It would take me much more time and effort (on average per bird) to raise, care, catch, kill, feather, gut, clean and part up a chicken. Perhaps I’m a better IT guy than you. 
It’s not necessary for most people (it would be awfully hard for Alaska Natives and Inuits to be vegetarian in their native lands) but the human body is designed for eating and digesting meat.
I won’t eat things that I know were produced by harming an animal while it’s alive, but I have no qualms about eating meat and in fact just finished a tasty pork chop.
I absolutely 100% agree with this. However, the same thing can be said about every damn thing.
I have to feed my cats meat, or they’ll sicken and die.
So what’s the point of me not eating it? I still will be buying from slaughterhouses regardless.
And no, I don’t feel guilty. Humans are omnivorous. Like bears.
I simply meant “preaching” and said so due to his/her indignant tone throughout this thread. If you think that means what the poster I replied to made me “upset” then that’s just a case of you assuming I feel the way you hope I feel.
I spent half of my high school and college years as a vegetarian before reintroducing meat into my life. About a year ago, I went vegan for one month as a sort of challenge. I know it’s not proof of causation, but I got sick with multiple colds/flu viruses back to back during that month. I have NEVER spent that many weeks being ill, with only a few days’ reprieve in between being ill; it started during the challenge, and stretched on for another month and a half. I’m not sure if it’s all a coincidence, or if my body was rebelling against the sudden removal of all animal products, but it was a nightmare.
Since that experiment with veganism, I’ve begun eating meat again - but not nearly as often as before, and not in such large amounts at any given time. My years as a vegetarian were filled with junk food (cheese, potatoes every way but raw, carbs carbs carbs) rather than, you know, vegetables. I’m amazed at how many junk foods are vegetarian or even vegan!
I don’t believe in causing any creature to suffer without a good reason. Animal research for medical reasons (actual diseases) is ok; animal research for trivial reasons (ANOTHER b.s cellulite cream that won’t work, or another shade of lipstick) is not ok with me.
I don’t believe factory farming is good for anyone in the food chain, human or ‘animal.’ It’s bad for the environment, to boot. I agree with those saying that happy animals taste better, by the way. I’ve been known to remark “This burger tastes sad,” or similar, depending on the animal I’m eating.
I believe meat is a valid component of the human diet, recognizing that each body is different and requires different input. For me, it’s tasty, it’s filling, it provides protein and B vitamins, and it flavors other, less palatable foods. Ironically, I eat more fruits, veggies and other plant-based foods now that I did during my vegetarian years.
I believe the intent behind eating omnivorously - to survive and be nourished - is morally neutral, or even ‘good.’ If you don’t enjoy animals’ suffering, and if you (when possible) seek out more ethically-sourced animal products, I’d say, eat up and enjoy. It’s the circle of life.
As for those who claim that consumption of animal products causes (insert disease/catastrophe here) - many indigenous tribes such as the Inuits eat almost nothing BUT animals, and they have low rates of chronic illnesses, diabetes, cancer, etc. PETA has never answered me when I’ve asked for them to explain that to me. My belief is that it’s not so much what we eat, but how that food is processed. Highly processed junk (bread, crackers, cookies, cereal, pasta, canned foods, tv dinners, fast food) is, I believe, the culprit behind obesity and other diet-related illnesses, NOT animal products per se. I eat minimally processed meats, cooked at home, with no added salt, sugar, oil, butter, breading etc. I have a healthy weight, and my blood pressure tends to the low side, even when I eat more meat than I should sometimes. I also have a job which keeps me active, and I walk as my main method of transportation.
Eat with gratitude for what you have. Eat with awareness of the true cost of what you’re eating. Eat whatever’s right for your body and lifestyle, and for goodness’ sake, enjoy every bite!
I agree, meat eating is pretty obviously not the principle reason for rampant eating related disorders like obesity and diabetes. The recent famous/infamous meta study even called into question a significant link between red/processed meat and health problems.* But without debating that, there are so many high calorie non meat foods, so many people whose gorging on them is obviously a big part of their weight problem, it defies everyday observation and common sense to to pretend that obesity health issue centers around meat eating.
There’s more solid objective basis to say that raising animals for food has a bigger environmental foot print per calorie than growing plants for food, because you must first grow plants anyway to feed the animals, sometime like 6 times as much in case of beef cattle, though that ‘Feed Conversion Ratio’ is much lower for chickens.
The issue there of course is like a lot of environmental stuff. If the price of meat isn’t very high compared to non-meat, there will still be a lot of meat eating. The market under current constraints is saying it’s quite affordable to grow all those extra plants. There are cases where the body politic should step in and artificially raise the prices of things to get people to chose the ‘right’ alternatives, but that process is so open to stupidity and abuse it needs to be a last resort IMO, not the first thing we wake up every day thinking, ‘how can I vote to force other people to do stuff they don’t find economical?’
I see no problem though with consumer action/preference for more expensive more humanely raised/slaughtered animals if that’s what consumers want. Same goes for trying to convince other consumers of that. Even if it’s on an emotional sort of basis (you wouldn’t kill the animal personally…so what?). If people want more expensive products that fulfill intangible needs the market will as a rule give it to them.
I don’t much go along with categorical ‘ethical’ arguments against meat eating though. Ethics according to whom? It’s all well and good to reject the idea of an external source of morality communicated to humans (god(s) via scriptures etc), if you want to that is, freedom of/from religion, fine. But then come to me with just made up human notions, eating animals is categorically ‘wrong’…cause we say so: sorry, completely unconvincing.
One among innumerable links for anyone who somehow missed this. And various media outlets are also click baiting a bit to say ‘ok to eat red meat’, meta study called into the question the strength of the causal link between red and/or processed meat and health problems. It did not say there was no such link, nor say in so many words red/processed meat is ‘ok’.
Speaking of cognitive dissonance, there’s an increasing body of evidence that plants are intelligent and even “sentient”.
“A recent spate of studies…is proving that plants have volition, show altruism and understand kinship much like many animal species. Could this dramatically change how we view plants and, in turn, make us care about what happens to them in the way we’re concerned about threatened, charismatic wildlife?”
So how do plants “feel” when cut down, cooked and served to vegans (and omnivores)? Is that a “sad fact” that should cause us to reconsider eating plants? Are only humane ways of raising plants for food acceptable? Or should we give up and embrace breatharianism?
Cruelty to animals is unacceptable. Eating meat is not immoral in my view, nor do vegans exist on a higher moral plane.
As for plants, “bloom or die” has long been my injunction to garden inhabitants, and I have no problems with eating vegetables, sentient or not.
My mother used to serve us a tomato sauce-hamburg mixture wrapped in biscuit dough. Inexpensive and tasty. My dad christened the dish “dead dog” based on its appearance, and we called it that all through my childhood.
There’s not a growing body of evidence. There are the same sort of shoddy, non-replicable studies there have been since the 1970s. (My third graders tried to replicate the drop-a-mimosa-plant study. That poor plant never stopped shriveling on the drop.)
And nobody claiming that plants are intelligent has ever proposed a clear mechanism for this intelligence. Plants lack both a nervous system and any sort of nervous system analog.
Instead, people love to bring these shoddy experiments up to pwn the vegans, in much the same way that some Republicans bring up clickbait Breitbart articles in order to pwn the libs.
Don’t do that.
Perhaps don’t click on threads that are explicitly about the ethics of eating meat?
This post is more obnoxious than any vegan I’ve ever met has been about veganism.
But think about a vegetarian diet. What are you going to eat, vegetables? The slaughter of small animals in the process of monoculture is staggering. The deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of small animals per acre is virtually guaranteed. When they plow, do you think they run through the fields shouting “Run away little field mouse!”? Plowing and harvesting causes the deaths of billions of rabbits, woodchucks, moles, voles, mice, birds of all kinds, you name it. If you knew how much blood was on that cabbage you’d shudder.
Of course, most animals raised for food are on a grain based diet, so that only increases the death toll, but not by much. Probably on a death per calorie basis your best outcome would be shooting a deer in the wild. No animals were killed to provide food for that deer, so you’ve got that going for you. Even grass fed beef graze on cleared land that likely involves the death of small (or not so small) animals as a by-product.
My wife and I are not vegans, but we have definitely reduced the amount of animal protein we eat. For a number of reasons.
First, our opinion/experience, is that a more plant-based diet is more healthy for us. We are happy to have made the change, but don’t attempt to persuade anyone to do likewise (unless they ask.) One thing many people find, once they decrease their meat intake, is that their tastes and bodies change, such that they find meat less appetizing than they used to, and may even find it causes some gastrointestinal discomfort. We are pretty close to completely eliminating beef, for that reason.
Second, many aspects of commercial meat production are really unhealthy for the planet. Growing all that corn, and then feeding it to animals, is a pretty inefficient way to get nutrition into people. The deleterious effect of farming monocultures of beans and corn are indisputable. Deplete the soil, excessive erosion and fertilizer run-off, methane and shit… Excessive use of antibiotics. No, we aren’t going to go completely “green” with everyone eating locally from small producers. Nor should we. But there might be a middle ground.
Third, if I am going to eat meat, I’d just as soon the animals were not tortured. Pigs are really intelligent, yet are kept in cages so small that they cannot turn around. Chickens who are so overcrowded that they cannot even stand, and will peck each other to death. All for the sake of saving a few pennies per pound. Sure, we are a higher form of life. But does that mean we ought to mistreat those below us? Do you beat/starve your dog?
Fourth, I’ve read several things which suggest reducing animal protein can have health benefits. But I don’t get too deep into the nutrition science weeds. Wait a week, and the consensus will change. 
Of course, I’m a hypocrite. I do not consistently pay the premium for cage-free meat. We eat mostly fish, but there are concerns related to fishing and fish/farming. In general, tho, I do feel there IS a moral component to one’s dietary choices.
Hunting and eating what you kill? So long as the species is not endangered, I’ve got ZERO issue with that.
Nope. I sometimes get grossed out at the thought of hotdogs but that’s only because of how they’re made, not what’s in them.
I don’t feel guilty about it, although I get incensed when people waste meat.
Granted, I’m not going to eat dogs or cats, so there are limits.
So then, tell me. Give me stats.
The other thing to think about re: animal welfare is not just the death, but also the life. I’m not one of those “animals in nature live an idyllic existence” people; red in tooth and claw, and all. However, were I given the choice between living the life, say, of a wild quail, or a battery hen, no question I’d choose the former.
I really don’t think this is accurate. We’ve gained a much greater appreciation of the complexities of plant behavior in recent years, and mechanisms have been proposed to explain the apparent intelligence—from chemical self-signalling to the networks formed by root apices.
I can’t accurately assess the status of this research, and claims to the effect of plant intelligence, much less sentience, obviously have a ways to go, and whether that has any effect on the debate surrounding meat eating is questionable, but still—it seems that there’s legitimate research being done in this area.
Perhaps you could explain just why you believe all these studies are “shoddy” instead of dismissing them out of hand - and then establish (by scientific means) that killing and eating plants is “moral” while killing and eating animals (or at least certain mammals) is “immoral”.
*"Fast forward to 2019. There are now dozens of research papers, hundreds of articles, and hours of video prepared and published by plant biologists and neurobiologists discussing the many facets of plant intelligence. Through rigorous research and experimentation, the following behavioral characteristics have now been established and can be attributed to plants:
Communication
Learning
Problem Solving
Memory & Memory Recall"*
Wrong. I find people who eat meat but only if it’s organic, grass-fed, free-range, non-CAFO meat to be equally annoying.
I find this approach amusing. Enjoyed reading a book once titled Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat.. I think the most extreme example I recall was a lab rat. While used for an experiment, it can be very expensive and is cared for carefully. But should it fall off the lab bench onto the floor, it becomes vermin to be exterminated! 
First, I should be clearer. Not all the research is shoddy. However, much of it is not replicated, and no conclusions should be drawn from it. Other research is really interesting, but the conclusions about intelligence are completely unsupported. Something’s going on, but calling it “intelligence” is a real stretch.
Then you want me to establish (by scientific means) something about morality? Get out of here with that silliness.