One bowhead whale can feed an entire Inuit community for a year.
One cow can feed 500+ people with 8oz steaks.
One chicken can feed only 4 to 6 people.
One shrimp feeds less than 1 person.
In each example you are killing a life. Isn’t killing just one life (whale) to feed thousands more ethical than killing one life (chicken) to feed only 6 people?
But whale meat is uncommon food at the American grocery store and restaurant. So if making the choice between a beef or chicken dish, beef is the more ethical choice, right?
And by killing the whale you are not only feeding thousands of humans, you are saving millions of krill life that would have died if that whale kept on living.
Well, I think the even more ethical choice might be to have the whole world go vegetarian. I read somewhere that for ever pound of beef it take 10 pounds of grain. Cut out the middle [strike]guy[/strike] cow and feed more people.
Also there is no way to farm whales in a cost effective manner, the way we can cows & chickens.
Also, also BACON!
Also, also, also “Now no ice cream kids if you don’t finish your Sperm Whale Surprise”:eek:
No you can not get 500 pounds of steak off a 1000 pound cow. This page outlines what you get from a quarter side of beef.
[This year, our cow was slaughtered on October 18th. It hung for two weeks, and then was cut and wrapped. The cow dressed out at 560 pounds, or 140 pounds per couple. The meat cost $1.65/lb. The cut and wrap charge was $0.40/lb, and there was a $40 kill fee. (All costs apply to hanging weight, which is different than the actual weight of the meat you take home.) Basically, we paid $300 for our share of the meat, which amounted to roughly 83 pounds divided as follows:
[ul]
[li]21 packages of ground beef totaling 47 pounds, 14.3 ounces of meat[/li][li]5 roasts totaling 12 pounds, 4.1 ounces of meat[/li][li]15 packages of steak totaling 18 pounds, 14.8 ounces of meat[/li][li]2 miscellaneous cuts totaling 3 pounds, 15.3 ounces of meat][/li][/ul]
I might note that the misc. cuts are probably not organ meat, which if I remember correctly run to about 50 pounds, if the intestines are included. They are probably something like hanger steak or skirt steak. I suppose you could cut the roasts down into 8 oz portions but the person who gets those better have jaws of steel as the cuts used for roasts are frequently very tough if grilled like a steak.
I will note that chickens can self feed a fair portion of their diet if left to free range, they will eat bugs, small rodents, small snakes and any organic stuff that catches their fancy. They are rather omniverous little beasties. I have caught mine polishing off a dead squirrel. I would almost say that they would be more ecologically sound to eat than beef. Although you should consider the humble pig, they can eat leftovers and peelings from human food prep, helping to reduce the load on the local land fill. They will also very happily eat beer brewing lees and restaurant leftovers [one of the farmers we know locally has a deal with a local diner to get a rubbermaid tote of peoples leftovers every evening after they shut down.]
I watched the show The Deadliest Catch and they killed thousands of crab’s lives for such a miniscule food source. It didn’t make sense when they could hunt a single whale instead and feed thousands. They would only have to kill one animal instead of thousands.
The issue with the OP is the base assumption that we should value all life equally when I don’t think most people do. In general, we will value human lives above animal lives. In general, we’ll also likely value the lives of animals we are close to in some way (dogs, cats, primates, etc.) moreso than we do of animals we are not close to. At a certain point, other than avoiding needless suffering or hunting to extinction, most people will see certain creatures as an expendible source of food.
So, just as much as you might argue that minimizing the number of lives is more ethical, one could also easily argue that a fish, for instance, while providing less meat than a cow, is also, as far as we know, also significantly less able to suffer and because of its less development brain, it doesn’t make sense to equate the lives of a cow and a fish ethically.
One of the things to keep in mind about beef is that often times it is grazed on ground that is anywhere from impractical to impossible to row crop. Where I live, there is a lot of rocky, hillside ground that would be useless for any type farming except pasture. A tractor would roll on the hills and the topsoil is often less than six inches deep. Livestock (mostly cattle and goats) is the primary form of agriculture in my county.
I was referring to your other thread where you only care about yourself.
The question is not as simple as posed. For instance, some (all?) whales should not be hunted because they are in danger of extinction, and there are alternatives to any practical reason to hunt them. The ethics and morals concerning the killing of animals have nowhere near the consensus as those applied to humans.
So if you simply abstract to the idea that killing animals is an equivicable wrong measured only in number of lives taken, then of course killing one animal is better than killing many. But that doesn’t address any real world situation.
Yes, but if all species’ life is as valuable as being suggested by the OP, then there would be an expectation that we as the dominant species should be doing everything in our power to stop all unneccesary species death, even the killing by a cat of a mouse. If that’s not the case…then the OP’s entire premise is really moot…and I’ll kill and eat any damn thing I please…subject to current law.
No it is not steaks edible portion can be tongue, heart, liver, or the toughest gristliest blood vessel filled hunk oftrim that normally gets turned into mystery meat hotdogs … when you think steak you are thinking steak, as in a slab of meat that is nice grilled with a-1 sauce. When they say portions, that includes in the form of ground beef, cubed steaks and all the marginal stuff that is not really servable in a restaurant because people would not want to spend money to actually go out and be served something that is so bottom of the barrel.
Does that really matter? A chicken only feeds 2 people in these parts, and a bowhead whale will feed different sized Inuit communities for different amounts of time.
