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AIBU?

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Original poster

To believe that eating meat should be illegal?

533 replies

BySpoonyBlueScroller · 10/02/2025 09:34

The environmental damage and animal cruelty outweighs the cultural or personal benefits. AIBU to think it’s time to outlaw meat production?

OP posts:
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spuddy4 · 10/02/2025 10:06

Can't see countries such as China getting on board with this if I'm honest. Same as all this net zero nonsense, without the big polluters participating it's completely pointless.

DiscoBaIIs · 10/02/2025 10:05

AirborneElephant · 10/02/2025 10:03

Really? I don’t. I’ve killed animals to eat, and would be happy to do so again. Farm animals are not humans and do not have human feelings, you’re just anthropomorphising them. I think the thing vegans miss is that most of us do not think it is ethically wrong to eat animals. We just don’t agree with you. I enjoy meat, and think there is absolutely nothing wrong with farming and eating it. There’s no absolute moral argument you can make, and as far as environmental issues go there are many things far worse. So no.

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I don't think animals have human feelings, but they do feel pain, they do feel fear, and as we don't need to eat meat, we don't need to make animals suffer.

MegTheForgetfulCat · 10/02/2025 10:05

I take it you don't own any pets, OP. I eat meat sometimes, but not every meal, and always try to buy free range etc where I can. Why should I be denied that whilst my neighbour's pet dog, who presumably eats pretty much only meat (of goodness knows what provenance) 2-3 times a day, is still allowed? Or what about my other neighbour's cat, who terrorises the local bird population? Or are you suggesting pets be banned too?

BackAgainSlimLady · 10/02/2025 10:04

It’s hilarious that vegans think that all farm animals will just run off into the wild and live their best life if we banned eating meat/animal produce.

GCAcademic · 10/02/2025 10:04

hamstersarse · 10/02/2025 10:02

Something has to die for you to eat

You can chose one cow per year (has all the calories you need for one year)

Or, you can chose to kill millions of bees, rabbits, voles, mice, moles, beetles so you can have enough plant food

This. The ecological disaster that is arable farming needs to be acknowledged.

Lentilweaver · 10/02/2025 10:04

I am veggie since birth, but I would rather see delicious and healthy veggie food popularised. Not the horrible fake meat I am always offered, and won't eat.

DiscoBaIIs · 10/02/2025 10:03

hamstersarse · 10/02/2025 10:02

Something has to die for you to eat

You can chose one cow per year (has all the calories you need for one year)

Or, you can chose to kill millions of bees, rabbits, voles, mice, moles, beetles so you can have enough plant food

FFS! Have you no concept of the "collateral damage" animals killed to feed the cow in the first place? Dearie dearie me.

AirborneElephant · 10/02/2025 10:03

mumofoneAlonebutokay · 10/02/2025 09:49

I honestly feel terrible eating meat, I feel ill whenever I think of the fact that the meat was a living creature

But I can't go without it. I've tried and i just can't, it tastes so good 🥺

Really? I don’t. I’ve killed animals to eat, and would be happy to do so again. Farm animals are not humans and do not have human feelings, you’re just anthropomorphising them. I think the thing vegans miss is that most of us do not think it is ethically wrong to eat animals. We just don’t agree with you. I enjoy meat, and think there is absolutely nothing wrong with farming and eating it. There’s no absolute moral argument you can make, and as far as environmental issues go there are many things far worse. So no.

hamstersarse · 10/02/2025 10:03

hamstersarse · 10/02/2025 10:02

Something has to die for you to eat

You can chose one cow per year (has all the calories you need for one year)

Or, you can chose to kill millions of bees, rabbits, voles, mice, moles, beetles so you can have enough plant food

I forgot butterflies

they’d all have to die to feed us on plants

BestStoredInAFridge · 10/02/2025 10:03

Give it 100 years and I suspect it will be, OP.

AtaraAmarok · 10/02/2025 10:03

Lovelysummerdays · 10/02/2025 09:49

Wouldn’t they be dead though? You’d have to have a cull. If people aren’t going to be eating them farmers won’t be keeping them.

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It will be the same as it is with horses and donkeys, very few kept by the wealthy as pets, taking them for a "walk in a trailer"

serendipity70 · 10/02/2025 10:03

Starlightstarbright4 · 10/02/2025 09:44

Nope I think we should ban vegans preaching how we should eat .

👏👏👏

NormasArse · 10/02/2025 10:02

TemporaryPosition · 10/02/2025 09:46

Is this what Morrissey meant when he compared meat eaters to pedophiles? That it doesn't matter how much suffering is caused by someone's actions, the pleasure trumps all? Its certainly provocative

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That’s a valid argument.

Morrisey though… 🙄

hamstersarse · 10/02/2025 10:02

Something has to die for you to eat

You can chose one cow per year (has all the calories you need for one year)

Or, you can chose to kill millions of bees, rabbits, voles, mice, moles, beetles so you can have enough plant food

DiscoBaIIs · 10/02/2025 10:02

It wasn't that long ago that fur was acceptable as a fashion choice. Now it is looked down upon. It took activists to make that happen.

CorduroySituation · 10/02/2025 10:00

Miaowzabella · 10/02/2025 09:55

No. Human beings evolved as meat eaters, that's why we have the dentition and the digestive systems that we do.

Yep.

DiscoBaIIs · 10/02/2025 10:00

Those proclaiming it will never happen. They said the same thing about lots of other things that are now illegal.
Smoking in public indoor spaces. I remember when you could smoke in the cinema, on a plane, in a restaurant. That is now banned.
Slavery! That took a long while to sort, but times changed, and they rightly made that illegal too. I am NOT comparing slavery to animal consumption, but making the point that mindsets DO change over time, and laws change. And I do think, that in time, we WILL look back as a species and wonder how it took us so long to move on from the horrors of meat and dairy consumption.

Cyclebabble · 10/02/2025 10:00

Love meat and am keen to support the great beef, dairy, pork, lamb and chicken famers we have in this country. So no I do not think it needs to be made illegal.

DalzielOrNoDalzielAndDontPascoe · 10/02/2025 09:59

Cattenberg · 10/02/2025 09:45

I really hope this happens one day. I know several self-professed animal lovers who regularly eat meat and I sometimes wonder how they live with the cognitive dissonance.

Many would say the same about the millions of us in the west who happily enjoy very cheap clothes and most consumer goods, even though we know very well that people in poor countries - many of them not even adults - are exploited horribly and paid pennies per hour to make them for us.

CrushingOnRubies · 10/02/2025 09:59

Yabu

What would all the out of work farmers do?? I live in a rural community where the soil isn't good enough to grow much more than grass on. And i think the environmental impact of all the fields being turned into campsites or for glamping pods would be worse

Miaowzabella · 10/02/2025 09:59

TemporaryPosition · 10/02/2025 09:54

I'm game

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I am particularly fond of game.

OldBattyBat · 10/02/2025 09:58

LavenderFields7 · 10/02/2025 09:46

I think the technology to be able to reproduce “meat” in the lab has to be fully developed and economically viable first. Then yes, I think eating animals will be outlawed. One day we will look back and see ourselves as barbarians killing animals and keeping them locked up the way we do 😔

I agree. Our future selves will look back at the times when their forebears killed living animals and then ripped off their skin, chopped them up and sold them as food as barbaric. The practice will be viewed similarly to how we think of cannibalism or human sacrifice today, ie abhorrent.

tropicalroses · 10/02/2025 09:57

BySpoonyBlueScroller · 10/02/2025 09:53

Plenty of alternatives! We could restore native forests, rewild areas for biodiversity, or grow hardy crops suited to rough terrain. Not every inch of land needs to be used for food production - especially when so much is already wasted.

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How are you going to harvest these "hardy" crops half-way up the side of a welsh mountain or across the Peak District😂

decorativecushions · 10/02/2025 09:57

If God didn't want humans to eat cows then why did he make them meat flavoured 🙃🙃🙃🙃

On a serious note, no. No bloody way. Humans are meant to eat meat.

Also, we'd still need to use meat for pet food so how would the line be drawn?

BlondiePortz · 10/02/2025 09:57

So if meat and fish and evey single animal based relatied byproduct disappeared would it have a knock effect towards insects and other natural effects

Would animals food cycles be affected? Any other affects on medicines, gadgets, furniture etc.