I call them little cabbages from heaven. Roast them up and I’ll eat them like candy.
I do think that it’s getting better. Cage free eggs at my store are less than $1 more per dozen. This weekend, I wanted two boneless rib eyes and the grass fed was the only one packaged the way I wanted it (single steaks, small enough for a skillet) and the price was only slightly more per pound than the rib eyes that were not packaged appropriately for two people and a cast iron skillet. It was one of the best steaks I’ve had in a long time.
Lamb is ridiculously expensive at the store lately and part of that, I think, is a reliance on imported product. Luckily, I have my own source for that but I would like to see American lamb on the table more since lamb is a meat that doesn’t take well to factory farming and is most likely raised on a pasture.
Meat is murder.
Tasty, tasty murder. When a sprout can make me whimper with pleasure like a medium-rare, bone-in rib eye can, or a carrot can ramp up my excitement like real BBQ can, then we’ll talk.
Mosquito disturbs people, sucks blood and can cause disease…
But the truth is I feel guilty while killing a mosquito as well because I don’t want to knowingly give pain to anyone. I hadn’t properly thought earlier how I felt killing a mosquito.
They are not like cabbages, they literally are cabbages.
Well, they’re like, if cabbages had balls…
There’s no way to know. Fish don’t have most of the parts of the brain that mammals do, and those are the parts that deal most with “feeling.” Fish might not be capable of feeling “agony.” They might only be able to react to stimuli without self-awareness.
Also, slaughtering beef – the actual killing – is done quickly and mercifully. I have pulled the trigger myself, and can assure you: if the bullet is placed properly, the kine in question feels absolutely nothing. The brain is destroyed faster than the time it takes nerve impulses to spread.
(And…yes, I’ve seen this botched. There are failures. There is always room for improvement. I won’t lie to you. But if that’s your rule, then we have to ban surgery, too, because sometimes that gets botched.)
My food allergies would make being a vegan extremely impractical. The only non-vegan thing I’m allergic to is shellfish. On the vegan side, I’m allergic to eggplant, nuts, squashes, and a few other vegan staples. I’m not allergic to meat, eggs or dairy. I prefer to keep my food options open. I am going to a vegan street festival next week and anticipate having to be careful about what I eat there, since nuts, eggplant and squash are vegan staples. I also anticipate eating many yummy vegan things that I’m not allergic to.
See I’m a second level vegetarian. I allow animals to eat the plants that I am not adapted to eating, and then I eat them.
Burssels sprouts are, in fact, the devil’s dingleberries. They were foisted on the world by a vengeful god.
Look, we raise cattle. I’ve gotten into this with alot of vegetarians and vegans.
What I do is show them a picture of a pasture - then tell them to go out and start eating. They cant. Then I show a bale of hay and tell them to start eating. They cant.
Well know what? My cows can. They can consume things humans cannot. Hogs even more.
I eat animals because they are delicious.
There really is room on this earth for all of God’s creatures…it’s right next to my mashed potatoes.
No, our views are totally 21st century and from what I’m reading many vegetarians dont really know farming and agribusiness.
BTW, farming and gardening are NOT the same.
As for the water thing - its crap. Yes the animals drink water. But is it the same water as comes out of your tap? No. Usually farms run off wells. And BTW, my cows quickly return the water to the earth. Walk around in my pastures in nice shoes and find out.
As for “manure lagoons”. No they are not pretty. But I ask you to go back to basic biology 101 and look at the basic nitrogen cycle. Animals consume grasses and grains and their manure is part of a biological cycle that returns nitrogen to the soil. That manure pile (especially one properly contained and managed) you complain about, creates a concentrated source of organic fertilizer that can then be spread on fields. How else are you going to fertilize 500 acres of soybeans?
Now lets get back to your basic vegetables. Take a salad. What do you have? Lettuce, cucumbers, celery, carrots, tomatoes, etc… All those plants are very water hungry (trust me I garden). And what then are they? Well lettuce and cucumbers are basically air and water with a little fiber but almost no nutrition. Plus all that stuff basically just fills you up. Their are no protein, fats, or carbs. You end up adding croutons, cheese, and a mess of ranch dressing so it’s really not as nutritious as you think.
I should also add all those “salad” plants, not only do they require tons of fertilizer and water, but they require lots of care (weeding), are susceptible to disease, bugs, and rabbits and have a limited window when they can be picked. Corn and soybeans in contrast, dont have near those problems.
Go to a grocery store and watch them toss out alot of produce at the end of the day because humans cannot eat it.
However my hogs would LOVE them.
Ma Nature made animals (in particular, the “higher” ones) to experience pain and agony when they are sick or injured, and to have some sort of conscious fear of danger.
Ma Nature also made some animals that live by killing and eating other animals, who of course don’t want to be killed or eaten, and suffer horribly when it happens. Likewise, Ma Nature made diseases of all sorts that cause animals to suffer horribly.
Ain’t Ma Nature a bitch? Yeah, Ma Nature is a bitch.
That’s about the size of it. Out there in the wild, with humans or not, the wild veldt is full of animals that were made to know fear and agony, and other animals that make their living by inflicting fear and agony. It just is. And it doesn’t matter much that humans are part of it – it’s all beyond our petty power to add or detract.
Our power over this situation is in fact to engineer a situation where animals can live safe, healthy, docile lives, which end abruptly and hopefully with a minimum of fear and suffering.
And they’re busily interbreeding now. Someone, somewhere is wondering whether that is due to climate change.
To answer the OP, I am omnivorous with a big nod to the meat eating side of the equation for a few reasons. Biologically speaking, it’s what my body is equipped to do. Personally speaking, I hate (HATE) vegetables, and will tolerate only a few types of fruit. Grains are fine.
Being a vegetarian is utterly incomprehensible to me.
I get the impression the response the OP secretly wants is “You know what? You’re right. We’re monsters, our desire for animal flesh is immoral and unsustainable and starting immediately I shall commit to eat nought but organically-farmed vegetables which have died of natural causes.”
But in the interests of providing a real answer, I eat meat because A) I like the taste, B) It has protein in it, which is kind of important and C) Because being a vegan tends to go hand-in-hand with a lot of social/political stances for which my opposition ranges from mild annoyance to extreme dislike.
Let me tell you a story: Not too long ago at work we had a hugely successful project and to celebrate I wanted to buy my team some delicious Hipster Doughnuts.
Problem was - one person is vegan. Hipster Doughnuts are not vegan, and there’s nowhere anywhere around where we are that does vegan doughnuts. So no-one got any doughnuts because I can hardly show up with a dozen doughnuts for the team and say “Too bad, you don’t get anything at all because of your weird, self-imposed dietary choices. Now watch the rest of us enjoy these delicious hand crafted doughnuts” to the vegan member.
It’s amazing the freakish variation in that species (other cultivars include broccoli and cauliflower).
Which are generally called Carnivorans, not carnivores, since not all Carnivorans are carnivores (I think more are fully omnivorous than primarily carnivorous, actually), and not nearly all carnivores are Carnivorans.
RED pandas are more closely related to raccoons than bears, but they’re also anatomically more like them. I can’t figure out how anyone would think Giant pandas were as well. (Red pandas are also primarily herbivorous Carnivorans, though a bit more omnivorous than the giant panda.)
I eat meat because I like the taste and texture. Would I be able to slaughter an animal then eat it? No. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes. Do I care? No. I think we should save whales but eat cows, I think dogs and cats are off limits but chicken is just fine, I have lots of viewpoints that don’t fit with one another and are largely to do with western culture. Is this a problem? No.