To think that meat eaters...

[hashbrownsandwich]

Should be comfortable to slaughter animals if they are happy to eat them?

The 'cheap chicken' threads have got me onto this and I'm at home with covid so be gentle!

My own personal background is that I am vegetarian and have been since I was 7. Own decision. I cook meat for my children and my husband because I believe, like i was given, it's a choice that can be made for themselves.

My husband is from farming background and has proactively raised and slaughtered animals. His conscience is entirely clear because he very much has the farmer mindset of raise the animal, give them a good life, dispatch and consume.

It's coming up to 'Turkey time' on the family farm and with the so called shortages forecast this year, I've found myself having more conversations with colleagues about the food chain/supply etc.

We live in an affluent area and we have lots of farm shops, butchers etc. However, I'm shocked that most people I know have said while they couldn't give up meat, they also wouldn't be happy to raise animals for slaughter themselves or to witness their slaughter.

So AIBU to to believe, if you're going to eat meat, it's your moral duty to be ok with animal slaughter?

Just to say, what I've tried in a long winded way above is that i'm not a preachy veggie and I'm not vegan.

You are clearly VERY VERY bored, OP! Do you go to the fields and pick all your fruit & vegetables? I think you should lead by example and start right away. Well, when you are not infectious anymore , of course 🙏🏻🙈

I have some further thoughts on this.

I do wonder why some people hold others to such ridiculous standards.

For example.

If you do meat-free Monday, that's seen as a positive. Cutting down on meat is a good thing

But if you cut meat out, but not dairy or eggs, you are a total hypocrite. How very dare you choose not to eat meat. Calves died for that milk you know!

And if you are a vegan - but you dare eat an almond or an avocado, well you clearly don't care about the planet at all!

Why is it not ok to do things imperfectly? Surely cutting down on meat out cutting meat out altogether are both good things? Surely lots of people doing a bit is better than the very few people that can do veganism in such a way that nobody calls them out for not being perfect?

And why do some people choose to seemingly get so offended that other people don't do things exactly the same way they do?

If you harangue people because they choose to eat an egg or an avocado, I really suggest you look at your own actions. Are you really so perfect yourself?

I’m a veggie. My husband isn’t but I don’t cook meat for him because my beliefs mean more to me than his tastebuds.

So AIBU to to believe, if you're going to eat meat, it's your moral duty to be ok with animal slaughter?

Like, I find this attitude really weird when you buy and cook meat. The fact that you don’t personally eat is is surely irrelevant from a moral standpoint? Why are you exempt from the need to be ok with slaughtering the animals you’re cooking…?

Well its as simple as this for me. I am an omnivore therefore I eat both vegetables and meat. If I had to kill my own food, I would, just like all the generations before me.

I'm of the mindset that just because I want something, doesn't mean I have to produce it myself. I can knit and sew, to make clothes, others wouldn't be able to (without some training or difficulty). And I still need someone to produce the fabrics for that.

We all need others to provide services - builders, farmers, doctors, and so on. should we not use them if we can't do their jobs ourselves?

Same with meat production. I'm not giving up eating meat because I'm not keen on raising then slaughtering animals.

@Fernie6491

I'm of the mindset that just because I want something, doesn't mean I have to produce it myself. I can knit and sew, to make clothes, others wouldn't be able to (without some training or difficulty). And I still need someone to produce the fabrics for that.

We all need others to provide services - builders, farmers, doctors, and so on. should we not use them if we can't do their jobs ourselves?

Same with meat production. I'm not giving up eating meat because I'm not keen on raising then slaughtering animals.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Also I am bored to the back teeth with militant veggies and vegans guilt tripping meat eaters. We clearly make different choices to you. I couldn't care less what another person eats because it's none of my business!

but would those vegetarians remove a calf from the cow, and milk it themselves?
In a non-industrial / traditional setting it is actually not such a grim scenario. The calf still gets enough milk, even non-dairy breeds vastly over-produce milk compared to the needs of a calf. The body produces milk according to demand. Many of us actually experienced it ourselves with that strange urge to fill the freezer with expressed milk "just in case". Well I know I did, had probably a couple of gallons frozen at the end.

On the topic, I agree with the sentiment to an extent. Slaughtering a large animal requires skill and likely to cause unnecessary suffering if performed by an amateur. Backyard slaughter of poultry is probably quite the opposite- more humane when small-scale.

Also I am bored to the back teeth with militant veggies and vegans guilt tripping meat eaters

I'm also sick of meat eaters trying to undermine veggies and vegans by declaring them to be hypocrites because they aren't eating to some ridiculously high standard that I suspect they themselves don't live up to.

Basically everyone should stop judging people based on where they sit on the carnivore to fruitarian scale!

Also I am bored to the back teeth with militant veggies and vegans guilt tripping meat eaters. We clearly make different choices to you. I couldn't care less what another person eats because it's none of my business!

I’ve said already that I don’t believe OP has posted in good faith. Her post makes no sense and is designed to make vegetarians look bad which leads on to posts like yours. And before you know it all vegetarians and vegans are preachy and militant. Job well done by OP. Yawn.

As for what other people eat being no one's business, I do feel that someone has to defend animals. I don’t feel their exploitation is right and the way humans feel they have the right to kill animals and use the farming practices they do doesn’t sit right with me at all. That’s why I campaign for animal rights and will comment on threads like these. It is my business to defend those without a voice.

I think if you go back in time some ways then you will find that if the option is 100% veggie or kill a pig then most people will be killing the pig. My own cottage is a couple of hundreds of years old and the older people in the community can still remember when the row kept a pig in the back gardens and slaughtered it between them. My kitchen was used for salting which was very clear from the salt coming out the wall and floor in the one corner during the renovation. I still have old hooks in the kitchen beams which is where the joints were hung. My mum's Uncle kept and killed chickens and it wasn't at all odd. We currently have a choice to be a bit squeamish but when there was less choice people ate meat and killed it.

@smallybells

There's not a single thing wrong with what you're doing! Don't let other people get to you ❤

As for what other people eat being no one's business, I do feel that someone has to defend animals. I don’t feel their exploitation is right and the way humans feel they have the right to kill animals and use the farming practices they do doesn’t sit right with me at all. That’s why I campaign for animal rights and will comment on threads like these. It is my business to defend those without a voice

There's ways and means. I don't know if anyone has actually said that its no-ones business. Maybe they have, I haven't read every post.

Imo is fine to educate people (about animal welfare, health, ecological issues etc) - provided they are interested.

It's not ok to guilt trip them, harass them, tell them they are wrong and basically try to make them out to be awful people. Most people started in life eating meat. Including most militant vegans (and they exist. Yes, not all vegans are like that, but we probably all have been aware of ones that are. Thankfully, for many, it's a temporary state, when they first 'convert' and have found this new thing that they are passionate about and think everyone should hear about it. At least that's what I've seen).

If people try to make others feel bad about their food choices, it's unlikely their attempts to convert them will work. Rather they will succeed in annoying them and making them less likely to listen and much less likely to reduce their meat consumption.

Oh, and they'll also give all vegans a bad name. Which is why people talk about militant vegetarians/vegans.

Bit judgmental but ok.

I’d happily kill my own meat if required. Preferably with a gun for humane quick dispatch. I don’t know how to use a gun so no problems/dangers with this scenario.

I’m very glad we live in a society where trained people are the ones that slaughter the animals, and the meat is hygienically processed, and there are very strict rules about animal welfare. The welfare rules could do with being stricter still in certain areas, but we are still ahead of the vast majority of the world.

I think if you go back in time some ways then you will find that if the option is 100% veggie or kill a pig then most people will be killing the pig. My own cottage is a couple of hundreds of years old and the older people in the community can still remember when the row kept a pig in the back gardens and slaughtered it between them.
I can't speak for the place you're from, but I grew up quite close to the land, and with traditional/subsistence farming practices still very well alive. Even in those circumstances, there still were people specialising in dispatching large animals, it wasn't the case that everyone slaughtered their own when it came to pigs. Rear and fatten, yes, but then the village butcher came to end its life and do the basic gutting / skinning (which also has to be done with skill, or the result might actually be a health hazard).

FluffyBooBoo

Yes, someone mentioned it being none of their business which is why I commented. I will always make it my business to be a voice for animals.

But yes, I don’t think harassing people is the way to go. Guilt tripping, I don’t really get. If a person feels guilty from things someone else says, that’s their issue not mine.

Guilt tripping, I don’t really get. If a person feels guilty from things someone else says, that’s their issue not mine

I was really referring to the act of a someone attempting to make someone feel bad or guilty. And yes, some vegans do that. Some meat eaters do too. I've seen it on this very thread.

@FluffyBooBoo

As for what other people eat being no one's business, I do feel that someone has to defend animals. I don’t feel their exploitation is right and the way humans feel they have the right to kill animals and use the farming practices they do doesn’t sit right with me at all. That’s why I campaign for animal rights and will comment on threads like these. It is my business to defend those without a voice

There's ways and means. I don't know if anyone has actually said that its no-ones business. Maybe they have, I haven't read every post.

Imo is fine to educate people (about animal welfare, health, ecological issues etc) - provided they are interested.

It's not ok to guilt trip them, harass them, tell them they are wrong and basically try to make them out to be awful people. Most people started in life eating meat. Including most militant vegans (and they exist. Yes, not all vegans are like that, but we probably all have been aware of ones that are. Thankfully, for many, it's a temporary state, when they first 'convert' and have found this new thing that they are passionate about and think everyone should hear about it. At least that's what I've seen).

If people try to make others feel bad about their food choices, it's unlikely their attempts to convert them will work. Rather they will succeed in annoying them and making them less likely to listen and much less likely to reduce their meat consumption.

I said it was none of my business what other people eat (and by the same coin, it's no one else's business what I eat).

At which someone said it was was up to them to be a voice for defenceless animals. That's fine, but don't bother speaking to me about it I am not interested.

Obviously I don't want animals to needlessly suffer, and I would never be cruel to an animal. I'm just not an animal person and don't see anything wrong at all in eating them or their produce (along with the majority of the UK population which is not vegetarian or vegan). So I will carry on, and people wanging on about it handwringing isn't going to change that.

Sorry to sound harsh, but that's how it is!

At the same time, a vegan or vegetarian could sit down at a restaurant to eat with me and I would not pass comment on their food choices either!

I was really referring to the act of a someone attempting to make someone feel bad or guilty. And yes, some vegans do that. Some meat eaters do too. I've seen it on this very thread.

But you can only feel guilty if you let yourself. I genuinely couldn’t feel guilty about my eating habits as I feel I do the right thing. If someone is confident they are doing the right thing, it doesn’t matter what anyone says.

Generally though, I try to not get too involved with people who want to hate each other. I do struggle with the ‘I like meat and I don’t care about how it gets on my plate’ people, of which I’ve known a lot, although I think some do it for shock value.
As humans I think it’s more common to feel empathy for other living creatures but also to want convenience and to be able to not think about things too much.

At which someone said it was was up to them to be a voice for defenceless animals. That's fine, but don't bother speaking to me about it I am not interested.

It’s a public forum. 😂

But you can only feel guilty if you let yourself

Does that make it ok for someone to attempt to make others feel bad, just because they have different stance?

YANBU
I eat fish, because I would catch one and kill it if I had to.

I wouldn’t kill a cow/lamb/pig though.
I don’t drink dairy milk - milk is for baby cows not humans. Plus it tastes disgusting. My eggs are fresh range from the family down the road.

I won’t be back, these threads never end well.

I’d love to see the veggies and vegans survive if the same was said for their food tbh.

Over 90% of the people I let arable land to and I’m not talking masses per person I’m talking maybe 40ft x 20ft as a small space to start with give up in the first year. Reasons. I don’t realise how much work, the weeds grow too fast, I planted some stuff but a late frost came, it was too hot and I forgot to water, I wanted to go on holiday for a month, new baby, new job, just cnba any more, didn’t like my neighbour, didn’t think I’d have to work all the land (70% total). Just a few reasons.

Could you imagine if they had to work the land enough to feed themselves or their families for the whole year!! My best tenants are actually those over 50 working land over an acre.

@SuperstarDog

I don’t think OP has posted this in good faith I’m afraid. The argument was a silly one, almost like it was designed to make vegetarians and vegans look silly. And the last post of ‘some good points have been made and she’s going to think about them’....yeah right. Total bollocks.

Fair enough if that's what you think. What I meant was, I had never considered the facts presented to me in regards to morality of buying clothes produced by sweatshops. As in, I know they exist but I turn a blind eye. Which I guess puts me on the same level as not being able to dispatch an animal to eat.

This thread wasn't meant to cause anyone any offence, as I say, I think day 8 of quarantine has finally broken me.