Ask about vegetarianisim and veganisim

[ginorwine]

Ok so I hate the way a great deal of meat gets on our plates - gross .
Was a veggie for 20 years but then decided to eat high welfare meat - this was on the basis that I felt being a veggie was sort of running away from issues / avoiding them as well as refusing to participate in meat producing industry were I could ( aware still had cheeses etc so not entirely )
I chose to eat high welfare meat as I wanted to use my consumer power to buy a good life for the animal and use consumer power to ' vote ' for this
As opposed to being invisible to the meat industry iyswim
In this way I felt it was contributing in a small way to saying the industry needs to be kinder and for animals to have less miserable exustsnce
However I just can't eat meat anymore
But I feel that I'm avoiding the issue almost
I wonder if anyone can explain to me in what ways veggie or vegan help animals by being not meat eaters - I'm
Hoping to address this - I can't be an active activist but would be willing to donate or support relevant campaigns .
Thanks - felt amibu to decide to be veggie / vegan when I actively want animals to have a better life and death

I am genuinely a bit confused. You seem to be asking in what ways vegans help animals by not eating them?
Vegans help animals by them not having to be killed to be eaten. They are reducing demand.
A lot of the 'higher welfare' stuff is spin. There isn't really an effective body checking on standards. Hillside animal sanctuary pretty consistently find very cruel conditions on animal farms approved by the RSPCA when they do undercover investigations.
Essentially, on farms animals will always be a product first and a sentient animal second. that is the nature of the business.

They won't meet all of the animal's emotional, social, pyschological , behavioural and physical needs as that is not what farms exist for.
I think you need to decide first what you actually understand animals to be, that will inform how you think they have a right to live and that will inform your personal choices.

Ecosystems are not kind places.
Animals in the wild do not die happy peaceful deaths surrounded by their loved ones.
They are viciously killed by predators or by disease, or they die of starvation when their teeth fall out (herbivores) or when injury prevents them from hunting (carnivores).
If the entire human race became vegan there would be far more animals dying horrible deaths than had been saved by the closure of slaughterhouses.

curry, More or Less, the radio 4 statistics programe has looked at the research on the environmental impacts of different diets and veganism was far and away the most environmentally beneficial.

Actual scientists say different though: www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/

Unem. what an absurd argument. You are arguing that because shit stuff happens it is ok to cause our own shit stuff to happen.
That is an argument for doing what the fuck to you to who the fuck you like because the world is not very nice anyway.
Not a moral philosophy I am signing up to.

A vegan lifestyle is less sustainable than most others?

Doesn't that depend on what vegan foods you eat and where they come from?

And it still doesn’t justify the cruel farming practices that go on in the modern farming industry.

Vegans help animals by them not having to be killed to be eaten. They are reducing demand

They kill a lot of other animals though.
theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659
abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97836&page=1

The findings of this study support the idea that dietary change towards plant-based diets has significant potential to reduce the agricultural land requirements of U.S. consumers and increase the carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural resources.
Curry, no they don't - see above, from the conclusion of your own linked to article.

I don't think you read them properly. The evidence for an omnivore diet is quite clear.

You can take this to the nth degree. Using that argument, we should all follow Jainism

Logically speaking, it would be beneficial to the planet and kinder to animals if the human species was completely eradicated.

Purple, all I was trying to point out is that it is not black and white.
High-welfare animals by and large have comfortable lives followed by a relatively humane death. Wild animals have uncomfortable lives followed by a horrible death.
There are ethicists who argue that domestic animals as individual species made a ‘contract’ with humans so that they ‘consented’ to exploitation in return for protection.
I’m not sure I’d go as far as this, but I do think the question of whether it’s better to exist as a domesticated animal or not at all is a live one.
One final, admittedly contentious, point: animals aren’t people.

Please eat what you like ...
You might save an Animal or two by not eating meat. But please do some research into soy products... how/ where they are grown and processed. A real eye opener.
I think the most eco friendly diet (and very healthy) is one where we know where your food comes from. Focus on local, organic food that has not been heavily processed.

Curry, read the conclusion.
And anyone who says, like you did. 'scientists say' and quotes one article, doesn't actually understand how science works.
And herbivores we eat, eat plants we cultivate for them, so your argument that somehow we can save land from the evils of arable production by eating animals is just silly.
There is no 'cruelty free' method of feeding ourselves, that is clear. We can make choices to reduce the impact we have though.
I am leaving the thread to pick up my kids now.

If sheep and cows were allowed to live in a wild state then we would need to reintroduce natural predators to prevent a population explosion and over grazing. Wolves and lynx won't pre-stun before death. They will hunt down an animal before ripping it up, in some cases eating it before it's actually dead.

Farmers breed livestock that maybe couldn't exist in the wild, but they protect them from predators and provide them with the food they need. They ones bred for meat will end up in a slaughterhouse but the majority of decent ones in the UK try and keep the animals as calm as possible and pre-stun.

Which is better really? Being cared for and then killed as humanely as possible, or living in the wild, and either being hunted and killed by a large predator or dying slowly as there is no-one to either give them drugs or a quick end?

There are arguments for every outcome and everyone is entitled to their opinion and diet, but please do some research before throwing out hearsay and random, uninformed statements.

Ok, final point before I go, Unem,. That sure is a contentious point. Animals are people. Humans are animals. I am an ape. I am a person.
I consider the truth to be self evident that other animals are people to, they are individuals too.
BUt I really don't have time to debate it. Got to go - Bye!

*Paperchains1986

Watch some of documentaries on netflix. Higher welfare meat is a bigger drain on the environment, and if your argument is an environmental one, then the two aren't compatible. If your argument is a moral one, then, as others have pointed out, you are still contributing to the killing of animals that you decide taste good. If your argument is a health one, scientific journals like PLOS ONE as well the WHO, show vegans have 35% less chance of developing cancers like breast and ovarian and heart disease (the list is huge but some headlines there). Bacon and other red meat is listed as dangerous as cigarettes by the WHO.

I dont see any good reasons to eat meat other than we have been bought up to think it tastes good. We sign petitions to save dolphins, whales and dogs in places like Japan and Korea while sending a selection of farm animals to be slaughtered when we have plenty of alternatives. What's the difference between eating a dog or a pig, apart from historic and societal influences? Cake and chocolate taste good but we limit them for our health, we'd all agree less of those the better for health overall.

There are so many vegan options now that it's never been as easy to opt out of a cruelty free life. I tried being vegan for a month in Aug 2016 and found myself sleeping better, skin was clear, felt morally superior instantly (joke!) and it started with reflecting on the hypocrisy of buying free range organic meat which the planet can't sustain (given the land and water required to raise them) and slaughtering them for a good source. They aren't food, though the majority of us have been raised to think they are.*

Great post paperchain

You can take this to the nth degree. Using that argument, we should all follow Jainism confused

What argument? That vegans are not as cruelty free as they like to make out? That's not an argument, that's a fact.
I haven't made any argument, but its interesting that several of you have argued against the ones I havem't made.

Exactly, scattrrbrainedlass!
I think what it boils down to is that our planet has too many people on it for them all to be fed ethically.

There are so many vegan options now that it's never been as easy to opt out of a cruelty free life

This is my point. There is no such thing as a "cruelty free life" so stop pretending that you have one. You don't.

I think what it boils down to is that our planet has too many people on it for them all to be fed ethically

Eat people then?

I must admit I hadn’t given much thought to any of this, but off the back of one thread I read here I went off on a googling spree.

I now don’t touch dairy.

I think it affected me badly because I’m breastfeeding my son at the moment, those videos where the cows are crying for weeks after because their calves have been ripped away from them not long after birth...but just long enough to bond...

I couldn’t in good conscience carry on endorsing that. I was completely ignorant of it before, didn’t really think about where my milk was coming from.

I haven’t gone the full hog and cut out meat and eggs yet, I’m still not sure how I feel about that. And I do worry about getting all nutrients needed into two young dc.

But yeah, dairy in all forms is banned from this house now.

Nobody is advocating allowing herds of wild cows and sheep

Now there’s a thought.
It’s a shame Purple’s off on the school run as it would be interesting to know whether eating a chicken is equally morally repugnant as eating your niece.

@missmustbeamug as a breastfeeding mum and an experienced dairy worker I have seen dairy first hand and it doesn't bother me. If you have cut out dairy completely may I ask how you get a reasonable amount of fat, protein and calcium into (I'm assuming) a young child?

@scatterbrainedlass Can you explain why? Genuinely interested as you have actually witnessed it at first hand.