I eat meat. I find it hard to justify to myself why I shouldn’t eat it for moral reasons. I was a vegetarian for five years and as a habit rarely cook meat (and almost never as the centerpiece to any meal; I don’t like the feel, the smell or the sensation of somehow being salmonella central when I handle it), but maintaining the moral outrage and insistence to myself that I would be so much healthier because of it became tiresome. And, as indicated earlier, I replaced meat with unhealthier foods (like large quantities of cheese and bread).
So, to put it as succinctly as I can, I am a lazy person.
Flexitarian. My cholesterol is genetically sky-high, so limiting animal fats in my diet helps a little. I was ovo-lacto-pesco for many years, but recently brought poultry back to my diet because I needed more protein to build muscle. I still do not eat pork or beef because of how meat is raised and processed in this country; it’s full of poop, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. I blame the chemical cocktails we feed our livestock for increased incidence of ADHD, autism and autoimmune diseases. That’s not to say I’ve seen any studies or have any corroborative evidence whatsoever to suggest there’s any link at all. It’s simply my opinion that the reason we didn’t see as much of those sorts of problems a couple three decades ago is because the meat was cleaner. (Really, fruit and veg isn’t any cleaner; they are still subject to genetically modified farming processes, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides…) I just try to eat the way my grandparents did (no convenience foods, no fast food) as much as possible.
At one time I was vegetarian, because I thought it was kinder and more humane. However, my health suffered drastically a many many ways. I decided that my initial thoughts about kindness were too simplistic.
All life in the material world feeds on the death of other living things; even brussels sprouts want to live (to steal the title from a NYTimes article), and some plants engage in aggressive actions against other plants (eg; trees like black walnut that produce poison to keep other plants away).
So I try to eat humanely produced food, and am grateful for the luxury of having the food, and honor the animal or plant that produced it.
I don’t think I am likely to become a vegetarian or vegan any time soon, but I think I’m going to make more of an effort to eat humane meat. So, uh, how do you go about doing that? I’m thinking about going to a local farmer’s market, but there is none anywhere close to me. What are the chances of finding more ethical meat, dairy, and eggs at my local Safeway?
Living in a Buddhist society has caused me to throw a lot of misconceptions about Buddhists right out the window. One of them is that Buddhists are vegetarians. There are some, but most of the other Thai Buddhists consider them oddballs.
I eat meat – as does my Buddhist wife and all her Buddhist relatives – for the same reason I eat chocolate: Because it tastes so damned good.
Not likely. I don’t get any of the products I consider acceptable from regular grocery stores, except occasionally Whole Foods where I’ll sometimes buy Organic Valley dairy products (only because I can look up what farms supply what zip codes), but I don’t trust the meat or cheese or whatever else from even there. You can start with the CCFA, Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals, and expand your search from there.
It’s possible you could find acceptable eggs at a regular grocery. I’m OK with Phil’s Fresh Eggs which the local Safeway carries, and Milo’s can be found at both my little natural grocer and Whole Foods, so those are OK if I’m unable to replenish with my regular farmer.
Once I found the main farm I purchase from, I was able to find they do have some products in a couple of small natural food stores near me. My farmer does most of her business at the summer farmer’s markets, and in the off-market season, she and her mom take different freezer trucks to different locations through the week, coming from Indiana to Chicago andparking in different neighborhoods for a few hours at a time, with a weekly e-mail telling customers where they’re going to be.
You may also be able to find a local meat co-op you can join. They may deliver to your door or they may have designated pick-up locations where you can pick up every month or three. You can call or visit the small natural food stores nearest you and find out what farms they buy from, it’s likely you can buy from them directly or join a co-op they’re involved with.
Don’t focus so much on finding organic stuff - organic meat can still be factory farmed - look instead for certified humane and the most humanely raised animals. Them being fed a natural diet and being antibiotic free (which are the main concerns of organic) come by matter of course when it’s a small humane farm.
I’m an omnivore, I like the taste of meat. I was raised in small country town around farms and have no ethical issues of eating domestic or game animals. We had chickens as a kid, used to collect the eggs then when mum wanted to have chicken for the Sunday Roast, help dad catch one, chop of the head and clean it.
I also eat quite a variety of vegetables, I can and have eaten vegetarian dishes but don’t find them as satisfying.
So basically I’ll eat almost anything except fish. Don’t like the taste of it.
I get my food at the local grocery store (Schnucks) and you can find stuff that is claimed to be free of hormones/steroids/etc (for example, Schnucks-branded milk has recently started carrying a “from cows not given hormones” label). I’m pretty sure this is in response to customer demand; if people prefer to buy hormone-free and pasture-fed meat, then they will sell more of it.
I eat meat because it is a natural part of our diet. I do believe we have an obligation to treat animals as ethically as we reasonably can, but that some in the meat industry mistreat their animals is not reason to go against our nature.
Another aspect to consider is that there are plenty of other creatures out there that devour other creatures. Other than the obvious argument regarding that, that we’re creatures to, I think it’s more important to also realize that if we didn’t domesticate cattle and other such animals, their lives would be substantially different. They may well be much fewer in number, being hunted by other creatures, dying to disease, and potentially having less pleasant lives compared to the lives offered in appropriately humane conditions.
I think the suffering argument fails too. Regardless of how much or how little animals suffer, they suffer. We cannot obligate ourselves not to cause some level of suffering to exist, as we have to consume other life to exist. What we can realize is THAT they suffer, they will exist and then die, so our obligation is in bringing them in, to provide them the best existence we can and the least amount of suffering reasonably possible.
If you know a good butcher they should be able to tell you where the meat comes from. That would be a good place to start! Might be expensive though.
Another good idea (in general, actually) it to start finding out what the various certifications, stamps and labels mean. I dunno what it’s like where you are, but here everything you buy seems to have all sorts of letters and numbers and colours and half of them don’t mean half as much as you would like, and you’ll like less than half of them half as well as they deserve.
So google the certifications you see. You’ll easily find criticism of them online, suddenly you’ll find that something that says something vague, like “certifiably green” (I made that up) means absolutely nothing.