AIBU for not eating meat on moral grounds?

[ShouldWeChangeTheBulb]

I have been with my partner for 12 years and haven’t eaten meat since I was about 9 years old, so I haven’t eaten meat the whole time I’ve known him.
Today after walking passed some pigs on a nice open air farm I made a comment about how intelligent pigs are and that it’s a shame that that is not always how they are treated. I said that I thought modern farming is cruel and immoral.
My partner, who eats meat, got upset with me and started sulking and refusing to talk to me. When I asked him why he was upset he repeatedly said I was a bigot for saying that eating meat, when farmed by modern standards, was immoral. I argued my point and talked about the environmental impact and the and the cruelty to animals but also said that I felt the dairy industry is immoral but I drink milk so it’s not like I feel morally superior to anyone.
He just said that anyone who has moral surety is ‘suspicious’ and a bigot.
I can’t understand why he didn’t realise I felt this way, surly it’s obvious that I think it’s morally wrong otherwise I’d eat meat. I have always told people, when asked, that it’s a moral choice because I feel modern farming is wrong but I don’t try to convert people or go on about it, this is the first time he’s heard me say anything like that in 12 years.
AIBU and a bigot for thinking modern farming is immoral?

*imagine.

I think I misunderstood your post @Scrowy. Sorry .

That's a wheat harvester...it's bloody loud.

Would most rabbits and other small animals really just sit there and chill with that approaching and getting louder? Or would they get the hell out of there?

Yes and no.

Certainly many people would agree that industrial farming is morally very problematic. And lots of people think eating meat is always problematic, and veganism or vegetarianism is the answer.

However, there are also many people who disagree, especially with the "always problematic" position. And while there is a tendency for vegans to see that as people just being selfish that really doesn't do justice to the arguments against ethical veganism of that kind.

So there is an element of respect - if you expect respect for your views on meat, you also need to give some respect to other's considered views, and you should realise there are strong arguments from that perspective as well.

But I think in this case, you really need to consider how you have interacted. You've basically called your bf an immoral person for eating meat. You know he is a meat eater and you have just said, meat eaters are immoral. It's not like he has never heard of vegetarianism and it's a new idea. It would be difficult not to interpret that as saying - you are immoral.

Even if you justify it on the grounds of being understanding that he doesn't "get it" yet because it's hard, that comes of as pretty patronising.

Agree with PPs that it’s weird that after many years your DP isn’t already v familiar with your views on this!

YANBU for those views or for expressing them from time to time.

He’s U for malapropisms and sulking!

YANBU

As a "part-time vegetarian", I still eat a bit of meat and dairy for a few reasons:

• I'm a shit nutritionist, and I worry me and the kids would end up lacking essentials like vitamin B12
• there's a cultural "heritage" value attached to certain food (and traditional farming methods), that I still treasure, despite the moral issues with modern farming (I try to go for the less cruel farming options, but shaping then taking an animal's life is still rather morally dubious)
• eating meat reminds me I'm not perfect or a saint (and that we always live at the expense of others, to some extent)

@EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire

The slugs, caterpillars, rabbits, pigeons, mice, deer, moles etc don't just all have a gentleman's agreement with the lettuce farmer to stay away from their crops.

No but I doubt very much they like loud machinary. Excluding ill and injured animals, I image 99.9% of them will run away from the noise.

No they don't always run away from machinery.

Plus 'machinery day' is just one day. They have to be kept away from the crops every day they are growing until machinery day, and that involves pesticides, poisons, guns, traps, terriers etc.

@EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire

Don't eat meat if you don't want to, but don't try and pretend that there isn't also a huge amount of death and destruction involved in producing 'plant based' food because it doesn't fit your view.

What death and destruction is involved in producing plant based food?

You might think about doing some sort of work stint on a vegetable farm for a bit. Even a nice, small, sustainable farm of that time is very much immersed in the cycle of life and death, both for plants and creatures. That's how ecosystems work and a sustainable farm needs to work as much like an ecosystem as possible.

As well as that kind of death, at an industrial farming level, destruction of life is huge, big agricultural monocultures destroy the soil and water, they create largely sterile zones where animals can't live, they destroy habitat, they are oil reliant with all the habitat destruction caused by that industry, and they are also completely enmeshed in industrial animal agriculture. In many instances the industrial animal agriculture is possible because of the surpluses and bi-products of industrial plant agriculture and would not exist otherwise.

No they don't always run away from machinery.

So there's a loud machine approaching and all of those (prey) animals just sit and chill while the noise gets louder? Really now?

Plus 'machinery day' is just one day. They have to be kept away from the crops every day they are growing until machinery day, and that involves pesticides, poisons, guns, traps, terriers etc.

Yes I understand that. Vegetarians and vegans are aware of this so am not sure why it's always used as some kind of 'gotcha!' argument as if we haven't heard it before.

Besides meat eaters eat vegetables too .

*byproducts, obviously, not biproducts!

You might think about doing some sort of work stint on a vegetable farm for a bit.

No thanks .

Besides meat eaters eat vegetables too

Somehow this crucial fact always seems to be forgotten!

@ClaraJude

What death and destruction is involved in producing plant based food?

Not sure if this is specifically what that poster meant, but generally people making these comments are referring to animals killed in the harvesting of crops. Many rodents, birds, small mammals and insects are killed when plants are harvested.

Of course, this is only part of the story; a huge proportion of agricultural land is used for the production of animal feed, despite meat and animal products only providing us with a fraction of our calories (it takes about 100 calories of grain to produce just 12 calories of chicken or 3 calories worth of beef, so the wastage is huge). Therefore, by going vegan you are still reducing the number of animals killed in crop production, even if you personally are eating more plants.

If the whole world were to go vegan, we would require less agricultural land to feed the global population despite the increased plant consumption.

Sorry but that's an overly simplistic argument. In the UK we generally grow crops on land on which they can be grown, and graze livestock on land that can't grow crops. For example virtually all UK produced sheep meat will have been produced on land which isn't suitable for growing crops for human consumption because of land type, altitude, climate, whatever. Livestock are very effective in converting grass into meat and much of the UK, whilst good for growing grass, isn't suited to other crops.

What would happen in the UK if we all went vegan is that we would be more heavily reliant on food imported from the other side of then world. I am not confident that this wouldn't lead to environmental impact in these places, or food shortages amongst local populations. Meanwhile we would do what - shrug our shoulders and tell them that we could grow alot of protein in our own country but decided it wasn't morally sound, and we'd rather eat Brazilian soya instead?

This is not America, livestock farmers in the UK cannot afford to feed large quantities of soya and must utilise what they have - grass.

@ClaraJude

Besides meat eaters eat vegetables too

Somehow this crucial fact always seems to be forgotten!

And they eat animals and animal byproducts. What were these animals living off before they reached their plate, hmm? Fresh air?

YANBU for your moral position

YABU for misrepresenting your AIBU

I’m a vegetarian as well, I’m also dairy free (I eat eggs from a friends rescue chickens that live in his garden). To be buying a chicken etc from Sainsburys is no different to eating dog at a dog meat festival. If someone eats meat they are paying someone to in most cases raise an animal in extremely cruel conditions, every meat eater is paying someone to kill animals.

Did he mean hypocrit rather than bigot? As you’re okay with dairy cows being treated poorly.

Not all soya is grown in South America either.

Alpro gets their soya beans from Europe.

The unreasonable thing here is that after being with you for 12 years, the penny has only just dropped with him that a vegetarian might have issues with animal husbandry methods.

Does he think vegans work in slaughterhouses?

The wheel is turning, but the hamster's dead with this one, I'm afraid, OP.

Soya is also in a lot of processed food.

There are vegans out there who are allergic to soya so it's possible to have a soya free vegan diet. Just because you're vegan doesn't mean it's compulsory to start consuming large amounts of soya or even at all.

I’d also be a bit confused that he is morally opposed to people have ‘moral surety’ - apart from being a contradiction in itself, isn’t he fairly certainly opposed to a few things on moral grounds - what about rape? torture? murder? (Of humans, if he only applies ethics to humans)

@SJaneS48 I agree with the stance taken by the animal welfare charity that your DH works for. I see no moral problem with eating eat, provided that animals have a decent quality of life and are slaughtered humanely. The problem is that a lot of meat is produced using intensive farming methods, which are bad for animals and humans alike, as meat is so cheap and plentiful that people eat much more of it than is good for them.

I eat small amounts of meat, but not every day. I buy free range/RSPCA approved meat when possible. I happily pay more for such meat, but I realise there are many people who can't afford to. There are also people who can afford to pay more, but won't, because they just don't care about animal welfare at all. Those people are often not very likeable, IME.

@EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire

Not all soya is grown in South America either.

Alpro gets their soya beans from Europe.

The key thing that is overlooked is that not all land is capable of growing non-meat crops for human consumption. So you might look at statistics about how much land area is needed to feed a human on a vegan diet, v the area needed to sustain a human on an omnivorous diet but what you are missing is that only part of the land is suitable for growing these crops, and as a proportion our country has relatively little.

Going vegan will mean importing more of our food, and abandoning land on which we could sustainably grow our own. This does not feel like a moral stance to me.

This is not America, livestock farmers in the UK cannot afford to feed large quantities of soya and must utilise what they have - grass.

There are insects in grass so those cows kill thousands of innocent bugs while they are having a graze. The murderous fuckers!

@EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire

Soya is also in a lot of processed food.

There are vegans out there who are allergic to soya so it's possible to have a soya free vegan diet. Just because you're vegan doesn't mean it's compulsory to start consuming large amounts of soya or even at all.

Where are you getting protein from? Do you know that we could produce sufficient vegan protein in the UK to replace what we'd give up from meat/dairy?

@EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire

This is not America, livestock farmers in the UK cannot afford to feed large quantities of soya and must utilise what they have - grass.

There are insects in grass so those cows kill thousands of innocent bugs while they are having a graze. The murderous fuckers!

Are you being serious?