I’m a pretty average meat eater, in the sense that I’ll eat most any kind of normal meat sold in a grocery store, and I don’t go out of my way to find organic, farm-raised, or “cruelty free” meat. Like I said - pretty typical. I don’t feel guilty for eating meat, but then I don’t think about it too often.
What I haven’t been able to square, and what I would like to hear other meat eaters’ thoughts on, is how to reconcile my eating habits with any other questions related to animal welfare. At the end of the day, I have no problem with animals being needlessly slaughtered for my own enjoyment. Right? So is there a way to square that fact with being against, say, cockfighting? Animal testing? Wearing fur? Zoos? Cow-tipping?
How do the rest of you think about and process these issues?
Cruelty just for cruelty’s sake, or for an outdated “sport”. Wearing fur & zoos? I have no issue with that. Dogfighting? Hell no. Animal testing? Depends on what for.
I’m not too hard to entertain; videos on Facebook of cats jumping up onto a sofa and falling flat on their faces will have me giggling like a schoolgirl.
Anything involving injury to an animal needs to provide a measurable benefit to human beings, or it’s not cool. So, I’m okay with eating meat, but I try to eat all the meat I’m served rather than seeing it go to waste. I’m not okay with cockfighting or dogfighting because I don’t think it improves the lives of people, and it certainly doesn’t improve the lives of the animals.
Guard dogs and canine units I can accept because they’re trained to do a job that humans might not be able to, and the risks they take can save the lives of their handlers, other officers, or civilians, whereas somebody who trains his dog to be violent just because he doesn’t want people on his property is crossing a line, not so much because people who trespass on his property might get attacked, but because if that happens, the dog could be destroyed, just for doing what it was trained to do.
Well, isn’t it needless/just for enjoyment based on the fact that humans can live very well without eating meat? If you or I became vegetarian the only way we would really suffer would be from losing the enjoyment of eating meat. No?
The results of the Paleo/Mediterranean/Vegan 3-way cage match are not yet in, so I’m not ready to buy into any of them as being The One True Way. Some people may live well with a Paleo diet, others may live well with a Vegan one. Doesn’t mean either one is inherently right or wrong, moral or immoral. Our bodies work with an omnivorous diet and whether you say it’s science or design or feline mind control, I believe it’s fine for us to have an omnivorous diet.
I take strong exception to that viewpoint. Even if I can survive without meat (never gave that much consideration), doesn’t mean it’s a moral failing or contradiction to eat meat for simple dietary reasons.
I didn’t design the life cycle. Besides there’s a case to be made that eating plants is wrong for the same reasons (but I won’t be the one to make it).
It’s not about suffering per se. It’s about needless suffering. I’m sure a gazelle suffers when preyed on. Same thing.
One thing I do feel strongly about is that there is a moral equivalence between buying meat on a supermarket shelf and killing for sustenance. Just because the typical consumer is shielded from that reality doesn’t sever that link.
There are also many imbalances created by industralization and population overgrowth, and I deeply lament the impact that that’s had on the environment, but sorry, I do my best with what I’ve got. I’m deeply concerned about environmental issues but I’m not going to forego a normal part of human life out of whatever misguided concern that is supposed to solve.
More examples, now that you got me going: hunting game like deer in a responsable manner and consuming the meat? Fine. I don’t object if people enjoy themselves while doing that. Why should I? There’s no difference between shooting a deer or buying it sliced into steak in a supermarket shelf.
Hunt an endangered species, take a trophy and leave the carcass to rot? I’d hang him or her by the balls if I could.
I think that it is illogical to oppose those things and eat meat. It makes no sense. I eat meat and I have no problem with cock-fighting; they are only chickens! Kicking puppies though is not the same thing.
My basic attitude about eating meat is that it’s fine to kill the animal for food, as long as it got to live the animal equivalent of the good life when it was alive, and was killed in a humane way. My late uncle was a cattle rancher in Kansas, and I was totally cool with that. Still would be.
OTOH, it’s been upsetting to find out, in recent years, that that’s by and large not the life my burgers lived when they were cows, but probably spent their lives in stalls where they were lucky to have room to turn around. I would like to see such factory-style raising of livestock banned - or if not banned, then the meat would have to be identified on the package as having come from such ‘farms.’
Omnivore here. I try to buy local meat when I can, sparing the beasts from a long trip down the highway to doom, and look for free-range eggs from the farmers’ market. I do wear and use leather, figuring it’s a byproduct of slaughter. If I knew rabbit fur was from meat rabbits, I might wear it, but I think I’d have issues anyway.
I don’t hunt, and have fished only for food.
I’m OK with animal testing for medical research, but am appalled by most of the other non-food usage. Slaughter can be humane, but never cockfighting or dogfighting.
I’m also OK with sniffer dogs, but I draw the line at mine detection or other war-related use of animals. (Well, maybe not carrier pigeons.)
The Omnivore’s Dilemma;) is a pretty good book. We are omnivores, biologically and structurally. I’m ok with raising food, in fact think anyone who can, should. I raise three beef animals a year (sell 2), and they are by personal preference Angus or cross, with the shortest legs available. They are shot in the pasture, and processed by licensed professionals. I feed them only the grass, our own hay, apple squishings, and squash and pumpkins. I’ve neighbors with chickens and other fowl, and sheep, and goats, who share. We have family who hunt and harvest the sea. I grow as much as I can of vegetables and fruit, but am not self sufficient. There are times when we don’t eat beef/red meat if we are out- I don’t like the taste of grocery store cow. My husband eats hardly any, unless it’s game.
Yah, cockfights are just chickens. The birds fight because they are bred for their aggression- but the gambling, the artificial spurs, and the joy of the humans in the bloodshed sickens me. Go to a boxing match instead, if you must watch battles and blood.
Animal testing- likely to go the way of the horse and wagon. Perhaps necessary for medical research still, but not for adornments(buy cruelty free makeup)
Dogfights- no no no no
Locally there is a recent scandal about a dogfucker (and horsefucker) stealing a big mastiff cross from a breeder of such- the dog is half Boerbel and half Kangal, and since I know a littermate well I’d like to put a word in against sexual congress with animals as well. The perp had a business renting out his dogs and stallions to the twisted folk who do that sort of thing, until he went to jail for marketing white owder as well. Yuck.
Which, IMHO, gives us a certain amount of responsibility for their well-being that we don’t have for animals that live and die in the wild. We’re their gods; are we gonna be good gods or evil gods?
