Augh, all you people talking about soda... makes me sad. I remember when I didn't have to worry at all about how many calories I consumed... *sigh*. Now I'm a vegetarian/partial vegan who never snacks and I STILL have a bit of excess chub.
But.... they murder each other too! We merely do it to animals who know it's going to happen and on a larger scale! If anything domesticated animals have already accepted their deaths!
Totally effing serious. If our livestock learns how to communicate with us and is pissed then we should stop, but until then: mm organic free range chicken. Delicious.
Well, I guess at the root of it all is your personal definition on how strong the line between human and non-human is. Obviously you wouldn't be okay with killing and eating another human's flesh just because they couldn't communicate with you. If, however, you believe that 'they're just animals' and so don't warrant compassion, then I guess it won't be a big deal.
But I don't think that their not being able to say "please don't kill me, sir" is justification for doing all sorts of nasty things to them just so we can have as much meat and eggs as we want. After all, neither free-range NOR organic has much of an impact on the suffering of the animals. Free-range and cage-free chickens are still debeaked at an early age and are still force-molted by starvation to produce more eggs, not to mention the fact that the little baby chicks get inspected en masse on conveyor belts and males are chucked into huge bins where they are crushed and often ground up alive. I think there's really no way to have meat and eggs at every grocery store freely available without being cruel to the animals.
And I think it's one thing to actually kill a wild animal yourself, skin it, and cook it for food. It's another to go down to the store and pick up some chicken breast. I imagine that anyone who slaughters an animal could tell you that there's some communication going on as they're killed, whether through screaming, flapping around, or whatever.
So yes, meat is very delicious. But I don't think it's worth it when the price of that deliciousness is so SO much suffering, especially when there's so many great things you can make without meat. Perhaps I'm a hippie, but I don't think that just because animals are a different species than us or are lower in intelligence that we shouldn't be concerned about their quality of life.
I think many animals are aware enough to be considered people, but even so I won't stop eating them. I've always eaten them and I don't see a reason to stop.
I mean, isn't the only reason to not be cannibalistic because it's frowned on? If it were normal for there to be a short supply of food than I'm sure we would eat our dead (if they were safe) and it would be completely within reason. You eat what you have is what I think, and we have a huge population of delicious domesticated animals.
Jon: Yeah, that's something else that makes me sad. But I think we should try to avoid that too. I think that fact requires taking a larger look at how we live our lives and deal with space. None of this is easy, but I don't think that by itself condones factory farming.
Graeme: We have a huge population of delicious domesticated animals because the economic demand is there and tradition, as you've said, states that we should eat animals. But we don't HAVE to. Most people just do it out of habit. And to support our country's insatiable demand for meat, we have to do whatever we can to increase the productivity of our meat farms. We all know what happens when capitalism reigns without any form of compassion or concern for others: you get rights violations. We have laws to protect against human rights violations, but not animals, so any sort of behavior that increases profit margins will likely be followed. So really, your argument just helps support that vicious cycle. Cheap meat by any means because we need it. But we don't NEED meat, and we certainly don't need as much meat as we consume. It's just how things have gone since industrialization.
Also, about cannibalism.. your example isn't the same. Eating a corpse after it has died is much different than having human breeding farms where muscle size and meat output are more important than the safety and comfort of the 'product'. I'd be completely fine with the meat of a chicken that had a comfortable life then died on its own, as long as it was safe. But that's not how meat is produced.
I know I joke a lot about how fun it is to eat animals, but I mostly just eat meat out of convenience. I actually don't eat meat very often anymore. But most fast food is meat and it's way easier to grab a calorie packed sandwich with some meat on it than a veggie wrap which will just leave me hungry after an hour. I mostly eat beans, rice, eggs and pizza now. Actually, I'm mostly vegetarian now that I think about it. I only eat turkey if I get a sandwich and I only eat beef if I go to Taco Bell or Wendy's, which I try to avoid for purely selfish reasons.
Andrew, are you against any seafood? I'm pretty sure fish can't feel much pain.
I'm less against seafood, but we still don't cook it.
Mind you, when I say 'against,' I just mean that we don't buy it for cooking and we don't order it from restaurants. I'll certainly eat meat if I'm a guest and it's cooked for me.
And though we don't eat seafood, the food we give our cats is made from herring, so we do support the meat industry, albeit what I see as the least cruel side of it.
Really, I draw my arbitrary line at the boundary between plants and animals. I try not to eat animals, even though I do occasionally and I REALLY like eating them. Fish is an unusual subject... really, even when we did eat meat, we really never bought seafood. The only fish that I miss is salmon. Other than that, I'm fine without it. And though they feel less pain, they still do have a central nervous system, so I try to avoid it.
But I totally understand the convenience thing. It's easy for us to be vegetarian because we cook a lot at home, so we can make great recipes that don't involve meat. Road trips will be hard for us.
EDIT: Oh, and there's also the environmental issue with seafood. Getting all that seafood still involves some bad practices, such as other animals getting caught up in the nets, overfishing and depletion, leading to the damage of wild ecosystems, etc.
I know a lot of people have said that agriculture was what allowed us to start taking all these giant leaps forward into civilization. Some have argued that agriculture should never have happened.
But I don't think that, personally. I think that agriculture made so many wonderful things possible, even if it caused suffering and damage in some ways. But I really do think that if everyone were to try to figure out how we might improve our lifestyle and make food intelligently, we'd be better off than ever before.
But... that's a long way off. We'd have to get around the whole overpopulation thing first.
I don't participate in the mass market meat industry either. I can't eat it anymore because frankly, compared to an organically raised farm grown animal, it tastes like crap. I don think our huge market should be converted into one such as that, but as long as people keep their habits I don't think they'll have a reason to stop. I figure if people are like me and my family and just can't go back then this will happen eventually anyways, so for now I don't see a reason to stop the industry.
Well, one of the problems is that "organically raised farm grown" animal product isn't necessarily the shining blazon of quality they'd lead you to assume. For a little while we bought organic free-range eggs because we thought that was better. But it's not much better; there's still a lot of bad things going on.
So where do you get your meat? Because I have a feeling that unless you buy it directly from a small farm, it's still not that great for the animals.
EDIT: And don't take this as some preachy post or anything, I'm just curious.
Well, if you count directly from a small farm to the farmer's market, or the small farm to a local cooperative, we do buy from a small farm. Sometimes we do go straight to the source though.
Edit: By the way, yesterday we had oysters Rockefeller made with fresh organic vegetables from the farmer's market, fresh, not four hour old oysters shipped from the Washington, fresh organic lamb loins straight from the farm in a red wine reduction, fresh organic broccolini from the farmer's market with organic garlic and and 60 dollar bottle of lemon vinegar, as well as freshly made bread from the farmer's market. If more people ate like this, no one would go back. I think I might be a bit biased....
Not as much as you'd think actually. My parents are contractors doing communications work mostly for national labs and other government entities. Sometimes they have barrels of work, sometimes they have none. It's generally up and down with a big jump in income and then a huge low for a year or two.
I enjoy meat, so being a vegetarian would be hard for me. Also, China is one of the most unforgiving countries to live in if you don't eat meat. Many dishes have meat. If you are a poor farmer trying to save money, then you may only eat meat once or twice a year, but if you have a job and go to restaurants a lot, it is quite difficult to find entire meals with no meat.
Comments
Ah, youth...
Yeah, I don't think we can be friends anymore.
Totally effing serious. If our livestock learns how to communicate with us and is pissed then we should stop, but until then: mm organic free range chicken. Delicious.
But I don't think that their not being able to say "please don't kill me, sir" is justification for doing all sorts of nasty things to them just so we can have as much meat and eggs as we want. After all, neither free-range NOR organic has much of an impact on the suffering of the animals. Free-range and cage-free chickens are still debeaked at an early age and are still force-molted by starvation to produce more eggs, not to mention the fact that the little baby chicks get inspected en masse on conveyor belts and males are chucked into huge bins where they are crushed and often ground up alive. I think there's really no way to have meat and eggs at every grocery store freely available without being cruel to the animals.
And I think it's one thing to actually kill a wild animal yourself, skin it, and cook it for food. It's another to go down to the store and pick up some chicken breast. I imagine that anyone who slaughters an animal could tell you that there's some communication going on as they're killed, whether through screaming, flapping around, or whatever.
So yes, meat is very delicious. But I don't think it's worth it when the price of that deliciousness is so SO much suffering, especially when there's so many great things you can make without meat. Perhaps I'm a hippie, but I don't think that just because animals are a different species than us or are lower in intelligence that we shouldn't be concerned about their quality of life.
The only current survival strategy is evolving for taste or cuteness.
I mean, isn't the only reason to not be cannibalistic because it's frowned on? If it were normal for there to be a short supply of food than I'm sure we would eat our dead (if they were safe) and it would be completely within reason. You eat what you have is what I think, and we have a huge population of delicious domesticated animals.
Graeme: We have a huge population of delicious domesticated animals because the economic demand is there and tradition, as you've said, states that we should eat animals. But we don't HAVE to. Most people just do it out of habit. And to support our country's insatiable demand for meat, we have to do whatever we can to increase the productivity of our meat farms. We all know what happens when capitalism reigns without any form of compassion or concern for others: you get rights violations. We have laws to protect against human rights violations, but not animals, so any sort of behavior that increases profit margins will likely be followed. So really, your argument just helps support that vicious cycle. Cheap meat by any means because we need it. But we don't NEED meat, and we certainly don't need as much meat as we consume. It's just how things have gone since industrialization.
Also, about cannibalism.. your example isn't the same. Eating a corpse after it has died is much different than having human breeding farms where muscle size and meat output are more important than the safety and comfort of the 'product'. I'd be completely fine with the meat of a chicken that had a comfortable life then died on its own, as long as it was safe. But that's not how meat is produced.
Tanya: What about agriculture?
Andrew, are you against any seafood? I'm pretty sure fish can't feel much pain.
Mind you, when I say 'against,' I just mean that we don't buy it for cooking and we don't order it from restaurants. I'll certainly eat meat if I'm a guest and it's cooked for me.
And though we don't eat seafood, the food we give our cats is made from herring, so we do support the meat industry, albeit what I see as the least cruel side of it.
Really, I draw my arbitrary line at the boundary between plants and animals. I try not to eat animals, even though I do occasionally and I REALLY like eating them. Fish is an unusual subject... really, even when we did eat meat, we really never bought seafood. The only fish that I miss is salmon. Other than that, I'm fine without it. And though they feel less pain, they still do have a central nervous system, so I try to avoid it.
But I totally understand the convenience thing. It's easy for us to be vegetarian because we cook a lot at home, so we can make great recipes that don't involve meat. Road trips will be hard for us.
EDIT: Oh, and there's also the environmental issue with seafood. Getting all that seafood still involves some bad practices, such as other animals getting caught up in the nets, overfishing and depletion, leading to the damage of wild ecosystems, etc.
But I'm glad to hear you are not an ungracious guest.
But I don't think that, personally. I think that agriculture made so many wonderful things possible, even if it caused suffering and damage in some ways. But I really do think that if everyone were to try to figure out how we might improve our lifestyle and make food intelligently, we'd be better off than ever before.
But... that's a long way off. We'd have to get around the whole overpopulation thing first.
So where do you get your meat? Because I have a feeling that unless you buy it directly from a small farm, it's still not that great for the animals.
EDIT: And don't take this as some preachy post or anything, I'm just curious.
Edit: By the way, yesterday we had oysters Rockefeller made with fresh organic vegetables from the farmer's market, fresh, not four hour old oysters shipped from the Washington, fresh organic lamb loins straight from the farm in a red wine reduction, fresh organic broccolini from the farmer's market with organic garlic and and 60 dollar bottle of lemon vinegar, as well as freshly made bread from the farmer's market. If more people ate like this, no one would go back. I think I might be a bit biased....