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How about the argument that animals raised for food would otherwise never have been born anyway? Does this have any bearing on anyone's feelings about the meat industry? Or the argument that using fur, meat and leather is truly a "green" way to live.
I could not kill anything to eat it unless maybe my children were starving, so you are right that if more people really thought about the source of the meat in the grocery store, they would stop eating it.
I am set in my ways, and do not want to live on grains and berries and vegetables, so I guess I will just continue to turn a blind eye.
Do you think the animals would choose to be born into a life of torture and pain? It isn't like they spend their lifes running, playing and kicking up their heels in sunny fields.
Some of my extended family members are farmers. They consider themselves to be "good" farmers, and don't use factory farming methods. They turn the animals out in the fields during the day and bring them into the barn at night. However, they still separate the mothers from the babies soon after birth. The babies are placed in a separate area to be raised until time to send to market. I have been present when the babies are taken from the mothers, and it is heartbreaking. The mothers cry and bawl for their babies. When they are let out into the pasture they run and search everywhere for their babies. The babies bawl constantly, and are fed with milk poured into buckets with nipples. They have to suck on the nipples to get their milk, while their mothers are crying and searching for them.
Last edited by missik999; 10-28-2011 at 08:46 AM..
gentlearts, don't you think the numbers of vegans/vegetarians would go up dramatically if each person was forced to kill the meat they consumed?
I love this excerpt from an Alexandra Tolstoy book. My apologies if you have read it before:
"Auntie was fond of food and when she was offered only a vegetarian diet she was indignant, said she could not eat any old filth, and demanded that they give her meat, chicken. The next time she came to dinner she was astonished to find a live chicken tied to her chair and a large knife at her plate.
"'What's this?' asked Auntie. "'You wanted chicken,' Tolstoy replied, scarcely restraining his laughter, 'No one of us willing to kill it. Therefore we prepared everything so that you could do it yourself.'
When I got married, I was not vegan... my husband changed his diet along with me and we changed our lifestyle. If I were single now, there is no way I would marry a meat eater, because our values would be totally incompatible.
__________________
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
Like Paul McCartney said, "if all slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian."
I truly can't understand the having to have meat. My diet is very varied and flavorful. I don't just subsist on brown rice and steamed veggies. If I crave something meaty or an umami experience, there are mushrooms and faux meats...
I can understand how a child would have the disconnected thinking (or lack thereof) that the beef in his burger came from a cow, but can't understand how adults get past the fact that an animal was raised inhumanely and killed just for them to have some meat on the plate for them to enjoy.
To get back to the original question, I did live with my husband being a pescatarian. Last year for our anniversary, he became 100% vegetarian---the best present he could ever have given me.
Meat eater here, who would never date a vegan. Maybe a vegetarian, if he had a really great personality.
Just thought I'd throw this out there to let you folks know that the feelings are mutual... and that's a good thing, don't you think? Everybody's happy this way.
gentlearts, don't you think the numbers of vegans/vegetarians would go up dramatically if each person was forced to kill the meat they consumed?
I love this excerpt from an Alexandra Tolstoy book. My apologies if you have read it before:
"Auntie was fond of food and when she was offered only a vegetarian diet she was indignant, said she could not eat any old filth, and demanded that they give her meat, chicken. The next time she came to dinner she was astonished to find a live chicken tied to her chair and a large knife at her plate.
"'What's this?' asked Auntie. "'You wanted chicken,' Tolstoy replied, scarcely restraining his laughter, 'No one of us willing to kill it. Therefore we prepared everything so that you could do it yourself.'
Yes, I absolutely do.
It's funny though. We are not a family of hunters, but my youngest son became one through the friends he grew up with. He is the kindest and gentlest of people you could imagine, yet he likes hunting. I do not understand this, yet I accept it.
Still working through these feelings....
I don't understand why this would be a major criteria in mate selection, at the end of the day it comes down to your view on the sentience of particular animals. That is a pretty abstract matter, one without any real conclusive arguments either way.
Anyhow, I eat some animals and I wouldn't (err...don't) have an issue marrying a vegetarian, etc. I have far more respect for people that stop eating meat than the people that keep eating it despite being total whims around it, that is they couldn't kill the animal, skill, or often hardly handle it!
It's not the best situation, becuz the sight of raw meat makes me nauseous. He understands and really doenst eat a lot of it, or he gets take out (hes Cuban so he gets cooked Cuban food, rice and beans for me) or eats what i eat. He had already eaten loads of rice and beans, so that part is easy. He also eats lots of salads and sandwiches, and we make pizzas.
But he used to eat a lot of steaks and KFC - since i stopped, he has stopped w/that also. When he cooks hamburgers or hot dogs the smell in the house truthfully almost makes me throw up.
But he understands my reasonsings etc., which is most important to me, so we both deal with it right now. We've been friends for a really long time.
I couldnt be with someone who either 'made fun of it,' or somehow just didnt try to understand.
So, do you think most vegetarians are vegetarians because they feel sorry for the animals, or do some have other reasons?
If I thought that my not eating meat whould make any difference whatsoever in the meat industry, then I would be one too.
I dont know if this is really for this thread, but i'll give my answer. For me - i think there can be 4 reasons for people avoiding eating animals or animal products.
1. the love of living things - not wanting an animal to have to die and/or suffer to give me something to eat, where there is a vast variety of foods to eat otherwise... freak animals are 'created' for humans to eat, with hormones to grow large-breasted for roasting (they cant stand up on their legs), the way pigs are raised by constantly having babies that they are unable to properly prepare for is beyond inhumane... and i LOVED bacon, believe me... but not that much. dairy cows and egg-laying hens are treated no better. no factory-farm animals are even able to breed naturally - it's all done artifically. every male chick born in an egg farm is crushed to death, or pushed into a huge pile by a tractor and left to die (they have no use for the males, and they are bred to be only good for egg-laying, not broilers)
...for some people, the slaughter and processing alone would be enuf - as often they are not dead - only stunned - thru a major part of the 'processing' ...downer animals (dying ones) are pushed up in piles and left to die slowly
2. health - health from eating a diet full of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, seeds, nuts, beans, legumes, no meat fats, no dairy fats (if you choose)
3. health - health from NOT eating meats full of hormones, antibiotics, possible bacteria, steroids, etc., and dairy products full of hormones, antibiotics, and possible bacterias, and fish and seafood with mercury, chemicals, and bacterias. (read up on what factory farm animals are fed.. it's beyond disgusting, and remember - you eat their flesh afterward)
4. the global impact on the environment of factory farms - such as feedlots, pork farms, chicken farms, egg farms, and their huge amounts of disgusting pollution, the grain that is used to feed the animals; and what the huge companies (Tyson, KFC, Smithfield) have done to small farmers (destroyed them) (look up about the LAKES of pig crap that have no where to EVER go)
If EACH one person who decides to eat less of ANY of those things thinks they cant make a difference - they are wrong.
I'm reading a book on vegetarianism, and it tells about the 4 major health groups in the country - recently putting out literature that says something like "people's diet should come mainly from plant sources," but how careful they have to be - becuz of the huge beef, ham, egg, chicken etc. companies - and what would happen if they DARE actually say "dont eat meat."
All you have to do is READ... i gave my sister the book "Eating Animals." She taught elementary school for over 30 years and is retired now. She said it should be required reading in schools - so each student can make an informed choice. But i doubt that will EVER be.
My SO ate chicken and fish when we bought our house together.
I never harassed him, nor lectured him. He's an adult and gets to make his own choices in life.
However, as the main cook in the household, I do refuse to handle animal flesh. Our house "rule" became, de facto, no raw meat in the house. Since he doesn't cook he would buy prepared meals (i.e. frozen dinners) with meat products. I was fine with that.
What changed? He was watching "How It's Made" one evening and was appalled at the treatment of young chickens in a processing plant.
I still kind of laugh about that. No gory PETA videos needed!
He really did become meat-free (he never really like fish all that much anyway...) overnight.
No nagging by plaidmom required.
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