To think you can be an animal lover and eat meat?

[MyOtherUsernameisaPun]

I know I'm going to be flamed, have donned protective gear...

But I think that it's hypocritical to eat meat and claim to be an animal lover. That isn't to say meat eaters don't deeply love their pets - I fully accept that they do! But I think that in those cases they only love certain animals, not animals generally.

We know that pigs are far more intelligent than dogs. We know that cows form close social bonds with specific individuals within the herd. We know enough to confidently state that there is no reason to separate pets from any other species except that we are conventionally accustomed to doing so.

I think everyone is free to make their own choices and whether or not I approve of them is totally irrelevant. But I don't think there is any logical grounds for a meat eater to claim that they are an animal lover when they're happy for some kinds of animals to suffer and be killed.

, that’s an excellent point. I’ve been told I’m not actually vegan if I allow any of my children to eat meat/dairy, also been told I should be divorcing my husband because he isn’t vegan.

So, you should split your lovely family family up because they are not conforming to a bunch of strangers? Obsurd!

Obviously, in an ideal world, I would love my extended family and DC to not eat meat. But this world is far from ideal. I refuse to make any of them feel guilty for what they decide to put into their own mouths.

My love for them, and there love for me, far outweighs my desire for them to confirm to my own, personal beliefs. I have older children. They know my stance on animal rights. This has not swayed them. I respect them as individual people with their own mind. And, as their mum, I'm okay with that.

Namechangedname Well said. Everyone has the choice and it shouldn’t be forced on others. And people aren’t evil for eating meat and shouldn’t be told they are.

Absolutely. It's about all of us having individual choice and acknowledging that there are many personal reasons for why we do the things we do.

Nature is not disney.

You see, in my head, it is. But I romantice everything!

*ize

namechange i too am guilty of imagining animals in a romnticized disney way. I often have to remember they are not human and my pets dont actually think like me

I agree with you op, but most won’t.
I don’t like to think of myself as being a judgey preachy vegetarian but meat eaters often judge me as a vegetarian and preach to me about how wrong my choices are so I don’t mind doing it back.
My problem isn’t with meat eaters per se, my dh and dd1 eat meat and thats fine, their choice. They aren’t animal lovers and they enjoy the taste.
However what gets my goat is people who profess to love animals. Who look at the calves being born at the farm and coo over how adorable they are. Who watch chicks being hatched and do the same. Who say they love animals.
And then eat them.
I really applaud people who are buying ‘ethical’ meat but no meat is really ethical is it? Being killed is being killed. And it isn’t a happy death like people seem to imagine. Animals hopping up joyfully to the guillotine, unaware of their fate. Trust me if you saw what goes on in a slaughter house you would agree. These animals are terrified and know exactly what’s going to happen to them. They try to escape. They aren’t treated with kind, gentle hands. It’s brutal.

MarthaArthur

I'm the same. Especially when I'm rattling on to them about my woes and their eyes are just fixed to the dog bowl or the back door.

They couldn't give a shiny sh_t. Oh, wait...

We love animals and keep 5 ponies and until recently a dog (who sadly died at the good age of 16). We're all meat eaters although we are careful what we eat and quite often have meat free meals.

We are born omnivores and it is completely natural to eat meat - it's what our bodies are designed to do as it is for cats, dogs and every other wild animal and bird that eat meat.

My grandparents were beef farmers on Herefordshire borders. Sadly there isn't enough money in beef now and they don't have cattle anymore. One vegetarians need to understand is that if people don't eat meat then farmers won't breed animals to eat. There wouldn't be any cattle, sheep or pigs in our fields. Wouldn't that be an awful shame?

Of course it is important to keep high welfare standards - nothing wrong with that at all, in total agreement.

I tell everyone mine like cuddles. They dont. They bite and then eat all the food as if i dont exist. The fluffy villains

I tell everyone mine like cuddles. They dont. They bite and then eat all the food as if i dont exist. The fluffy villains

Well no butkin there wouldn’t be any cattle, sheep or pigs in farmers fields but why on earth would that be an awful shame?
They were wild animals before humans began farming them and there’s nothing to suggest they couldn’t be wild animals again. I’m sure they would also live as pets. Pigs are more intelligent than dogs and despite the idea that sheep are stupid I have seen the opposite. They are very gentle and intelligent creatures.

Totally agree with you @BlackandWhitePostcards

I don't love dead animals. I only eat some of those.

Blackandwhite - sorry I think that is fantasy. If farmers can't make it pay they will cut back on livestock and they certainly won't return to the wild. All acreage now is owned by people and on our tiny island its use is carefully controlled for profit. There are only very small pockets of truly "wild" animals (excluding birds obviously). Foreign meat will still come into Britain - probably from places with lower welfare standards than here.

Vegetarians purport to like animals but how many actually get stuck in and look after them on a daily basis. it is farmers interests to breed healthy and happy animals and to look after them well. Quality meat makes them money..

The problem with this argument is that it just doesn't stack up as evidenced by this thread.

It would be like me saying that you can't care about the environment but still drive a car. Or have children. Or use plastic.

We all have our own moral code and live within that doing what we feel comfortable with offset against our own lifestyle.

For me that is being an animal lover but also eating meat.

I agree with you OP

Well it won’t happen, certainly not in our lifetimes, so yes it’s a fairytale. But not because it would be a shame to see no pigs, horses and cows in the fields but because there will always be people who want to eat meat so farming will continue.
I think it’s a silly argument to say that we should continue to eat meat otherwise the animals will die out. Yes there will be less of them, there are far too many at the moment and it’s making a huge negative impact on the environment.
But I can’t see them becoming extinct at all. There are large areas in the country where wildlife flourishes.
There are lots of places where deer and foxes breed and live successfully. There are wild pigs living in the Forest of Dean.
I have to agree with you vice that we’re all doing our best to live by our own moral code and there are vegetarians who live an unethical lifestyle in other areas - being vegetarian isn’t the gold star in ethical living.
But I see a lot of inaccuracies in this thread and in real life where people believe the lives of farm animals are happy ones - that they frolick in fields and walk nonchalantly to their deaths. It isn’t like that. I think if most people who call themselves animal lovers actually spent time on a working farm they would stop eating meat. I really believe that.

Surely if working farms were that traumatic, all us farmers would be vegetarians surely? Or are farmers a bunch of heartless folk?

My grandparents were beef farmers on Herefordshire borders. Sadly there isn't enough money in beef now and they don't have cattle anymore. One vegetarians need to understand is that if people don't eat meat then farmers won't breed animals to eat. There wouldn't be any cattle, sheep or pigs in our fields. Wouldn't that be an awful shame?

Butkins you speak a lot of bullocks. I'm sick of hearing this. Plus " I only buy humanely sorted meat" claptrap that people spew out.

Well a lot of the time it’s a family business handed down through generations so farmers have grown up around these things and so are insensitised to it. There’s also the worry with some farmers that they’re rejecting their heritage if they don’t follow into the business.
I know farmers who’ve admitted they struggle with it morally but it’s their livelihood, hey have mouths to feed, bills to pay, it’s their income and they can’t see a way out.
These are valid concerns and I don’t blame farmers or see them as heartless. It’s very difficult to break away from something you’ve always been involved in, something that’s passed through generations and something that provides you with a livelihood.
Although I do know farmers who’ve made the transition to other forms of farming and have broken the tradition.

Blackandwhite by that argument though most farmers would be vegetarian, and they aren't. In fact one step further many farmers happily eat meat they have raised themselves.

If anyone deeply cares for and respects their animals it's farmers (contrary to popular belief, you do actually have to give a shit about animal welfare to be any good at farming).

At the end of lambing time (May) we usually have around 1400 lambs. Of those around 600 are sold in September for breeding. They are sold in batches of around 10 - 30 at a time and every year my DP spends about 2 - 3 hours going up and down the pens at the auction mart moving lambs into the batches he wants them in.

Even though there are 600 of them he knows those lambs so well that where possible he tries to keep sisters and friends together, so that when they get to their new home they are still together. He is in the lambing fields from 6am to 10pm during lambing time, even though the sheep are our income you can't help but get to 'know' them and care about them.

It's perfectly possible to have a huge amount of respect for the animals in your care and still be happy to consume them.

The thing about being vegetarian is that it's really, really FUCKING EASY.

It's like you can't even be self-righteous about it with a straight face because it's so goddamn straightforward. Feeling moral about it is like claiming some kind of ethical credit for not eating babies, or not taking a chainsaw and hacking up your neighbour. I mean, in modern Britain it is honestly so unbelievably simple - the vast majority of restaurants and cafes cater very well indeed for veggies, and supermarkets are so well supplied with fruit, veg, and non-meaty foods that you honestly never struggle to find tons of incredible delicious, fantastic things to eat. It honestly involves shockingly little privation. Veganism, now, is another matter. But even that is getting easier.

I think you are right OP. I verge on being vegetarian but do eat some meat and fish. If I am really honest it gives me guilt pangs every time I eat it. And I do feel that vegetarians and even more so vegans have a truer and deeper love for animals because they don't eat meat/use animal products. I have a vegan friendly who is an artist and her depictions of animals have a depth of love in them that I feel comes from her practices

The thing about being vegetarian is that it's really, really FUCKING EASY

No its not,when you really like eating. Beef and pork and lamb and seafood etc all taste really really good. I was vegetarian for four years and it was miserable and I hated it.
Life's too short for that shit. Eat, drink and be merry.

myfriendbob - I'm a MASSIVE foodie. One of my best friends is a food journalist, so I've been to my share of Michelin-starred restaurants too - both in the UK and abroad. I think I now know a good meal when I see one.

Trust me, if it was all sackcloth-and-ashes, someone who likes the good things in life as much as I do would struggle. I really, really don't.