[quote headspin10]@MangyInseam
Yeah, I know there is no perfect solution. I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Devon, surrounded by farms, with a sheep farm next door. I agree that lots of people who live in cities are detached from farming life, but the realities aren't nice. I don't disagree that farmers care for their animals, but ultimately they send them to be killed unnecessarily for their own gain (money).
'Nature red in tooth and claw' is of course true, but modern animal farming methods are by and large both hideous and unnecessary. Nature is cruel but what we do as humans when we use animals for our own ends is much worse. (Also much worse for the environment.) [/quote]
There are certainly some farming methods that are particularly bad.
But there is a real error in imagining that because we don't eat meat, or use any animal products, somehow we are not implicated in animal death. We are. To live, other creatures and organisms, which were alive, die and become part of us. We are part of a wholly interdependent ecosystem.
Trying to get out of that is like trying to remain aloof from bodily functions or death by segregating those tasks off so there is a hierarchy between ourselves and those that deal with those elements of life. In the end, we all excrete, we all die, and pretending otherwise is just an illusion. And an illusion that prevents us from taking real stock and responsibility for our place in the ecosystem and effect on what is around us, and on our dependence.
If people are doing their best to eat sustainably farmed food, not wasting food, and are honouring the place of all living things, that is about the best we can do. And it's much better environmentally than just cutting out meat. Industrial farming of crops doesn't do any of that.