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.

I think this makes sense OP.

I'm currently a meat eater after having been veggie for over a decade. I started eating meat again to see if it would improve a mental health condition (i.e. with a higher intake of vitamin B12, iron etc.) but do feel guilty for it.

I definitely wouldn't be okay with slaughtering an animal. I also don't like the idea that the some animals feel very distressed when they realise they are going to be slaughtered.

On the other hand I think I could cope with fishing and eating the fish so maybe I should become pescatarian.

What I do think is hypocritical is vegans saying they care about animal welfare but keeping them as slaves and playthings for their own selfish pleasure.

Like dogs? I’m vegan and have dogs. I also foster animals. They’re lovely and they do enrich my life but I don’t do it for my own selfish pleasure. I’ve only ever had rescue animals, not puppies and kittens from breeders. The animals have been brought into the world and need looking after so I’ll do that.

I feel really conflicted on this. I've recently started to drastically reduce my meat consumption (going from eating meat every day to once a week and the meat I do eat usually being beef for the iron/B vitamins.) My main reason for doing so was that I was feeling less and less comfortable with the idea of an animal being killed for me to eat so I do get where you're coming from but then again I'm not fully vegetarian so perhaps I am a massive hypocrite for eating meat occasionally!

I eat meat very rarely, but when I do it's higher welfare from a local farm shop. I would never slaughter the animal myself because I'm not trained to do so, I out-source to people that are. The same way I do when my car needs fixing and my hair needs cutting.

If you believe in using a plumbed toilet, you should be happy to go down the sewers to unblock it from time to time that it’s necessary. Same argument.

Although I think the OP isn’t real with this post, to all those saying they wouldn’t kill animals for food just like they wouldn’t fix their own car or operate on their own leg etc, I think you are missing the point. The point being those things don’t require taking another life. And maybe humans shouldn’t be so okay with that being done by someone else if they wouldn’t be prepared to do it themselves. It’s quite a thing to do after all, killing another living thing.

I definitely wouldn’t want untrained people doing it, it’s not humane as it is, never mind letting just anyone have a go. I’m not convinced of OPs argument, but can see the point being made is different to outsourcing other jobs.

What I do think is hypocritical is vegans saying they care about animal welfare but keeping them as slaves and playthings for their own selfish pleasure.

But what about rescue animals? If more people are vegan then there is less supply and demand for meat & dairy thus less animals killed right? But if we are not adopting animals from shelters those animals would still exist because people are still putting them there. As a vegan I would never buy from a breeder but I don’t see anything wrong with taking an animal that has a not nice life and giving it a good quality one. That’s not for selfish pleasure.

I don't disagree with you.

I eat meat. But I also hunt and fish.

@SuperstarDog its called the food chain, many living creatures kill another for food
I hope no vegans own cats as they often just kill foe play / fun

If you drive OP, you should definitely be happy to work on an oil rig, or maybe live in Saudi for a while .

Got a mobile phone? I hope you will take your turn underground mining whatever it is that comes from from deep within a mountain in Africa, and please don’t accept the services of the NHS unless you would happily cut through an abdomen with a scalpel or deal with bedpans.

(I eat some meat from time to time and am fine with the whole process, by the way)

No problem with that at all. If I had to slaughter my meat, I would. I've watched a mate who's a smallholder kill chickens for the table.

@DumplingsAndStew

I've never chopped down a tree, so I don't wipe my arse.

I’m replacing my “live laugh love” poster with this

Are you comfortable with slaughtering animals as you’re comfortable cooking them, op?

So wait… hunters have the moral high ground in your logic? I’m not sure on the rules of being veggie- but I would think your in danger of being the subject of meat is murder protests with that opinion

If I was trained in how to do it, I’d kill, skin and cook an animal to eat.

Can all vegetarians/vegans grow their own vegetables?

@JackieWeaversZoomAc

It would be very messy and unhygenic to have everyone slaughtering animals in their back yards. How/where would the guts, hides, bones etc be disposed of? Abbatoirs may be unsavoury but at least they are equipped to dispose of waste and hides can go on to tannneries, bones to make fertiliser or whatever.

What about people who live in flats or who don't run chest freezers - should they never eat meat because they don't have the space to slaughter animals and store the excess?

These kind of arguments are on a level with my kids thinking everything should be free.

Jackie - it would be quite easy for flat dwellers to tuck a chicken under their arms and chop it up in the bath but not so easy to persuade Daisy the cow to climb the stairs.

I also don't like the idea that the some animals feel very distressed when they realise they are going to be slaughtered.

Every living thing dies, and almost all are distressed to some extent by the event. For wild animals in particular it is generally unpleasant. Either fast and brutal, or slow and horrible.

If we were serious about not wanting creatures to be distressed in death we would not allow them to exist at all, that would be about the only real option. It's difficult to believe that would be preferable though, it's a philosophy of sterility and death, not one of life.

There is a reason that so much of myth and religion deals with this contradiction, it's one of the great paradoxes that human beings face by having a sense of past and future. But pretending we can somehow escape from it does no good, it requires turning away from important realities and does no real good for animal welfare.

Sorry, I don’t see a mass of vegetarians racing to chuck millions of male chicks into grinders if they eat eggs, or kill all the male dairy calves if they eat any dairy products. Funny that.

Also, for vegetarians and vegans with pets that need to eat meat, such as dogs - are they all going out to slaughter the meat their pets need to survive?

We did have some vegans a while back who were persecuted for animal cruelty for giving their dogs a meat free diet despite it causing health problems and specific instruction from a vet. They ignored it and some ended up dying and the others either had to be put down or will live in pain due to bone malformations and health issues that can’t be reversed. I guess that was their fix so they didn’t have to go slaughter their pets required meat?

@SoupDragon

Which I guess puts me on the same level as not being able to dispatch an animal to eat.

You're already on the same level as you are cooking animals. 🤷🏻‍♀️

And is veggie not vegan, so funds the dairy industry which doesn't tally with her stance on animal welfare?

We did have some vegans a while back who were persecuted for animal cruelty for giving their dogs a meat free diet despite it causing health problems and specific instruction from a vet.

One of our dogs and another dog we fostered have both been on meat free diets due to a health problem. Our dog was operated on and no longer requires the meat free diet (she was on it for months) but the other dog will have to remain meat free for life. She has been on it for over a year now. Vet recommended. Our other dogs and fosters used to try to get to their non meat food. The vet told us it had everything they needed, so it wasn’t a concern if all the dogs had it.

Years ago we were hunters gatherers and then society evolved and we discovered that different people do different things and it works. A system was set up to pay for goods and services (money) in exchange for them. Today we find it easier if we do separate jobs rather than everyone gathering or growing their own food etc, most people don't have gardens big enough to grow all the lovely things they like to eat hence avocados are sent over from Mexico, melons from Africa (you get the idea).

I hope that helps clear up your confusion @hashbrownsandwich

If you buy fast fashion or use a smartphone you should be happy to work in a sweat shop because that is the conditions it comes from. By OP logic.

@InTheNightWeWillWish

I think there is a different mindset between those from farming backgrounds and the average person. Those from a farming background tend to have pets but they are serving a purpose, they have cats for ratting purposes, dogs are usually working dogs. Farmers are not likely to be the ones referring to their pets as their fur babies, letting their pets sleep on the bed (maybe with cats because you can’t control what a cat does). They might have a pet and then working dogs, with the pet being allowed special treatment that the other dogs aren’t but most animals will serve a purpose. They raise livestock to the highest standards they can, knowing they’ll be slaughtered. It’s something farmers learn at a young age from their parents. Most of the rest of the population falls into having fur babies and if you give them chickens to raise with the view of being slaughtered they get too attached. The chickens become pets, not food. However, people will make a distinction between their pets and the chicken in the shop. I don’t have butchery skills and if I tried to slaughter an animal it wouldn’t be a humane death. However, with training I could probably slaughter an animal on a farm but I would struggle to detach myself from chickens I’d raised.

This isn’t to say that farmers are detached or uncaring by the way. It’s just the mindset of farmer, it’s different. I think it’s the same mindset in which they keep farming even when the farm isn’t profitable because they’re a farmer and that’s what farmers do.

I agree as a farmer especially on the point about cats and dogs on a farm. They're a combination of pets, friends and co-workers. There's another category of farm animal though. As soon as you name an animal. For example we have our stock rams. They have a name and a registration certificate. They will live out their days on the farm. I would find it very difficult to physically kill one of them. If that makes me a hypocrite then so be it.

Society neatly packages meat in order to create and maintain cognitive dissonance around meat. You say your DH has a clear conscience, but if he was a farmer I'm sure he played into this normalising of slabs of flesh in nice packets and far removed from their origins, no? Unless he sold them on and the end customer actually received an entire pig/cow/chicken that they had to skin or pluck and cut themselves?

I don't blame people who eat meat yet wouldn't be keen to slaughter an animal, its been normalised not to.