To think if you had to kill the animal yourself you wouldn’t eat meat

[Starchime22]

First off I’m not vegetarian, although I’m starting to lean that way, (as in, I eat fish, and occasionally meat if I’m in a restaurant, but never buy or cook meat myself) so it’s not my intention to criticise or goad omnivores.

But I’ve been thinking about how I’d have no problem killing a fish to eat, (and have) but definitely couldn’t kill a cow or a pig, and probably not a chicken. I’m not sure how many people could, really.

Is it right to eat something you couldn’t bear to kill yourself? Or watch being killed? I’m not saying it isn’t, just interested in what people think.

Wouldn't bother me - in fact, I would prefer it. If our world functioned in that way, I'd be far happier rearing and killing my own meat - I'd know exactly where it had come from, how it had lived and how it had been handled. Taking responsibility for what we eat is something we have lots.

I have killed animals and eaten them. It always feels more ethical than eating something bought in a plastic tray.

ForeverTired ah that’s so much easier if you hate cheese! I’m not a yoghurt fan myself I like the taste but something about the texture makes me gag. Have you tried the coyo coconut ones think they’re meant to be good? Also alpro go on is a really thick yoghurt but it’s made with soya.

Kiki that isn't strictly true. You're describing the meat sold specifically as "baby lamb" or "spring lamb" not the meat sold more generically just as lamb, which is anything up to 12 moths (and in some cases measured by teeth etc so actually up to 15 months) old. Don't let facts get in the way of an emotive story about baby animals though, will you?

Deep inside, a small part of me rails in horror against the idea that it's even possible to eat another living creature's body... let alone extinguish that life purposefully to do so.

I can't understand the universe being set up in such a way that this is even possible, let alone many of the worse things that go on.

Another part of me continues doing what I've always done and tries not to think about it too much (the horror of the universe in general, not just the meat-eating), and just can't deal with acknowledging it too much.

On the outside, I dip in and out of vegetarianism, and swing wildly between 'it's a dog-eat-dog world excuse pun, might as well go with it' and feeling like you 'change the world by changing yourself'.

Conflicted. Very conflicted.

Evelyn the info on early weaning www.sheep101.info/201/weaning.html

I’ve read it elsewhere too but there’s not a lot of info on what the U.K. practice is

Really I thought that Mumsnet was strange, not because people disagreed with me, but that Hugh F W could come on for a web chat and everyone would be happy but I was 'perverted'! It was the different reaction that was odd.

Of course it is obvious that people who do not eat meat would not agree with me and that is a valid position. But I would still argue that in a hierarchy of cruelty I was lower down than someone who eats meat that has been factory farmed.

When their dogs were ill they used to take them up the field and shoot them
Forever, there is no way I could put our dogs down by shooting them, but they hate going to the vet, their tails go between their legs and they look at me beseechingly, so if one could bear to do it, knowing it would be an instant death, shooting them at home might be kinder.

Well, people nowadays are not used to it, and probably would find slaughtering difficult, but people were killing their own food for thousands of years and they did it....

Yes. We rear chickens and rabbits specifically to eat. They taste superior to any shop bought one's.
I understand that some people may balk at the idea that one minute a fluffy white rabbit is crunching on its carrot and the next its soaking in a bucket of cold salt water waiting to go in the pot, but that's because they're seeing the animal rather than the food.

Kiki that's just an overview of options with pros and cons. It even says on the page you linked to that spring born pastured lambs are usually left with their mothers til they wean naturally. The point made on that page that if male lambs stay with their mothers past 4 months they need to be castrated tells you something about how mature they are!

Teutonic, are you employed in The Ministry For The Bleeding Obvious? They ARE living, feeling beings.
I don't have any truck with your anthropomorphic image of rabbits either. They aren't cuddly and fluffy; they are huffy, bitey devils at times - also carrots are very sugary and should be fed sparingly.
Shouldn't be in the pot though.

PatriciaBateman if you know it’s wrong don’t do it, you’ll feel better in yourself living by your own morals. What has made you struggle to stay vegetarian?

Evelyn how long do they usually keep lambs with ewes then? Certainly some are separated before natural weaning which is distressing.

www.nationalsheep.org.uk/know-your-sheep/year-on-a-sheep-farm/

U.K. practice lamb in March separate in May

Using Hugh F-W as your moral compass regarding what and how you consume is frankly laughable - in fact are you kidding me? He'll do whatever gets his over-privileged, scruffy, bandwagon jumping face on the telly.

This also says “Lambs intended for meat are generally sent for slaughter at five to eight months old.“

In any event it’s not my position that the age of the animal matters. Slitting the throats of a healthy 10 year old dog is equivalent to me to gassing a puppy. But it’s a fact that in animal agriculture baby animals are killed (especially male calves and chicks) and some people find that harder to stomach.

pointythings nothing ethical about unnecessary violence to animals.

Fizzy are you sure your craving for meat isn’t a craving for calories, fat, protein or b12? All of which you can get from plant based sources.

Shadowboy you day your meat is probably better than a soya and palm oil based product but 1) you can have a healthy plant based diet without soya or palm oil 2) 97% of world’s soya goes into animal feed so actually you’re consuming less of it by eating it direct and 3) most palm oil is in non vegan foods.

Best for the environment to live vegan.

kikisparks My morals are conflicted.

Only one part of me thinks it's wrong.

Another part of me thinks that I'm an animal (in the literal sense), eating others is part of how Nature works and the "proper" order of things, and I'm being overly weak/squeamish by battling it.

Depending on which side is winning, I do go in and out of vegetarianism. I haven't found which side I really "belong" to yet, or whether there is a way of integrating the beliefs. I've considered raising my own chickens/rabbits to really face the full reality and see if that tips me one way or the other.

kikisparks so you are one of those who believe that only vegetarians and vegans have the moral high ground? I choose to eat meat. Humans are omnivores - look at our teeth and digestive systems. We also have intelligence and are able to make choices. You make one, I make another. Yours is not inherently superior to mine, nor vice versa - they just are. Taking responsibility for what we eat - minimising waste, taking life as painlessly as possible when we eat meat - all of those are ways of taking responsibility.

My DD1 is a vegetarian and so we eat vegetarian about 50% of the time. We try to avoid meat replacement products as much as possible, because they tend to be intensively manufactured, or intensively farmed. Those are our choices. I couldn't care less whether you consider them ethical or not...

@dapple
It was his grans partner who used to do it at any signs of illness. Whilst I think it's possibly kinder than the stress of vets and cheaper (but the cost doesn't matter) it really stresses them out at the vets. My cat last year was kicking and screaming being euthanized and I wish he could have died at home peacefully.

It stopped as soon as he left them and any dog she's had since has been bought in the house (they were kept outside in a huge shed/cage and they'd been let to die peacefully at home surrounded by love or taken to the vets.
I couldn't do it :( but in that situation maybe it is kinder than stressing them

pointy we have smaller canines than gorillas or hippos that are almost exclusively vegetarian. Our teeth show us nothing. If you don’t care if I think your choices are ethical why reply. I’m just pointing out that most people think unnecessary violence to animals is unethical and that’s what eating meat is. I’m not morally superior, I’m not perfect and I’m not doing anything special, just avoiding paying for violence towards sentient beings for my enjoyment. If you think violence for enjoyment is ethical fair enough.

I like trying to eat locally sourced food. I don't even come close to achieving it but I try. It doesn't seem environmentally sound to be eating food from the other side of the world. 💁🏻‍♀️

I've no moral issues at all about eating most meats. Literally none. I consider myself an animal lover too. 😊. I am in the position where I can pay more for locally sourced meat. It helps that we only eat small portions of meat , eat a lot of game and that we have a fabulous local butcher.

I try and do something similar with the fish we buy. My Mum does better than we do as she lives next to the local quay which has its own fishmonger and can buy fish that's literally just been caught.

As I mentioned earlier (and loads of other times...I really do bang on about this 😌) it the transportation of live animals over big distances that i find cruel and unnecessary.

If you want to be 100% ethical and non-violent towards nature then the only way to live is as a hunter-gatherer - culling the weaker members of a herd or scavenging, living on what you find in each season. Which is fine if you want to do that, but there is a reason why average life expectancy in the Paleolithic was approximately mid-twenties.

The moment you venture into agriculture, you're committing violence against nature to a certain degree.