What arguments exist to support that it is ethical to lead an omnivorous diet as a human today?

In My Humble Opinion
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A girl I briefly dated introduced me to Veganism by sharing with me a documentary entitled Earthlings which allegedly made her go vegan immediately. She was vegetarian for many years before that. We had to break things off a few weeks in, due to circumstantial issues and a couple minor incompatibilities which began to surface. Shortly after, I relapsed back to eating meat and having eggs for breakfast. We still continued to be friends and/or in the “it’s complicated” loop for many weeks after the fact so we were still communicating. She didn’t harshly object to my relapse, however she did assertively refute the reasons I provided, also adding that she could not see herself long-term with someone who had seen Earthlings and was still possessive of his or her meat. She subsequently denied a pending request of mine for reconciliation.

I decided to become vegan again, but in a gradual manner by starting out with Vegetarianism first. Although being vegetarian was much easier, I could not bring myself to take steps towards becoming totally vegan. Two days ago, me and the girl decided to go completely no-contact due to the tensions and confrontations that were continually arising, over the incompatibilities that had failed us while we were dating and the conflict between me wanting more closeness and her wanting more space which frustrated us both even within the context of a friendship. Illuminating was the fact that my romantic feelings for her continued to leave me emotionally unsatisfied, in addition to having fundamentally different attitudes towards the mechanics of being in a relationship.

A couple days before the decision to completely leave each other alone, which occurred after a civil, fair, and comprehensive phone conversation about the above issues, I started to eat meat again. Somewhat motivating was the fact that at this point it had been established that we absolutely had no future as a couple, although the main cause was realizing while I feel very slightly guilty deep down inside consuming these products, it’s not enough to override my lack of willpower in becoming vegan. Also, while it is possible to be healthy as a vegetarian or a vegan, if certain precautions are not taken to meet nutritional requirements, deficiencies may arise. One must remain faithful to crafting creative dishes and remembering to take any necessary supplements, which requires some level of devotion to cooking and planning. Potential for spontaneity while eating and drinking out is greatly reduced. Furthermore, I’m starting University next school year and vegetarian and especially vegan options, while present, are greatly limited and not nearly as pleasurable to the mouth. Nor is my time management and organization up to standard, which makes the prospective inconvenience even more undesirable.

Notwithstanding these unattractive conditions, now that I have been exposed to the documentary Earthlings, dated a vegan girl who provided convincing reasons for why it is unethical to not be vegan, and have read many persons’ personal anecdotes and explanations for why it is wrong to consume meat and/or animal products in general, I cannot help but feel the need for validation from some sources that it is okay to eat omnivorously and arguments supporting this position in my inventory to fall back on whenever I feel guilty and/or if I’m ever confronted over it.

Why is it ethical to consume meat and other animal products?

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The Master speaks

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What arguments exist to support that it is unethical to lead an omnivorous diet as a human today?

Humans have always been omnivores; why should we change now?

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Humans are naturally omnivorous and some nutrients and vitamins, such as vitamin b-12, are only found in meat and animal products. Unfortunately, the argument that it is naturally healthy and the default way for humans to satisfy their nutritional needs, in this era, has a convincing counter.

Vegans and vegetarians often counter this claim in a two-fold manner. First, they assert that vegan and vegetarian diets are more healthy in that they facilitate weight loss and lower cholesterol levels. They may even cite documentaries such as Forks Over Knives which claim that consuming animal products strongly correlates to increased risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. However, even a total refutation of these assertions only pose a modest wrinkle for vegans and vegetarians making this counterargument because subsequently they add that even if they were to concede the point that vegan or vegetarian diets aren’t any more healthy than omnivorous ones, it is still unethical because it is possible to survive and receive adequate nourishment as a vegan or a vegetarian. There are many supplements and vitamins available to mitigate potential deficiencies. Protein is found in many vegan foods such as various nuts and their derivative products (i.e. peanut butter), Quinoa, hemp seeds, protein shakes and bars, beans, and even grains. If it is possible to both be healthy and devoid of nutritional deficiencies and completely abstain from animal products, then it is not necessary to contribute to the slaughter and worse, cruel and inhumane treatment of animals. Consuming animal products constitutes financial support and contribution to industries that implement such mistreatment and suffering, and because it is not a nutritional necessity to do so in the modern era, this contribution is merely the result of one’s intent to please his or her taste buds and satisfy his or her selfish desires.

This is, of course, the argument that the girl posed in response to the claim that humans are naturally omnivores. Thus, unfortunately, the fact that omnivorous diets are standard for humans is not enough to nullify the faint guilt I feel while consuming animal products.

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How deep is this guilt you feel? Do you have any pets that eat meat products? If so, would you put them on a vegan diet?

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Why is it ethical to eat plants and plant products?

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Everything that lives does so by consuming other living things.

The idea that this is not ethical speaks to a complete disconnect from nature.

Like thinking your food just magically appears in stores without thought of what happened to get it there.

For instance, how many birds, ground animals and insects are ruthlessly slaughtered to grow your vegetables and grain? How many animals are driven off that land and find no other home?

You cannot live without killing other life.

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“Non-human animal companion”, please!!

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The way I see it, even some of the objectionable agricultural practices are more humane than real life. The fate of a cow in the wild is not going to have a happy outcome. Predation, disease, starvation, exposure… this isn’t Bambi prancing around in meadows and dying peacefully in his sleep surrounded by a loving herd.

In that sense, a short life of plenty and a relatively painless death seems very ethical, and we get food to eat as a by product.

Could we improve the ethics of farming practices? Probably, but that’s a separate question from whether an omnivorous diet is inherently unethical.

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The concept of ethics expanded to include the animal kingdom is a totally new concept, created in the past 100 years, only when humans finally mastered the laws of the universe to be able to pick and choose lifestyles. All of the hundreds of centuries before that, the species evolved a dependency on the available diet, gradually developing the intellect necessary to be able to engineer sustainable food sources.

So now, after thousands of years, some do-gooders wallowing in luxury want, in the blink of an eye, to completely reconstruct what has taken millennia to evolve. And do it right now. What if it has unforeseen consequences? How do you go back again?

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It is, in my opinion, impossible to ethically justify eating meat. I do believe, however, that it is possible to ethically justify consuming certain dairy products provided they are farmed humanely.

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My Argument

Steak is delicious!

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Changing your lifestyle for pussy is weak dude. Be who you are, you are clearly not vegan.

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It’s true that we eat too much meat, and to some extent, this is damaging to the environment.

However, that’s just a good reason to cut back on your meat consumption.

When you grow vegetables, there’s a lot of waste, which can be fed to meat animals. There’s also a lot of land which is useless for crops, but fine for grazing.

Note also, that the sweet corn you eat takes 10 times the land for the same size crop as the corn grown for feed .

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Seems like there’s a bit of an ethical problem with introducing people to that Earthlings doc. :smiley:

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The knots a man will tie himself in for poon are apparently without limit.

The wiki on the film.

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This is fantastically wrong.

The nature of animal lives, the ethics of our relations to them, and the specific virtues of vegetarianism have been topics of philosophical debate and spiritual advocacy for at least 2,500 years. See Pythagoras, Zeno, Theophrastus, and Ovid, to start in classical Western antiquity. Parshvanatha and Confucius, for example, demonstrate parallel traditions to the East.

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We domesticated our prey and made them better eating because it is easier and we don’t starve as often when we have them in abundance. Now our hunter-gathering has been reduced to gathering items at the market.

Is it ethical to eat an animal? Yes. We ARE animals. We’re born of this Earth, not some enlightened outsiders who are just visiting.

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Totally.

Why do you assume it’s ethical to rip off a plant’s genitals to eat it, let alone the whole plant itself?