Obviously.

I’m eating part of one right now.

Are you going to go up to every predator in nature and convince it to go vegetarian or something? After all they eat animals, how cruel of them.

I’m a vegetarian, but my answer is no. What is wrong is the way most of them are treated while alive and when in the slaughter house.

Eating animals isn’t wrong but factory farming them is.

Animals eat animals… and morality is invented…

So no, in my own invented & inherited morality, I don’t think all humans eating animals is wrong. However it is hypocritical that if forced to kill animals to eat meat, I’d probably not eat any meat except mercy kills. Just occasional old mutton and fish for me, if I were to clean that up.

But I do think inhumane industrial farming needs to be stopped, and not just for ethical reasons.

I think that the animals we farm would not exist in nature. We have bred them to be eaten by us. Having the upper hand in intelligence makes us the masters of them but also gives us the duty to treat these creatures kindly and humanely. So be nice but enjoy your meat.

Everything eats something.

Yes. But probably more importantly right now, we should at least be moving towards more “humane” methods of growing our meat, as @flutherother points out.

@XOIIO: “Are you going to go up to every predator in nature and convince it to go vegetarian or something? After all they eat animals, how cruel of them.”

It’s not wrong for any animals to eat meat – including humans – who do not have a choice. The only reason we can state with certainty that it’s wrong right now is that eating meat is optional for many of us (Note: this is the important part, and only applies to those humans for which it is optional). Therefore, due to our desire for a tasty dish, we require that animals suffer and die. And we delegate the responsibility so that we don’t have to deal with it.

I am a vegetarian. Mostly because I don’t like to eat shit, which is what you eat when you eat commercially produced meat (as well as growth hormones and antibiotics and antifungals).

But if I knew that an animal had been treated humanely, killed humanely, and the meat handled properly (as well as minimizing negative impact on the environment), then I would eat meat.

Everything is food for something else.

No.

@DoNotKnowMuch And we delegate the responsibility so that we don’t have to deal with it. I think I might borrow this line for that gorilla question.

The humor center of the human brain is starved and will atrophy without animal protein.

I’m not about to let that happen to me.

Yes, but really only in our modern world. The meat industry poisons our bodies, the planet and our “humanity”. We are eating ourselves to death. In a different world, I think it would be ok to eat animals, but we do not live in that world.

My goodness, what a parcel of loaded questions. Yes I eat meat, and there is nothing wrong with eating animals as long as you kill them before you attempt to eat them. As for moralizing about how animals are treated and slaughtered, i would ask vegetarians if they eat tofu, and if so, do they know what an ecological catastrophe the production of soybeans by commercial farming methods is? I wonder whose ox has been gored.

No.

@tinyfaery

“Our humanity.”

Could you explain?

It’s certainly a habit, but that doesn’t make it right. And it grows increasingly difficult to avoid ( or pretend to avoid) the ethical as well as health implications. Since there really is no need to breed, pen up and slaughter animals for sustenance, it’s tough to justify breeding creatures to a grim existence ending in slaughter simply “because they taste good”.

No. We evolved to eat animals.

Our farming practices are abhorrent.

My cat left me a squirrel on my doorstep this morning and all she did was eat the liver and drop the rest at my door.

So I am using the cat-metric. Should I give my cat shit for eating meat?

And at least we use most of it for hot dogs and chicken nuggets.

Yes. We have yet to find any real difference between ourselves and other mammals. We don’t have anything clear-cut, and the more we research, the less we have. I’d be hard pressed to find an argument which explains both why eating animals is okay, while at the same time providing a basis for how eating humans is wrong.

As to farming practices: Yes, factory farming is abhorrent. However, even organic meat is produced with a fair amount of suffering as by-product. I worked on a “Demeter” farm for a while. By German standards, that’s as organic as it gets. I don’t know whether there are stricter rules in the U.S., but from what I know about animal cruelty laws, I doubt it. I saw a lot of abuse on that farm. Virtually no attempt to provide stimulation, filthy stables, disregard of pain. To make matters worse, almost all animals which are raised on organic farms are still transported to regular slaughterhouses. The killings there are worse than most of us know, or would like to imagine.

All I can say with any conviction is that eating animals is wrong for me. I have lots of choice in what I can eat. I recognize that practically any way I choose to eat has some adverse impacts on other beings, almost certainly more than I can even imagine. But I can clearly see that some dietary choices cause a lot more suffering to sentient beings than others do.

Morality is about choices, specifically choosing with regard to the impact one’s actions have on the welfare or suffering of beings. I may not be particularly good at understanding the true fallout of all my choices, but if, within the limits of my understanding, I make choices that I believe add unnecessarily to the toll of suffering in the world, then I’m morally compromised by those choices.

Now, the fact is that I do make morally compromising choices; quite often in fact, and in many matters beyond what I eat. No one needs to point this out to me. I need to face all of that honestly, and keep working at it. Not eating animals is just one fairly easy step I’ve taken in that direction.

Whether or not my choice actually makes a difference in the grand scheme of things is actually not really the point. For me, the important thing is to live my life with the welfare of others as the central principle, however imperfectly.

@Dutchess_III Exactly, we could not be what we are today if we survived on plants alone, they just don’t have enough energy for the relative size and power of our brains.

@XOIIO Well, perhaps, but what we are today is a creature with enough brain power to find ways to sustain ourselves without meat.

~Tomatoes have feelings too

No. If it was wrong, they wouldn’t be so delicious.

^ I love a good snarky comment, especially one based in fact:

Does anyone here think that animal flesh tasting so good to us just happened by chance?

This thread is like a question about the existence of god being filled with Pascal’s wager. Surely, people here have entertained these concepts before, right?

Of course not, how strange.
One must of course prepare the correct vegetables & accompanying wine to get the best out of the dish

Sure, meat is delicious. And we have the great convenience of rarely having to face the facts behind those burgers and ribs. But if you believe animals capable of experiencing physical suffering in the same manner as ourselves, thinking about the scale of the horrors we inflict on our fellow animals can be one hell of an appetite suppressant.

Relevant. https://youtu.be/z0O_VYcsIk8

No, but I take issue with factory farming.

@XOIIO Lol.

@XOIIO

I see your relevant and raise the following:

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol’ steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it’s a mighty good food
It’s a grade A meal when I’m in the mood.

Cowpokes’ll come from a near and far
When you throw a few rib-eyes on the fire
Roberto Duran ate two before a fight
‘Cause it gave a lot of mighty men a lot of mighty might

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol’ steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it’s a mighty good food
It’s a grade A meal when I’m in the mood.

Eat meat, eat meat, filet mignon
Eat meat, eat meat, ear it all day long
Eat a few T-bones till you get your fill
Eat a new york cut, hot off the grill

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol’ steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it’s a mighty good food
It’s a grade A meal when I’m in the mood.

Eat a cow, eat a cow ‘cuase it’s good for you
Eat a cow, eat a cow it’s the thing that goes “Mooooo”

Look at all the cows in the slaughterhouse yeard
Gotta hit’em in the head, gotta hit’em real hard
First you gotta clean’em then the butcher cuts’em up
Throws it on a scale throws an eyeball in a cup

Saw a big Brahma Steer standing right over there
So I rustled up a fire cooked him medium rare
Bar-B-Q’ed his brisket, a roasted his rump
Fed my dog that ol’ Brangus Steer’s hump

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol’ steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it’s a mighty good food
It’s a grade A meal when I’m in the mood.

Eat Steak by the Reverend Horton Heat.

@anniereborn #2 here.
Humans are animals.
Animals eat animals.
Humans and animals should at all times be treated humanely.

@SecondHandStoke Yes, there are shitty conditions, but it doesn’t change the fact that meat is delicious. Not going to bother me in the slightest.

If improvement is on the tables then by all means, go for it.

[Soapbox]

Someone has mentioned what are called industrial farming methods, and it is important to acknowledge that this applies to the food vegetarians eat as well as that of carnivores. Commercial soybean production is really an environmental nightmare. Soybeans have to be grown with what is known as clean row cropping. Weeds and grass will grow taller than a bean plant, so they hit the fields with herbicides as well as insecticides and chemical fertilizers. With clean rows (just bare dirt between the plants, ideally) that means wind and water erosion is constant and significant. That’s not just good soil being lost, either. The Illinois River is dead. It is, in it’s lower reaches, a broad, deep and slow river. It can’t carry off the silt from the run-off, which then kills aquatic plants as well as concentrating the toxins in the herbicides and pesticides. No fish or other aquatic animals survive.

The largest competitor in soybean production for the United States is Brazil. There, they will cut down the rain forest, and the branches and foliage which is stripped in the timbering operation, along with the undergrowth, is burned off—of course, that dumps more CO2 into the atmosphere. The land is then used in soy bean production. But in the rain forest, most of the nutrients are not in the soil, they’re in the understory and the canopy of the trees. So the soil is quickly exhausted, and might either be abandoned, or used for grazing. The commercial farming operation moves on to other parts of the rain forest to repeat the process. I don’t like tofu, but I really, really hate what the implications of commercial soybean production are for the environment.

It’s not just soybeans, either. Aquia Creek in northeast Virginia, a tributary of the Potomac, is either dying or is already dead. The last time i saw it, the surface was bright green. That’s because plants no bigger than glitter cover the surface, as a result of the run-off of chemical fertilizers. No sunlight gets into the water, and the oxygen exchange cycle is screwed, so bye-bye aquatic plants and fish.

Producing meat through feedlot operations means the heavy use of anti-biotics and steroids, and it has created BSE—mad cow disease (I won’t explain that because it’s really gross, and many people may already know). Grazing livestock is decried by vegetarians as wasteful, but often cattle are grazed on marginal land, and with a properly managed rotation of nitrogen-fixing plants such as clover or alfalfa, grazing livestock can actually help bring farmland back from the grave.

Whether one is vegetarian or carnivorous, the nightmare of commercial farming methods can be laid at one’s door, when people being play the name and blame game. It’s not helpful, and it does not address the actual underlying problems. While we bicker, capitalists are laughing and singing all the way to the bank, before going back home to their gated communities with the careful manicured lawns and gardens and the armed private security services. Let’s try not to beat up on each other, ‘K?

[/Soapbox]

@Setanta Prion diseases have been around for a long time. Factory farming did not cause them it just greatly proliferates them.

There is no humane way to kill 100 billion animals a year.

There is no other way to feed the world’s human population without killing 100 billion animals a year.

There is no way to stop companies from killing 100 billion animals a year without killing capitalism.

@Setanta The vast majority of the world’s soy crop goes to feed livestock. You’re right about the impacts of industrial-scale farming of soy (and corn too, of course), but that industry exists because of America’s love for cheap meat. It takes 15 lbs of soy (or other grain) to produce 1 lb of beef. It’s a horribly wasteful way of getting protein into the human diet.

Most of the deforestation in Latin America occurs specifically to create grazing land for livestock. That’s mostly for beef that will be sold in the US as “grass-fed”. About 20% of the deforested land in Brazil is used for soy production, most of which goes to China for livestock feed.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Yes, BSE spread rapidly because the unused portions of slaughtered animals were ground up and added to the feed of feedlot livestock. I ought to have said: “was responsible for the rapid spread of BSE.”

@thorninmud

According to Wikipedia (search criterion was “soybean”), soy meal is made after the oil is extracted:

Soybean oil

Soybean seed contains 18–19% oil.[108] To extract soybean oil from seed, the soybeans are cracked, adjusted for moisture content, rolled into flakes and solvent-extracted with commercial hexane. The oil is then refined, blended for different applications, and sometimes hydrogenated. Soybean oils, both liquid and partially hydrogenated, are exported abroad, sold as “vegetable oil”, or end up in a wide variety of processed foods.

Soybean meal

Soybean meal, or soymeal, is the material remaining after solvent extraction of oil from soybean flakes, with a 50% soy protein content. The meal is ‘toasted’ (a misnomer because the heat treatment is with moist steam) and ground in a hammer mill. Ninety-seven percent of soybean meal production globally is used as livestock feed.[108] Soybean meal is also used in some dog foods.

Livestock feed

One of the major uses of soybeans globally is as livestock feed, predominantly in the form of soybean meal. Spring grasses are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, whereas soy is predominantly omega-6.
______________________

I left the footnote numbers from the article in place for those who might wish to check their citations of sources. It’s kind of difficult to separate the uses of any industrially produced crop into discrete.products. “One of the major uses globally” is not at all the same language as “vast majority.” It also ignores that soy meal is produced from the remainder product of the extraction of oil, which is used as vegetable oil in food production.

So you have a source for you claim about the soybeans grown in Brazil? Can you assert with certainty that only 20% of deforested land is used for soybean production? Can you assert that Brazilian soybean production is not used for vegetable oil production? Do you know how much of the 80% of deforested land to which you refer represents land already exhausted by soybean production?

I’m not trying to pick a fight. The problems of industrial farming consequences arise because corporations can profit through economies of scale, and the Directors and shareholders don’t live where the consequences are manifest. These are complex issues, and it doesn’t help to try to take the moral high ground with carnivores, while ignoring food production issues which include the use of soybean—and corn for that matter—products which vegetarians eat.

People who live in glass houses . . .

@Setanta The oil content of soy is 20%, That means that the meal left after the pressing is 80% of the bean. Since 85% of the entire soy crop gets processed this way, this means that 68% of the entire soy crop ends up in livestock feed. I’m comfortable with “vast majority”.

Re deforestation, “70% of formerly forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970, is used for livestock pasture.” (source). The forest is usually cleared for the purpose of grazing, with some of the grazed land then being leased to soy farmers, and then taken back for more grazing when the lease is up.

Here is an accounting of the soy trade between Brazil and China. Most of the exports are in the form of whole beans, which are then crushed into oil and meal. So, again, about 80% of that is going to feed livestock.

Just to be clear, I’m not itching for a fight either (hard to judge tone on forums like this, I know). As I said in my first post, there isn’t much we can eat that doesn’t have some environmental cost or suffering associated with it. So if were talking about morality, it comes down to choosing the less harmful options. I’m just pointing out that soy is a problem primarily because of its symbiosis with the meat industry. Do I have some negative impact on the rare occasions when I eat tofu? Sure. But way less than if I were to get a burger instead.

And again, there are probably tons of meat-eaters out there who are arguably way more moral people than I am. This is just one little way that I’m trying. I’m sure you have your own ways.

@thorninmud

You are awesome and amazing.

Please don’t ever change.

Your answers were the best.

Out of everyone on here who answered this, yours was the best. Great answers <3

@thorninmud

Finally someone with a brain, decency, common sense and compassion…...

I am happy there are still people like you on this planet who knows what is going on….

@FlutherBug

Why ask the question when the only answer acceptable to you is the one that agrees with your own view?

@Darth_Algar

lol I asked the question because I wanted to see other viewpoints, duh.

I never said that was the only acceptable one. Everyone is allowed their own opinion, it’s called freedom of speech.

I don’t have time to write to every single person right now. I’ll write more in response to others when I get the chance.

Because it’s interesting to see other people’s viewpoints, but that doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone.

@Darth_Algar

@Darth_Algar

And it’s not really worth it to debate with someone who’s only reasoning is because it “tastes delicious”.

lol.

(Not saying that was your answer)

“Finally someone with a brain”

I think you’ve already written to every single person, @FlutherBug.

@ibstubro

And, who are you?

I might have veal tomorrow.

Just because.

@FlutherBug “I asked the question because I wanted to see other viewpoints”

Clearly you didn’t – “Finally someone with a brain, decency, common sense and compassion…... I am happy there are still people like you on this planet who knows what is going on…”

@Seek @Darth_Algar

lol

I have not yet read any of the other answers. I probably won’t because there are usually ugly disagreements on this subject, plus I’ve heard it all before.

Yes, I do believe that eating animals is wrong. For me. That is why I have been a vegetarian since 1990. But I don’t begrudge other people eating animals if they think it is not wrong for them. It’s not my place to make that decision for anyone but myself.