We need to be more intelligent about using our so-called intelligence.

I want to write a movie now documenting the alien's landing with Webber grills and IQ tests, whoever flunks walks the plank.

 

[Aspychata]

Many Buddhists practice vegetarianism as a means of cultivating compassion, and reflect on how the suffering and death of sentient beings contribute to our comfort. This may help us be less inclined to consume out of mere greed.

Eating meat encourages an industry that causes cruelty and death to millions of animals, so by not eating meat, we migate some of that suffering.

 

[oregano]

@Debrah, if humans were strictly herbivores we would have larger and more complicated intestines for the harder to digest cell structures of green plants. Cows and sheep, for example, have far more complex digestive systems than we do, such as the "cud chewing" structure of cows where partially digested plant matter is regurgitated to be chewed more thoroughly in order to be fully digested.

Also, humans seem to have a natural aversion to the taste of chlorophyll bearing plants (green veggies) which indicates that the eating of them came about rather recently for us. We DO seem to be drawn towards fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds, although with seeds our digestive systems seem to have trouble fully breaking them down.

The Paleo Diet apologists believe that humans are meant to eat meat, but only COOKED meat, meat that has been removed from the bones of the prey animal and roasted over a fire to make it easier to chew and digest. The first indications of man using fire for meat preparation pop up about 1.5 million years BP, long enough for our bodies to adapt to such a diet. I will note again the rituals surrounding the preparation and eating of meat in nearly every human culture, rituals that are virtually nonexistent with plants. The universality of such rituals is what gave birth to the Paleo Diet movement in the 70s.

@Aspychata again notes the cruelty of factory farming of animals, but for most of known human history meat animals were treated far better, since the animal raiser also tended to be the eater, and if not him then his fellows, so he wanted to make sure the animals were treated well to avoid sickness/death in him and/or his buddies. The cruelty comes as a result of the need to apply the principles of Taylorism (industrial regimentation using mathematics) to animals that are not machines.

 

[Bolletje]

It was once "the law of nature" that a third of women died in childbirth; it was once "the law of nature" that people died of countless plagues, diseases, tumours, infections, injuries and premature births. Technology has altered "the law of nature" so that we can now save lives and live for many more years, decades than "nature" intended.

I’m super glad science allows me to interfere with the law of nature these days. Otherwise I’d just be giving people laudanum until they died.