How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

[CIVPhilzilla]

Humans didn't climb to the top of the food pyramid to eat carrots. I enjoy eating meat, and find it necessary especially with my workout routine.

 

[Narz]

Humans have decided that theyre most basic instincts are 'immoral' because theyre such clear signs of our true status as just another species of animal. Thats too much truth for most people, so we're universally declared to be seperate and apart from Nature.

I don't know about you but I don't have an instinct to eat meat (though if I was starving I suppose I'd have any instinct to eat pretty much anything that would keep me alive).

 

[Che Guava]

Humans didn't climb to the top of the food pyramid to eat carrots. I enjoy eating meat, and find it necessary especially with my workout routine.

(and here I find myself switching sides somehow...!)

No one needs meat, not even with a heavy excercise regiment. There is more than enough vegetable sources of protein to make up for a complete lack of meat.

Having said that, it is easier to get protein from meat, especially in europe/NA

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Matter of fact, from a biological perspective fruit & grain "want" to be harvested (and have their seeds shed on the Earth for their descendants to grow from). You could almost say an animal being killed vs. a fruit or grain being harvested are pretty much opposites.

On the contrary, we are preserving animal species that we eat just the same as we do with plants. What use would pigs have to us if we didn't eat them? They might be on the endangered species list right now.


Again I don't find it morally wrong to eat any other species and I don't find it immoral for any other species to eat me. I of course don't find it morally wrong to commit genocide against any alien invaders who have a taste for human flesh either.

 

[Narz]

It's threads like that harm the vegetarian cause.

Talk of moral rights and wrongs gets people backs up - they don't like being told they are immoral.

Vegetarians should not attack meat eaters for eating meat. If meat eaters wish to enquire as to why someone is vegetarain, then by all means discuss. But I don't think vegetarians should actively seek the argument.

I agree with this.

Eat or be eaten.

That's stupid. How many cows or chickens tried to eat you today?

Whether or not they are truly "feelings" is unknown, of course (Hell, I don't really know that you have feelings like I do), but they react. There is a part of a plant that gets very excited when a nearby plant is killed. Furthermore, that part of the plant gets excited again should that person (and not any other) come near again. I'll do my best to get the reference, though I don't know that there's an internet link I can give you regardless. You may have to do the unthinkable and visit a library or some such.

You got that from "The Secret Life of Plants"?

Anyway, you can survive without killing ANYTHING. Remember, you can acquire fruit, nuts, grain, greens (though commercial grain and greens harvesters do kill the plants AFAIK), eggs and dairy products WITHOUT any killing whatsoever (therefore completely owning the justification : You have to kill to survive).

BUT THE BEES, MY GOD, THE BEES!!

http://honeygardens.com acquires honey from the bees in a humane manner. It's also pretty close to you (Vermont). It's also the best tasting honey, IMO (and it's raw and unfiltered if you're into that).

I don't have the patience to read through all eight pages but I'll explain my philosophy a about meat eating.

Eating meat is absolutely not morally wrong and to pick which creatures or class of creatures it is morally acceptable to eat will always be arbitrary. I don't see eating a cow as wrong and if some predator managed to catch me I wouldn't spend my last breaths decrying the injustice of being eaten.

Fair enough HOWEVER, the real injustice is not the eating of meat but the way factory farmed animals are treated while they are alive, IMO.

What is a "raw response"?

That would be the response of people over on sunfood.com to this thread.

I justify it since they are a food source. I don't care about the "violence" comitted onto the animal since they are lower on the food chain.

To Jeffery Dalmer YOU are lower on the food chain. Does that mean he should be able to lock you in a bathroom with twenty other prisoners, chained to the toilet and force feed you 'till you're good & plump and then slit your throat?

You're talking to a person who sees women as equal as men in terms of streignth. I have seen pics of bodybuilding women and I am in karate class with women and believe me they can be as equal in streignth as men.

Women on average are much weaker than men. Most women can't even do a single push-up and the strongest of men are still at least twice as strong as the strongest of women.

animals need nutrition to survive. whether from plants or animals they have to kill to get it.

I addressed this point. You don't have to kill any animals or plants to get nutrition.

already TODAY, there are scientists who can GROW meat. yes, GROW it in a lab. i dont have the links to the articles though.

I remember, I hope this becomes mainstream.

Ditto on my part. No one can convince me that eating meat is wrong, cruel, and/or violent.

It doesn't have to be "wrong, cruel or violent" if you eat an animal that died of natural causes (aka : roadkill). However factory farmed meat is most certainly wrong, cruel and violent, if you want to be honest with yourself you should accept that.

Human's natural aversion to dead, decaying flesh (like roadkill) calls into question the "instinct" to eat meat.

My objection is not to death, but to the act of killing, and the violence inherent therein.

My objection is the way factory farmed animals are treated. I don't have any objective to meat eating itself.

On the contrary, we are preserving animal species that we eat just the same as we do with plants. What use would pigs have to us if we didn't eat them? They might be on the endangered species list right now.

Doesn't justify factory farming of them though.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

(and here I find myself switching sides somehow...!)

No one needs meat, not even with a heavy excercise regiment. There is more than enough vegetable sources of protein to make up for a complete lack of meat.

Having said that, it is easier to get protein from meat, especially in europe/NA

No one needs a lot of things. You could base an entire diet off of just bread and water if you wanted to, it just wouldn't be very balanced. Sure you can get protein from vegetables, but nothing beats sinking your teeth into some meat.

 

[Che Guava]

No one needs a lot of things. You could base an entire diet off of just bread and water if you wanted to, it just wouldn't be very balanced. Sure you can get protein from vegetables, but nothing beats sinking your teeth into some meat.

Not true: a diet of bread and water doesn't provide all the protein, fat, amino acids and vitamins that a human diet requires. Vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, on thier own, can.

Having said that, I do like to sink my teeth into some meat too...

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Not true: a diet of bread and water doesn't provide all the protein, fat, amino acids and vitamins that a human diet requires. Vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, on thier own, can.

Having said that, I do like to sink my teeth into some meat too...

Alright it pretty much boils down to meat is good and I enjoy it, sucks to be the poor animal I'm eating.

 

[Azash]

I'm human. The steak is not. Case closed.

EDIT: Please, no SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE stuff.

 

[Truronian]

Corn doesn't bleed all over the place and thrash in pain when you harvest it.

Neither does a chicken.

 

[Eukaryote]

How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

If the animals I eat had not been born so people could eventully eat them, they would have never been born at all and would have never lived.

 

[Atlas14]

What does it require?

A brain that is designed to handle such functions.

Ok, but you're just giving examples. I want to know the method by which you're separating these examples. You're metaphorically giving me fish rather than teaching me how to.

Fine then, if you cannot extrapolate from my examples the necessary information...

"raw" responses are those that are already genetically programmed into us, they are essentially predetermined, normal responses to stimuli for healthy human beings, animals, and plants.

"non-raw" responses are those that either are a combination of genetic influence and actual conscious decision making.

(Any further than this and we are going to be diving into neuropsychology, which I know nothing about)

 

[Eukaryote]

I'm human. The steak is not. Case closed.

I hate to play devils advocate but if one could say that I see no reason why one couldn't say: I'm airean.* The jew is not. Case closed.

*did I spell that right?

 

[TheBladeRoden]

Violence is manly.

 

[Azash]

I hate to play devils advocate but if one could say that I see no reason why one couldn't say: I'm airean.* The jew is not. Case closed.

*did I spell that right?

Well, mostly the fact that even if you slap on the label "aryan", the "aryan" person will still be, physiologically, the same as a jew.

 

[ParkCungHee]

How do you, as a meat eater (if, that is, you are a meat eater), justify the violence inherent in your food, and inherent in the act of obtaining it? Violence of that nature is, after all, negative, no matter which way you slice it.

Well, I don't hold violence no matter which way you slice it to be wrong. Violence directly properly is just, proper and heroic. Killing a cow is not one of these times however.

Mainly, I have two reasons. One is secular, the other Scientific.

I am a humanist in outlook. Man is the measure of all things, and what is good for man is good period. Of course this doesn't mean we should disregard animals completely, because animals are beneficial to man in many ways. Animal cruelty is wrong because it
A) usually leads to immoral acts directed against humans, if sadistic in nature
and
B) is an emotional stress on humans. I don't have an ounce of compassion for a chicken which is slaughtered, but I do have compassion for those who are upset over it.
However, because the benefits to man far outweigh these small setbacks, on the whole, it is a good thing.

The other is we would not be where we are today without meat. Science has shown that it was the cooking of meat which allowed the creation of human sentience, so I can't imagine its a bad thing.

 

[Atlas14]

That's stupid. How many cows or chickens tried to eat you today?

What it means to me in a less literal interpretation is that there are many available sources of protein, many that are currently not being taken seriously.

Is trying to feed billions of people around the world off of cattle farms very realistic in the future or very efficient? Absolutely not. However, this realization is not a call for vegetarianism necessarily, but instead a change in cultural foods and protein sources. Insects for example (such as grasshoppers) have loads more concentrated protein than beef, yet virtually nobody in America will willingly eat them because of cultural prejudices.

Now, when I say "eat or be eaten", I mean that if these animal resources are available, we should certainly utilize them, while making the transition to a more sustainable protein source. There is no reason in my mind why we should stop eating chickens and cows, but the "humane treatment" argument for vegetarianism doesn't fly in all cases.

 

[SG-17]

It is theistic Survival of the Fittest.

 

[Trajan12]

I don't try to at all. And I'm damn satisfied with that.

 

[Prince_Imrahil]

Just wanted to say the rape-meat eating analogy was the most ignorant thing I've ever read!

...why is meat-eating wrong, cause rape is! Let's see, rape causes harm to another person, which is wrong beause we're people and thus if we didnt say it was so we'd all be in the way of harm from other people, but animals aren't on our playing field, eating cow is not bad for humans in any way. And as we are humans, we do value ourselves over cows for no other reason but. And your alien analogy? Whats so 'wrong' for them to eat humans? We wont want it and will fight back unlike cows but that doesn't make the aliens wrong.