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?

An attempt to step away from that by not eating meant is an attempt at a ritual purity. But it's fundamentally an illusion, which prevents really taking responsibility for our place within the whole, and understanding what is required for us to live.

And yet, fundamentally, it’s not an illusion that you pay for bolts to be put through the heads of cows, and I don’t.

I think it's a shame your partner can't have a sensible and frankly interesting conversation with you about the meat issue. But then if you refuse to discuss the issue and just set out your views perhaps the conversation isn't great and he gets frustrated. I am a meat eater, and a vocal one. I suggest you listen to podcasts such as The Food Programme and The Food Chain on BBC sounds, they have some absolutely fascinating podcasts - some anti meat, some pro meat.
I eat limited amounts of high welfare meat. I believe, strongly, that this is an important part of our agricultural food chain. I don't believe eating meat has to be cruel and immoral. I think a lot of it is, but if you source your food well it can be quite the opposite.

I eat limited amounts of high welfare meat. I believe, strongly, that this is an important part of our agricultural food chain. I don't believe eating meat has to be cruel and immoral. I think a lot of it is, but if you source your food well it can be quite the opposite

This is my stance entirely.

It's all part of a big cycle. It's so much more complicated than people like to make out. Crops and animal production co-exist side by side. They compliment each other.

Industrial farming is bad for everyone except the people making money out of it. Most real farmers don't want that to be what farming is, but whilst the demand remains for cheap meat someone will always supply it.

I experience more feelings of guilt eating something with palm oil in it than I do eating lamb I know we have given a good life on our farm and a good death in the tiny slaughterhouse a mile away.

I eat limited amounts of high welfare meat. I believe, strongly, that this is an important part of our agricultural food chain. I don't believe eating meat has to be cruel and immoral. I think a lot of it is, but if you source your food well it can be quite the opposite

If he had said this we may have had an interesting discussion. I’m not a black or white person I can see there are shades of grey in the debate. His view point on the meat industry is that it is absolutely fine the way it is.
I think the dairy industry is horrendous but I would find it too difficult to cut out dairy (I’ve tried) which is how I thought most people felt about meat. I also think that much of the fashion industry relies on exploitation but I generally don’t buy fair-trade clothing because I find it too difficult. There are many more examples of these hypocrisies but other than never leaving the house, buying anything or doing anything I don’t see how I could live morally. So I choose the things that are most important to me.
If I walked past a dairy farm with a vegan and they commented that it was a shame how cows are treated I would 100% agree.
I’m not saying I judge people for eating meat as I think no one is morally superior but I’m surprised that people don’t recognise the moral issues with it.

I'm not saying I judge people for eating meat as I think no one is morally superior but I’m surprised that people don’t recognise the moral issues with it.

But plenty of people do. They just have different lines in the sand to you. They may not buy any fast fashion and never fly anywhere, but eat meat. People can recognise the moral argument against something and still do it, which yes is hypocritical but you admit to doing that yourself about lots of other things just not meat.

YABU to not want to eat meat because you find it to be cruel but to eat dairy. That’s just as cruel, if not more cruel. At least animals bred for meat get to experience a bit of life. The cruel part only comes at the end. Dairy cattle face a whole lifetime of misery, being inseminated over and over again and their calves being taken from them (often to become veal). I’ve never understood the “because it’s cruel” argument from vegetarians who eat dairy. And actually tend to eat more dairy than others because they over-compensate.

I said that I thought modern farming is cruel and immoral
I never understand why people insist that eating animals is wrong, whilst happily eating vegetables fertilised with the manure of those animals, or possibly fertilised with their crushed blood and bone.

I think I would agree with where you are coming from. Had you said that to me I’d probably have said, yes you’re entirely right, but I’d still eat meat in the same way I do now. I wouldn’t sulk about it because I’m not naive about what happens behind the scenes.
I’m not really sure why he is sulking unless you’d said it in a way where he thought he’s been personally attacked for his choices, which it doesn’t sound like you did.

On second thoughts LTB

YANBU! But . . prepare for a barage of criticism from meat eaters trying to defend the meat industry to justify themselves. I believe deep down most of them know that commercial, intensive animal farming and abatoires are cruel but would rather turn a blind eye as meat is just what they're used to so why change? Far easier to throw some chicken nuggets in the oven for their kids than it is to cut up some vegetables.

I'm also vegetarian so I agree with you. But I also dont drink milk because those farming practises are abhorrent.

You can reduce your dairy intake, you dont have to fully cut it out. And only buy from named farms that have high welfare hens. Almond milk for tea and cereal is awesome. But keep wating cheese and chocolate. You'd massively reduce your contribution to the industry and barely even notice.

Sorry not RTFT properly but I suspect he was pissed off at you for trying to take the moral high ground on certain issues, but ignoring the fact that other foods you eat come from 'immoral' backgrounds so how can you be such a martyr on 1 thing but not see you're being blinkered about other things,
I winder there's been tension in the past somewhere along the line perhaps he's not mentioned before?

You not unreasonable to be vegetarian or care about animals etc but you are unreasonable to call farmers immoral.

@WhitePumpkin

YANBU! But . . prepare for a barage of criticism from meat eaters trying to defend the meat industry to justify themselves. I believe deep down most of them know that commercial, intensive animal farming and abatoires are cruel but would rather turn a blind eye as meat is just what they're used to so why change? Far easier to throw some chicken nuggets in the oven for their kids than it is to cut up some vegetables.

Not all farming is intensive.

There are many types of farms. Many excellent, high welfare systems exist, with farmers proud to take care of the landscape and its ecosystems.

Almond milk for tea and cereal is awesome

It's not so awesome for the environment though and cannot be produced in the UK.

@Nottherealslimshady, Crunchy is right. Almond milk (depending on the geographical source of the almonds) is not environmentally sound in the least. Do a quick google and you’re likely to find numerous articles on the decline of bees and almond farming. Basically in the States, bee hives are stuck on trucks and taken around almond orchards to pollinate the trees - the combination of travelling and being exposed to different chemicals is a major factor in hive collapse and dead bees.

@ClaraJude so I've now had time to go through the links you kindly provided and as suspected none of the data specifically looks at British grass fed lamb.

The independent link seems to draw on the data from the US again. The Guardian link was interesting but again there seems a desperation to prove that meat is bad rather than actually looking at all the data critically and applying it fairly to all food types (although I liked the acknowledgement about British lettuces in summer!).

I was disappointed that the Our World Data link provided really quite unclear and woolly information. The data files behind the data were extremely basic.

@CrunchyNutNC @SJaneS48 good point, there's negatives to all kinds of intensive farming, its true, and almonds do have a larger impact on the environment than other options, I think oat milk ranks the best for environment but I'm not too sure but it's not as healthy (in my opinion) as almond milk.
The thing with dairy farming though is that it doesn't remove the impact of plant farming (forgot the actual term-agriculture maybe?) We still intensively farm plants, to feed the cows, and its not an efficient system because the cow uses some of that food to stay alive. And cows are terrible for the environment. (And the treatment of the cows is horrendous.)

By even partly moving to a plant milk you would be reducing your contribution to the poor treatment of animals and to the environment.

And cows are terrible for the environment.

That's the sort of broad sweeping statement that makes it difficult to have a sensible conversation about this.

In my area the wildlife trust have reintroduced cattle to some of the land they manage because the cattle are a valuable part of the ecosystem, their grazing makes the habitat suitable for mother species including, iirc, some rare plants and insects.

Remove cattle from the UK overnight and we would lose many important wildlife species.

OP,
Of course you are not being unreasonable to make your own moral choices about what you eat. Presumably, your partner knows that you are vegetarian and knows that you think factory farming and the treatment of sentient animals is cruel. You have every right to hold these opinions

And the treatment of the cows is horrendous

Cows in the UK are generally treated very well. You may not agree with all aspects of dairy farming for your own reasons but stressed, scared, badly treated cows don't produce high milk yields.

I'm sure you can find examples on YouTube of secret filming etc of bad practise but that is not the norm and is often very heavily edited to push a particular agenda.

Depends on what you mean by very well @Scrowy. We might not have the large industrial dairy farms of the States (although 2 were proposed during the last 10 years, one went ahead while the other got squashed). However, there are still too many cows without any access to outside pasture either all of the year or a great deal of it.

You not unreasonable to be vegetarian or care about animals etc but you are unreasonable to call farmers immoral
I don’t blame the farmers for the issues in the industry in the same way that I disagree with amazon and it’s lack of tax paying and monopoly but I don’t blame the people who work in the warehouse.
We need different regulations and systems in place that give farmers decent money and support better farming practices for both meat and veg.

I'm still laughing at him calling you a bigot - a word that is defined as someone who is intolerant of the views of others, without seeing the irony 😂

I'm not a vegetarian myself but I feel like some meat eaters act like it's their religion. Why do they expect vegetarians not to criticise or judge it? If you believe eating meat is immoral, naturally you are going to judge the industry. Eating meat is an active choice like everything else, it's not beyond criticism. Why are people so defensive about it?

Obviously nobody likes it when someone goes on about their moral judgements but if it's honestly taken this long for this conversation to come up then that's obviously not what's happening. You should be able to have this level of debate with your partner without them being this defensive.