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.

I have genuinely decided that after reading about the poor wee pigs knowing that they’re going to experience something awful, then I’m no longer eating anything to do with them, it’s awful and imagine if people were killing us that way for people to eat, I’ve done a 180 here!

The reality is that none of us can live in this world, and consume, without blood on our hands.
There are countless insects and small mammals killed in the raising and harvesting of food crops. There is large scale environmental loss. In certain regions the conflict is even more direct and brutal such as elephants destroying crops and then being shot.
Huge amounts of birds are also shot protecting crops. Why is the life of a chicken worth everything to a vegan, but that of a crow nothing?
Then there's the endless sea of roadkill from the transportation of it all.

Veganism seems to me to be driven by a strange desire to remove oneself from the natural cycle of life and death, only it isn't possible. For you to live, other creatures are dying.

I am in agreement that certain intensive husbandry practices are dreadful. I will not eat intensively reared pork or chicken, it's fucking abhorrent.

Botched slaughter is grotesque but I'm not overly concerned about slaughter done humanely Where I grew up I frequently saw chickens and sheep killed with a swift cut to the neck, and it's a pretty quick process. Pigs are admittedly trickier and I do think need to be properly stunned first.

I also think veganism is a total exercise in first-world elitism. Where I grew up, people live on less than a dollar a day and struggle to get adequate nutrition. The bit of animal protein (often in the form of gut stew, things don't get wasted and people are so poor than they butcher and consume animals that die of natural causes) that people do get access to makes all the difference.
A vegan diet would be a total health catastrophe for them.

I find it especially galling to hear a vegan in a wealthy country berate these people for using cattle for plowing and donkeys for transport, as being animal exploiters, before climbing in their car and driving to a supermarket.

A vegan diet is not natural, it's not healthy for many people and it's missing essential nutrients. In young women it's also an excellent cover for disordered eating.

Why can't people just be honest and say I guess you're right OP but dang, I like eating meat.

Yep, this is me. I know it's wrong but I just bloody love meat and dairy. I can admit it's my own greed and laziness, and even worse, I don't even feel that bad about it because it just tastes so good. I freely admit to being a massive hypocrite on this issue.

No one should kid themselves that they are only eat meat out of a favour to the animals to "save them from extinction"!

I think the bottom line is that many humans just cant stop themselves eating what they want if it is available, no matter how morally wrong or unhealthy it is. For reference, see the fact that most of us are overweight or obese.

And one of the most upsetting things I've seen has been vegans doing a "vigil" by stopping a truck containing sheep for slaughter. Their video clearly showed the sheep, who were perfectly relaxed, becoming stressed by their presence. A really nasty thing to do to animals on their final journey just to make some sort of cheap point.

It's not logically consistent to eat animals and love them too, but people are absolutely able to do it. Believing contradictory ideas has been a necessity in our social development as a species to avoid conflict and promote harmony in our cultures. But if you want to live a life where all your values and actions are consistent you have to determine what you value more.

I would choose the animals. Enlarging the boundaries of the things you care about I find leads to a greater appreciation of those things and greater engagement which can be incredibly fulfilling and enriching.

@MaxNormal there is no doubt that being in a position to be able to be able to chose to be vegan is a privilege. It's a privilege that most people posting have. I don't think using that privilege to try to alleviate some suffering is a bad thing though.

It's a privilege to be able to donate food to food banks but that doesn't mean noone should do it.

Anyway, in the same way that we can all help the environment by walking a bit rather than taking the car, or buying less plastic - everyone doing at least a bit is better than a few people doing everything, every time someone has a vegetable soup instead of a meat dish that helps too. You don't need to become completely vegan or vegetarian, just eat less meat and animal products. I eat very little meat (no red meat, a bit of poultry, occasional fish) but I do like dairy products and would really struggle without milk or cheese.

I eat eggs because I keep chickens who have access to our rather large garden to roam around. They have a great life and me eating their unfertilised eggs does them no harm at all. If I didn't eat their eggs (they would eat them - yes the chickens themselves or the rats would).
I love my chickens (except when there are showing cannablistic tendencies), but happily eat their eggs.

Its quite telling that no counterarguements have been posted.
Well here's one: the day that my cat swears off meat, so will I. Imitation is after all the most sincere form of flattery.

@Whengodwasarabbit makes sense. Mass produced meat is clearly tampered with in other ways too, pumped up with water etc.

@MaxNormal the vegan sheep vigil, I agree to a point these animals should not have been hindered and stressed further.
But then at least the faces of these sheep will be seen on videos for years to come, people can educate themselves and make a decision. They didn’t silently meet their death without anyone noticing or caring.
These videos need to be seen so people can make the connection. Otherwise the next time they are seen is in small nicely packaged pieces in Tesco. And people are thinking about the price or a recipe , and not about the animal who did not want to die that day.

I think what most people who say they’re animal lovers mean is that they like spending time with domesticated animals and like watching documentaries of (often anthropomorphised) wild animals.

I don’t think most people who say they’re animal lovers would want herds of sheep trekking through their living rooms or would want to take in packs of abandoned street dogs or set up an sanctuary for animals who’ve been injured on the roads. They don’t want to donate all of their funds to conservation or animal rescue projects or to give up using petrol/ palm oil/ plastic or any of the other things which damage animal habitats and come at a huge environmental cost. Most vegans only go so far as to give up meat but continue to drive, fly, eat huge quantities of soya and other foods flown from half way around the world, use make-up and shampoo and cleaning products which end up leeching chemicals into the water, buy products made of plastic etc. Almost nobody who says they’re an animal lover means they love animals more than they love that comfortable lifestyle, and I would include most vegans in that.

By your logic almost nobody on the planet is a real animal lover as we all engage in practices which cause harm to the environment and to animals. Being vegan only reduces one element of this negative impact to animals but that doesn’t cancel out all of the other negative aspects of the average western person’s lifestyle.

Yes, that means presently in the UK which Apex predators are there to make these species extinct?

Yes, that means presently in the UK which Apex predators are there to make these species extinct?

Without apex predators? Slow, nasty prolonged starvation.

It's neither perfectly possible nor natural to live without them. Humans evolved as omnivores, our bodies & dietary requirements are very different from ruminant species. There are no naturally occurring vegan human societies, they'd have died out after the first generation.
Whether people love animals or not is irrelevant, they're part of our natural food supply. If people want to be extremists about veganism or anything else that's their choice, just as it's others' choice to ignore them.

Otherwise the next time they are seen is in small nicely packaged pieces in Tesco. And people are thinking about the price or a recipe , and not about the animal who did not want to die that day.

So is the argument that if people had more of a real feel for where their meat came from, they'd be less comfortable eating it?

Thats not been my experience at all. As I said previously, I grew up in a country where people do a lot of home slaughter. It certainly doesn't put people off eating meat.

So because I eat meat I’m happy licking puppies and punching kittens 🙄 righto! Ffs

Or kicking puppies!

I'm totally baffled by the belief these extremists seem to have that the animals will just quietly fade away & die off if they aren't being farmed for food. They'd carry on living & breeding but instead of doing it on farms they'd be doing it wherever the fuck they want since no-one would own them. Herds of cows & the odd bull would still be wandering around shitting over everything, as would the pigs, but you'd be encountering them everywhere instead of behind all those hedges & fences. And cows & pigs can be as dangerous as any other wild animal especially when they have their young with them.
Do vegans intend carrying out a mass extinction cull of all animals?

Without apex predators? Slow, nasty prolonged starvation

That and disease.

Having bumped off the other predators, wolves, linx, it really is up to us humans to keep some species in check for the good of the environment. It's why we cull deer, they are hugely destructive eating all the saplings and damaging the wider eco-system, plus the whole slow painful death thing, if we don't.

That venison is delicious is a happy by product.

I'm not sure I'd call myself an animal lover, it's a bit of a silly term, but I like animals well enough. The idea that I'm unaware that the sheep I cycle past daily or the cows that occasionally escape from the neighbouring farm into my back green are the same animals I roast, fry and stew is very odd to me. I don't need silly stunts to know I'm eating dead sheep, pig, cow, whatever.

I'm hoping to rescue some battery chickens so will only use eggs from them (if they produce eggs).

We have rescue chickens. Some of them arrive with barely any feathers and it’s wonderful to see them a few weeks later, feathers regrown and scratching around in their enclosure.
They will certainly produce eggs - ours are fantastic layers and the eggs are delicious.
I think battery farming is vile and I wish hunt saboteurs would turn their attention to that and salmon farming - though I suppose those doesn’t have the class war aspects.

@Cam77 in theory, with the use of supplements, it’s completely possible. But in reality not everyone has perfect digestion. Many people have intolerances, allergies or, sensitivities.

I’m not even fully vegetarian, just low meat and I’m struggling with iron deficiency which I simply can’t shift. The supplements leave me sick. I throw up and can’t eat for days. Leafy greens and some meats also make me sick. I have to consume copious amount of orange juice and little portions of meat supplemented by sesame and dried apricots. If it wasn’t for the tiny bit of pork every now and then I don’t think I could cope. I can’t stomach enough leafy greens to get the iron I need and I can’t take supplements. What am I supposed to do?

If there are decent arguments for eating meat, preserving species diversity is not one of them.

Human lifestock farming is one of the factors driving species extinctions. When a rainforest is cleared to farm cattle, that is a net loss in biodiversity. A giant lawn with cows on it is, comparatively, an environmental desert.

Cows are nice, but I don't see why preserving them is morally worth more than tens of other species.

www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/meat-eaters-may-speed-worldwide-species-extinction-study-warns

YANBU. I’m not a vegan either but they have a point with this. If you eat meat you are a lover of certain animals (usually dogs lets face it) but not an overall animal lover.

Dog lovers are usually up in arms about the Chinese dog eating festival for example which seems hugely hypocritical if you will gladly eat a cow or pig.