AIBU to suggest that you aren't really an animal lover if you're not a vegan

[KylieKoKo]

I'm a meateater but I was chatting to a vegan friend of mine about this and I think she has a point. It makes no sense to call yourself an animal lover if you pay others to kill animals or take their milk and eggs when its perfectly possible to live without them. I couldn't help but agree with her, and, as a non-vegan, had to conceed that I don't really love animals. In fact, I'm putting the fact that they taste nice above their lives and well-being on a daily basis.

I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone on here had an argument against this.

[BobLobLawLLB]

People give a shit about their own animals but pay people to kill.the one's they want to eat.
Factory farms are fucking awful places. There is no humane knife that slits their throat,free range or otherwise.

[AgeLikeWine]

I’m a huge animal lover.

I love a juicy, bloody rare steak.

I love venison bourguignon. Poor little Bambi!

I love a bacon sandwich. Tough luck, piggy wiggy!

[DontCallMeShitley]

I don't think a vegan can be an animal lover if they consume food containing palm oil.

However I am just a mere vegetarian, and I am an animal lover. I use dairy products because copies of them make me ill. I avoid eggs when possible but not if they are part of something like cake. I have fake egg for cooking but not many places do this. I tried veganism, I got sick. In order to help any creatures I still need to keep myself healthy.

[BobLobLawLLB]

I think its impossible to be truely vegan tbh. You can only do your best.

[Penelopeschat]

I agree with you @KylieKoKo I’m not vegan and I love animals and yet I recognize the disconnect. I shouldn’t eat them. I shouldn’t allow them to come to harm.

[peepholepringle]

I love some animals and I eat some animals.

[keo8260]

Crops and vegetables can not be produced and grown without killing animals so whether vegans eat animals or not their food production still results in the killing of small mammals and insects.

[Sobeyondthehills]

I love animals and I love eating meat.

I am still not sure why it is acceptable for rabbits to eat their young but its not ok for humans to do so

But also, more needs to be done on telling our children where the food they eat comes from.

And for the record I would eat my dog and then my cats

[IAmNotAWitch]

Dunno. I eat meat (not much because I don't like the taste/texture of most meat) and am not particularly fussed about animals.

I wouldn't deliberately be personally cruel and would prefer more humane standards in farming than currently the case, but I don't actually care enough to do anything much about it.

I have a cat, I am quite fond of her. I wouldn't say I love her in the way I think of love. But I feed her meat/fish and don't spend any time feeling bad for the critters in the tin.

So based on my anecdotal evidence of one, YANBU.

[IAmNotAWitch]

I would eat my cat if it were her or me.

She would do the same.

[Thehagonthehill]

What would sustainable veganism look like?What could you eat if food could only be transported a short distance to reduce food miles which damage the planet,?
Who would manage the land that is grazed if there were no farmers?
Industrialised meat production is a problem but so is industrialised vegan food production.

[WagtailRobin]

I donate monthly to various charities who work for the benefit of animals including the WWF.

I have been brought up with animals (dogs, cats, rabbits, budgies), I don't use any products tested on animals, I boycott Zoos, twice a year I "adopt" an animal.

Yeah OK I am not perfect and what I do is very insignificant in comparison to some but I do try. I love animals, polar bears, dogs, deer, dolphins etc, I'm not eating any of them! Admittedly I do eat cows, pigs and chickens but I try to balance my selfishness by contributing to conservation projects as previously mentioned.

I love my dogs, I have loved every animal I have been fortunate enough to have.

[malificent7]

I think you can love animals and still eat a bit of meat but not as much as a vegan does snd in a different way.
I am an ex vegan but still aiming for 80% vegan. I can't go dully for health reasons.
I hate the way modern animals are reared but i believe we are hunters ...but out of malice but due to nature. I have a romantic notion of North American Indians giving thanks to the buffalo and using every part if the animal ...they had the right idea....it was an almost spiritual xonnection between hunter and hunted not just shoveling down burgers at Macdonalds.

[malificent7]

Fully sorry

[malificent7]

Not out of malice sorry...i cannot type!

[Durgasarrow]

There are many animals that would not be alive if they were not domesticated by humans for their use.

[ChocoholicsAsylum]

Oh god I am so sick of this vegan shit... believe what you wish but its the act of being more superior that annoys people over veganism and I also feel like many things its another social fashion thing.

[DoctorAllcome]

watch 'Land of Hope and Glory' on YouTube. This will show you standard UK farming practices. If you feel this is something you would not like to go through yourself as a human animal then please stop funding for non-human animals to be put through it.

No, what YouTube is showing you is not standard but the violations of the welfare standards. It’s no different from cobbling together YouTube videos of assaults, rapes and murders caught on CCTV and then trying to pass it off as a documentary of “standard” human living conditions being one of constant violence.

[DoctorAllcome]

I suppose the argument would go that if there were no farm animals, there would be more room for wild animals to live and more wild ponies etc

Yes, I hear vegans saying this but it is impossible.

If we stop eating animals, several species would die among them sheep and cows. Sheep die even if they are not sheared because flies lay eggs in their winter wool and the maggots hatch and after eating whatever fecal matter is on the wool will start feeding on their skin causing open sores, infection, fever and death.

We would be short a food source, and have to produce more high protein vegetables and grains to make up for the loss of animal protein. So any land that was arable for grazing, will have to be converted to agriculture. Land used for crops supports a lot less wildlife than grazing land. So you’d have more devastation to country wild life like rodents, birds, hedgehogs, otters, badgers, foxes, frogs, salamanders, newts, lizards, snakes, and insects...including bees and butterflies.

[Downunderduchess]

Absolutely you are correct. I couldn't rationalise calling myself an animal lover but supporting/condoning their torture by eating them. If you saw what happens in a slaughterhouse you would know how easy it was for me to give up meat. Animals screaming from fear, baby cows taken from their mothers to be slaughtered? I will not be a part of that.

[Ladyflop]

How can you possibly be an animal lover and eat meat. That's the most bizarre contradictory statement I've ever heard. Spend an hour in an abattoir and come back and tell me how much of an animal lover you are.

[Ladyflop]

Drugsarrow or whatever your name is, that has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've read on here today, take a bow.

[Teacher22]

It is Ill informed and emotive of the OP’s vegan friend to say that you cannot like animals if you eat them.

Humans have incisor teeth as they are evolved to be omnivores and eating animals is the most efficient way of gaining essential proteins, iron, vitamins and minerals. People keep beloved pets and cats cannot live without meat. Meat producers ensure that animal breeds continue to survive. Most game keepers, farmers and other meat producers love their livestock and look after them responsibly and anyone who didn’t would go out of business pretty soon.

It is perfectly possible to love animals and eat them as the 94 per cent of the population which isn’t vegan or vegetarian well know.

[gerispringer]

Yanbu
Those who claim sheep, cows etc would be extinct if we didn’t eat them ignore the fact that intensively farmed animals have been selectively bread by humans and are not natural wild species anyway. There are wild relatives of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens etc and provided humans don’t ruin every place on earth these could continue to exist. Humans have choices that why they can adapt to so many different diets. Those who choose to eat meat do so knowing that it is the decaying dead body of a sentient creature which has had an unpleasant life and death ( 90% of meat in this country is not the organic , grass fed free range type that everyone on here claims to eat). Fine - your choice.

[gerispringer]

Th teeth argument is also a myth- how many animals have you killed with your teeth ? Mammals with big teeth - gorillas and hippos to name two, are herbivores.