Im plenty critical of militant vegans, but thats a bit unfair. Industrial ranching is a big contributor to climate change, theres a well-reasoned argument I see alot
Yes, but such arguments are misplaced. Their issue is then not with the meat industry but with the current state of the world as a whole. But because animals have a central nervous system, and people love being activists without actually doing anything, they become vegan.
Concrete, the creation of it, and the transportation of it, is probably one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Smart devices, sneakers, t-shirts, and toys, amongst many other things, are created by what is essentially the modern day equivalent to slavery. Many exotic "superfoods" come from third world countries where the local natives can no longer afford to eat it because costs have been driven up, because it all needs to be exported so some blond chick can have it on her toast. Lithium is probably the most important resource right now, yet it's production of it is highly destructive to the environment. Traditional farming is causing soil fatigue, contamination of ground water, and the destruction of complex ecosystems in place of monocultures, but people hate on GMOs, "chemicals", and vertical farming.
These are problems that effect our society and our environment that even the most militant vegans make use of on a daily basis. The lifestyle vegans have (the ones we hear about in the news and see in the Internet, not the far flung tribes or humble Buddhist monks) cannot exist without modern society. So militant vegans are hypocrites.
I mean the difference is that concrete has a function and is largely irreplaceable. The argument most vegans make is that animals are not functionally needed in order to fulfill the "food" requirement of living. Concrete is, by large, used for houses and structures which provide shelter, and there are no viable alternatives.
Not for concrete itself, but certainly how it's produced. The largest contributing factor to the production of concrete is energy and fossil fuels.
As for how functionality applies to meat; meat is incredibly nutrient dense, with certain vitamins, such as B12 or A, being in high quantity compared to other sources, or having certain nutrients simply not found anywhere else, such as taurine, creatine, or carnitine.
To reduce the environmental impact of food, which applies to all food and not just meat, we need to accept the idea of not having excess of everything. We don't need 5 different cuts of meat from 3 different brands. We don't need 5 different kinds of apples. We don't need a whole shopping isle filled with... Goodness knows how many different kinds of cereal.
For sure, but that applies to literally everything - decarbonization of the energy grid/moving away from gas is a huge factor for literally every aspect of life, particularly farming and red meat. The energy involved in creating meat is significantly higher than any other foods, which is why I disagreed with your point. We have an alternative for meat, but there isnt one for concrete. Using it as a comparison is a poor argument.
Arguing that conditionally essential amino acids are not found elsewhere is a misleading argument. In addition to the fact that all of those three can be created by your body, Taurine is found in lentils, a staple of many vegan diets, seaweed can contain creatine, and carnitine can be found in trace amounts in most foods. None of them are as dense as meat, for sure, but there are numerous sources, plus supplements.
To reduce the environmental impact of food, which applies to all food and not just meat, we need to accept the idea of not having excess of everything. We don’t need 5 different cuts of meat from 3 different brands. We don’t need 5 different kinds of apples. We don’t need a whole shopping isle filled with… Goodness knows how many different kinds of cereal.
Definitely agree with this, but its probably just as hard a sell, and much less feasible to do on an individual level.
The problem there is people in cities could not do it, in many cities it's illegal or not feasible to raise chickens or goats, or to hunt or even trap.
I don't think most of those people are going to go for that rule, you'd likely have black market agriculture happening, and that hasn't been working so well for drugs these days. Gonna get turkey laced with fent and shit lol. Good luck with that though!
Well that's the thing, you'd rather it be willy nilly and the government doesn't allow that currently. Can't hunt in cities, can only hunt X amount of deer for conservation purposes, etc. If you're fine with hunting/butchering (as long as it's not sold) and think otherwise meat consumption should be illegal that means you think more people should hunt or butcher their own food. This would more aptly be described as "willy nilly" than the much smaller number of current butchers and hunters that people are able to buy from. Frankly it seems less "willy nilly" to have only a small number of farms as big as factories producing all the food for everyone.
Humans don't feature any of the materials we need to consume as they're already inside of us, hence we consume the materials from other lifeforms (Yes, that includes plants) who produce the things we lack.
So cannibalism isn't good. Neither is eating a carnivore.
..... What? Humans are made of meat. As far a I've read, they're fairly delicious, too. Eating carnivores is also fine.
Now, if you're trying to only eat the safest, most energy efficient forms of meat, don't eat people or carnivores. But just in terms of the nutrients contained within, meat is meat.
Okay, real talk, I don't really care what they do to the animals after they're dead, as long as it's hygienic.
The real problem is how they are treated during their lives, and how they're killed. There are farms ranging from pretty bad to "absolutely horrible hellish shit you wouldn't believe" bad.
Okay, real talk, the concept of ethics in general is a human construct. One that is impossible to apply across all cultures, and even when they are accepted as social mores, they are illogically applied and are often full of internal contradictions.
For example, if it's unethical to "kill someone who's done nothing to you and didn't want to die.", then can we assume it's ethical to kill something that has slighted us? Or is it okay to kill something that isn't conscious of it's mortality?
How do we determine if something doesn't want to die? How do we delineate the difference between something like zooplankton or krill from plants?
I don't really eat meat, but that's mostly for health and environmental harm reduction. However, I understand that humans are imperfect beings, and have different social mores to adhere too. Out of all the evil man has unleashed over our evolution, I would hardly say that consuming animal products is anywhere close to the top of the list.
Plus, I think the way the west classifies veganism is a bit culturally insensitive. Different cultures subscribe to different interpretations of attributes when defining traits to life forms than in the west.
For example, there are Buddhist monks in Korea that eat a "vegan diet", except their kimchi is made with krill. Now if you ask if they eat meat or animals, they will tell you no. However, culturally krill aren't really considered an animal, they're viewed more as a plant.
I would hardly call a person who's spent their entire lives living off of plants a carnist or "bloodmouth", just because they eat a little krill. But, I would like to hear your opinion on the matter.
Why does everything not have the right to not be harmed. You kill bugs when you drive a car, where's your sympathy for them?
Nearly every being that exists harms other beings. Even herbivores through being territorial or mating. Drawing and arbitrary line then saying we can't hurt anything past it is silly when we can't even stop hurting each other.
Well that'll be hard with her being dead a few years back but I hope I'm enlightened as you one day. Maybe all the meat juice is just making my brain dumb.
Even a wounded animal is going to respond physically to the sound of a saw. Then you have to consider what will happen when the half dead body of a 900lb pig is placed on a cold steel plate and slowly pushed into a sharp fast moving band saw. A half alive pig would take a few people to hold it down and get the job done.
If you go ass first, damn things would probably kick and scream for a good 5 minutes before it would succumb to the injuries. Would be better to go head first really.
On second thought, for the health of the consumer, the food meat animal would need to be gutted before it was cut on the band saw. Yeah, gutting a half living meat sack would be much harder than a dead one. Very awkward. Maybe if it were dead enough it might even live for an extra few minutes. One might say that would be an advantage over being killed instantly with a bolt to the skull. You had a few more minutes of life, no matter how painful they might have been.
Paralysed maybe, not able to move our scream. A soft gloved hand stroking the skin. A cold, sharp pinch as a gutting knife quickly penetrates your body. Just a few more seconds now. The blade expertly guided up the abdomen. The flow of warm blood flowing over the legs. A sudden feeling of coldness as the blood drains, one last breath taken. Never exhaled.
Well, if you want your food to make you feel like a good person, you know what to do. Or you can keep repressing your feelings about food. Your choice.
Yeah I often don't pay. I slit animal's throats and butcher them myself if sausage/ground meat is the intent. Real butcher i pay if I want nicely cut steaks.