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How can people call themselves ’animal lovers’ and then eat meat?
- Thread starter Sid
- Start date
Those faux meat substitutes are not necessary. I don't get why buying something that slightly affects everyone on the world with c02 is worse than specifically killing someone (and oftentimes raising them in shitty conditions while they wait to be killed)
I recognize the harms of mass meat production and the long term effects on the climate. At this point, the industry is too big to stop until it becomes completely necessary/a lab grown alternative becomes viable. When the happens, I'll gladly go along with the rest of the world in the new anti meat society.
Until then, I simply enjoy the taste of meat too much to give it up in order to make an insignificant impact on the industry.
Until then, I simply enjoy the taste of meat too much to give it up in order to make an insignificant impact on the industry.
I'm just saying plants and animals both are living things and if we know anything about life at all, it's that it wants to stay alive. Thus everything alive develops capabilities to allow it to do so. Even when it comes down to the inevitability of death, you'll still see the antelope downed by a pack of lions kicking weakly as it takes it's last breaths.
I'm not at all saying that plants have the same capacity to suffer as animals can, I'm just saying it's easier to say that animals suffer and harder to say that plants clearly do, but we are all a part of the same eat to survive world, and unfortunately that means eating each other. I hate that we have to do it, but we do. As much as we don't want to see animals suffer needlessly in the way they are treated before being put down (or even while being put down), we also can't not eat anything but plants and animals.
Edit - lab grown meat is something I'll gladly move to if it becomes a thing (which it surely will). I don't want to have to have animals killed for my survival.
I know there have been a lot of funny comments here, and I actually get why, but I do believe there is a very simple reason...
I am weak minded and cannot stick to what I believe are virtuous actions.
I love animals and I believe eating them is not right on a few different levels, the most obvious one being the inhuman way they are treated in slaughter houses and the more spiritual one is I know they are living sentient creatures no doubt capable of a vast array of emotions, yet I cannot bring myself, and I have tried, to not eating them. It is what I know and the reality of the situation is I enjoy the taste.
So yeah, I am weak, I know it, and that is pretty much the ultimate reason. At least for myself.
I am weak minded and cannot stick to what I believe are virtuous actions.
I love animals and I believe eating them is not right on a few different levels, the most obvious one being the inhuman way they are treated in slaughter houses and the more spiritual one is I know they are living sentient creatures no doubt capable of a vast array of emotions, yet I cannot bring myself, and I have tried, to not eating them. It is what I know and the reality of the situation is I enjoy the taste.
So yeah, I am weak, I know it, and that is pretty much the ultimate reason. At least for myself.
Yeah Native Americans are so disrespectful for the way they treat the animals in their diets.
It kinda makes you a hypocrite regarding the thread topic. ie, I love animals but got no issue with them suffering for my pleasure. I don't know you personally and don't care if you eat meat or not.
I do wish people would confront their habits a bit more and own them/change them.
Sorry if it came out as gatekeeping, by all mean go for them. I appreciate you are not eating animals.
Vegan cuisine has a ton of alternatives, it's like discovering a new foreign cuisine. I'd recommend also look at some other alternatives too! Legumes, seitan, tofu, tempeh, etc. I usually follow local instagrammers who post recipes and try them at home.
I wasn't clear. By "meat substitutes" I meant nuts and beans. The things people use in place of meat. Not Beyond and stuff. Sorry about that.
But to your last point, I don't see an issue with killing a farm animal. It's what they're there for.
we can "not eat them". lots of people do. animals obviously don't want to be eaten. plants don't (obviously want to not be eaten). why would you ignore that?
Would you rather people be animal haters who also eat meat, or would you rather people be hypocrites? I'm just fine with being a hypocrite lol.
I'm a hypocrite. There. Who cares?
And that's not even going into what Otters do. Seriously, they are little psychopaths
man if I keep reading this thread I'ma have ignored so many people that when I go to a thread it's almost blank. and why is it that 90% of the people I ignore joined October 2017? some of y'all are so shitty, not just in this thread but I am so tired of trying to go into a discussion online and everything is just hateful bullshit and people on this site are nicer about some shit but it's still the same shit
You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Maybe try not being so condescending and you'll get less snarky remarks.
I meant to put this in more of a historical context, it's only recently that we've really had a glut of non animal or plant based foods. Obviously it's a really great thing and even more so that it's going to continue and expand.
I'd rather people realize what they are doing to animals when they give money to companies that use animal products.
If you are ok with that, go for it, if you wanna make an exception, go for it. Just own it and be informed. Or you can take a minor inconvenience and maybe choose bread/donuts without wheat powder. Pizzas with vegetable cheese. etc. Good alternatives exists. Each action makes a huge difference.
I love animals. I love meat. These are not mutually exclusive, but it does cause me a lot of internal conflict.
There is of course a large deal of cognitive dissonance in the general public regarding the topic. However, on the flip side, every person alive lives off the death of other creatures. Farming and harvesting crops kills billions of insects, birds, mice etc. every year. Vegetarians are not exempt from this unless they grow their own food. The vast majority do not, of course.
I have thought about going vegetarian/vegan many many times in my life because I love animals. There is no right answer, and I don't think there ever will be.
I save spiders from my home and put them outside, but I also feed my bearded dragon insects several times a week.
There is a lot of recent research that heavily indicates that the human brain evolved directly because of cooking and consuming animal meat (among other variables).
Do we need meat to survive? No, but I'm not sure many people can thrive without it.
Regardless of how you feel, there is absolutely zero doubt that modern livestock practices are barbaric to say the very least. I've seen dozens of videos of geese having their feet nailed down and a tube shoved in their mouths permanently to make foie grois, chickens having their beaks melted off with a hot knife so they don't peck their penmate as they live in a pen the size of a shoebox their entire lives and sag under their own weight from growth hormones, cows being forced to constantly be pregnant in order to give milk through painful milk machines, the list goes on and on and on. It sickens me.
Do I follow my own biology (and theoretically, evolution) or my morality?
There is of course a large deal of cognitive dissonance in the general public regarding the topic. However, on the flip side, every person alive lives off the death of other creatures. Farming and harvesting crops kills billions of insects, birds, mice etc. every year. Vegetarians are not exempt from this unless they grow their own food. The vast majority do not, of course.
I have thought about going vegetarian/vegan many many times in my life because I love animals. There is no right answer, and I don't think there ever will be.
I save spiders from my home and put them outside, but I also feed my bearded dragon insects several times a week.
There is a lot of recent research that heavily indicates that the human brain evolved directly because of cooking and consuming animal meat (among other variables).
Do we need meat to survive? No, but I'm not sure many people can thrive without it.
Regardless of how you feel, there is absolutely zero doubt that modern livestock practices are barbaric to say the very least. I've seen dozens of videos of geese having their feet nailed down and a tube shoved in their mouths permanently to make foie grois, chickens having their beaks melted off with a hot knife so they don't peck their penmate as they live in a pen the size of a shoebox their entire lives and sag under their own weight from growth hormones, cows being forced to constantly be pregnant in order to give milk through painful milk machines, the list goes on and on and on. It sickens me.
Do I follow my own biology (and theoretically, evolution) or my morality?
In all seriousness, I think an awareness of the mistreatment of animals along with the impact they have on our environment is a good thing. I am not vegan, nor to I intend to be vegan, but I have significantly reduced my meat consumption as a result. Where I used to eat probably 1-2lbs of meat a day, I now eat on average probably 1/4 lbs or less a day. I've found a lot of foods I can enjoy and use meat as a complement and usually not as the main component to a dish.
I actually agree with OP. I went vegan partly for this reason. Looking at cows and pigs and such and realizing we drew an arbitrary line in the sand that one animal should be loved while the other should be treated inhumanely was a bridge too far.
you have a good point about almonds and things that's productions is harmful to the world and its inhabitants. honestly I should probably research more on my diet and choose plants that are less harmful. I might do that.
I don't get accepting killing someone because they were raised for it.
I must be missing something here- is vinegar problematic or something? and I just joined in, I haven't gotten any snarky remarks yet. except maybe yours- though maybe you're not being snarky; it's hard to read that over text
In january read an article about living conditions in poultry farms. Got pretty upset about and haven't made any food with meat in them since. I didn't want to support factory farms by buying meats anymore, it just isn't ethical. I've only eaten meat 4 times since then and none in the last 2 or 3 months.
Been making the same foods as I did before, just replaced meat with beans, lentils, seitan, tofu or with textured soy protein. All of these costing pretty much the same as meat or even less.
The change was surprisingly easy and it's fun trying to cook and bake vegan foods, it's pretty much just as easy as cooking meat-based food.
Been making the same foods as I did before, just replaced meat with beans, lentils, seitan, tofu or with textured soy protein. All of these costing pretty much the same as meat or even less.
The change was surprisingly easy and it's fun trying to cook and bake vegan foods, it's pretty much just as easy as cooking meat-based food.
some animals do eat other animals, but humans don't need to, so if you are choosing to you are at least financially supporting the harm of others. it's cruel for animals to eat other animals unnecessarilly
i don't think all these triggered responses are necessary people...
mind you, the OP could have been fleshed out way better.
yes, it's definitely weird for people to love dogs, then love eating meat.
i'm more interested in having a discussion on the segmentation of animals in this manner and its roots, and to dissect the psychology behind it.
i'm not interested in guilting people for "loving animals" and eating meat, nor am i interested in gotcha thinking.
it's precisely my love for my dogs that grew into my eventual adoption of veganism.
for me it was simply because i saw enough examples of pigs [in particular] and cows [a little less so] expressing love and reacting to love that made me go "why eat those and not this?".
sure, living things eat living things, but we're supposed to be civilized beyond our biology - "to be human, is to want to be more than what we are" and all that.
i don't expect the world to go vegan ever at all or anything, but what i WOULD like to see is an end to factory-style meat production.
essentially i'd like to see meat eating become more of a luxury, than a right / expectation.
less meat, smaller numbers, more humane conditions for its production [small / local farms, etc].
i've only been vegan for.... nine months now, and honestly it's pretty easy but i ain't gon lie and pretend like i don't miss fried chicken.
my dogs eat raw meat.
they're dogs, they can't be expected to follow higher level ethical diets lol.
i love them, so i give them what their bodies are designed to eat, and what is best for them.
can't speak for any other vegans [there's a lot of dumb ones, we know this].
mind you, the OP could have been fleshed out way better.
yes, it's definitely weird for people to love dogs, then love eating meat.
i'm more interested in having a discussion on the segmentation of animals in this manner and its roots, and to dissect the psychology behind it.
i'm not interested in guilting people for "loving animals" and eating meat, nor am i interested in gotcha thinking.
it's precisely my love for my dogs that grew into my eventual adoption of veganism.
for me it was simply because i saw enough examples of pigs [in particular] and cows [a little less so] expressing love and reacting to love that made me go "why eat those and not this?".
sure, living things eat living things, but we're supposed to be civilized beyond our biology - "to be human, is to want to be more than what we are" and all that.
i don't expect the world to go vegan ever at all or anything, but what i WOULD like to see is an end to factory-style meat production.
essentially i'd like to see meat eating become more of a luxury, than a right / expectation.
less meat, smaller numbers, more humane conditions for its production [small / local farms, etc].
i've only been vegan for.... nine months now, and honestly it's pretty easy but i ain't gon lie and pretend like i don't miss fried chicken.
my dogs eat raw meat.
they're dogs, they can't be expected to follow higher level ethical diets lol.
i love them, so i give them what their bodies are designed to eat, and what is best for them.
can't speak for any other vegans [there's a lot of dumb ones, we know this].
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this kind of thinking is problematic for a lot of reasons but mainly because it proliferates an ignorance to what the actual problem is. it's not that we evolved to have a taste for meat, we are in no way unique in that regard, it's how the human brain has evolved and what it's led to in terms of how we operate in regards to the rest of the planet and how we structured our societies, industries, power structures, political structures, etc. etc. and also the hyper focus on meat makes it seem like the other aspects of our food industry aren't also extremely problematic to the sustainability of the planet.
every carnivore and omnivore on this planet evolved to have a taste for meat but they operate within the natural balance of their habitat and are therefore a key cog to its sustainability
honestly just do a quick thought experiment on the many affronts to nature that have to occur for a grocery store to exist and prosper. we literally claim land from nature and destroy it from the soil up, taking finite space away from the habitats that would've been prospering without our evolution into whatever you want to call humanity now. we're not even inside the store yet talking about the kinds of supply chain issues that come from keeping a shelf stocked and it's already clear how humanity is so out of whack with everything else on the planet. we as a species sacrifice biodiversity for permanent structures without a moment's hesitation. you probably drive by construction sites without thinking twice. because that's what we are now. and you can go down another rabbit hole about the affronts to nature that have to occur for us to even be able to drive by a construction site.
it's not eating meat. every other animal on the planet that eats meat somehow remains in balance. it's us. it's our species as a collective and very few humans operate outside of that whether they eat meat or not.
I think you can eat meat and still love animals. Loving animals is a very wide and big thing though. Does it mean everything from humans to insects or only cute animals? Does it mean someone finds animals interesting and love learning about them? I like to say I love animals, I obviously love some more than others, but I also love learning about all kinds of animals and find creatures in general very interesting. So saying I love animals is true. Saying I love all animals equally isn't true, but who can say they honestly care for the tiniest insect that they don't even know exists as much as they care for their 14 year old dog? I think it's great that people have respect for all living things though, and try to not make anything suffer more than necessary. I'm sure everyone can get better at that.
I mean ideally you would want people who love animals to be raising the animals that are eventually eaten, that way they are not mistreated during the process. That's essentially how agriculture used to work for centuries, whether or not people 'loved' animals is impossible to say but they certainly valued them as their livelihood and treated them better because it was necessary for their own survival.
Entire cultures were based around the love of, respect for, and consumption of animals, like nomadic Native American tribes. The idea that love and respect for animals and animal consumption are mutually exclusive ignores plenty of cultures who achieved that balance. And I say this as a vegetarian.
Also even if human beings stopped eating meat, animals would still be killed by other animals and also need to be killed by human beings to preserve the ecosystem from invasive species and rampant overpopulation of some species of animal.
Entire cultures were based around the love of, respect for, and consumption of animals, like nomadic Native American tribes. The idea that love and respect for animals and animal consumption are mutually exclusive ignores plenty of cultures who achieved that balance. And I say this as a vegetarian.
Also even if human beings stopped eating meat, animals would still be killed by other animals and also need to be killed by human beings to preserve the ecosystem from invasive species and rampant overpopulation of some species of animal.
Is this Jayden Smith?
to answer your question, for me personally animals killing and eating other animals is a cycle that can't be stopped. It sucks when you see a dead dog on the street or when someone hunts deer, but animals kill and eat everyday. We can't stop that and it wouldn't work out for nature if we could. Not every animal can live a whole complete life.
to answer your question, for me personally animals killing and eating other animals is a cycle that can't be stopped. It sucks when you see a dead dog on the street or when someone hunts deer, but animals kill and eat everyday. We can't stop that and it wouldn't work out for nature if we could. Not every animal can live a whole complete life.
This. I love my dog and I have donated my time to local animal shelters in the past, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a good steak or a chicken sandwich.
One does not necessarily exclude the other.
The same way a tree hugger can devour a salad I guess.
It's the circle of life really.
Inhumane treatment is not a necessity of eating meat. The mass inhumane treatment of livestock is a modern phenomenon.
I respect your choice to be vegan, but you are creating a false dichotomy here.
Well arguable slaughtering animals is inhumane, period.
Also I do always find it strange that many carnivores bang on about "ethical sourced meats", when the fact of the matter is that a vast, vast, vast majority of meat is not and will never be produced that way. I'd argue most people who bang that drum don't go out of their way to find a local farm but just get their meat at the local super market just like almost everyone else.