To ask why people are so against giving up meat?

[NewCracker]

Just that really, why are people so against giving up meat?
Without a doubt we know it's better for the environment, we know it's better for our health, we know it's better for animal welfare and it's actually quite expensive. But still as soon as you mention to the greater public about cutting their meat consumption, they get defensive and almost offended.
Would you ever consider giving it up, if you do consume it now? If not, why not?
I'm expecting some hate, this is MN after all, but I am genuinely just curious. Not trying to rattle feathers.

I don't eat fake meat either. I love lentils, nuts, fruit and vegetables. I am sure my body does too.

There aren't enough animal lovers to keep all the livestock that exist and are part of the food chain.

I’m not vegan and I find it weird to drink milk for example - I do it because I’m socialised to it and that’s what milk is to me, oat and soy milk make me gag. But I can’t defend it sensibly! Not eating meat is doing my bit

I think the environmental impact of replacing farms with meat factories is not something that has been thought enough about. Does anyone believe that all the farmland will be replaced by beautiful open woodlands?

We would need huge meat factories to provide all the replacement meat.

I think people get defensive because ultimately it feels a little weird to say “I like to eat dead animals”

I don’t why some view it as wierd. When you look at human evolution, before we were hunters, we were scavengers. It’s where we are in the food chain, our place in the ecosystem. We are only doing what nature evolved us to do.

You obviously object the the natural world and the ecological arms race that goes on daily through nature being itself eat and be eaten.

What makes you think your superior to nature in a rawest form?

The world have evolved like this for centuries with this happening on a daily basis through all species, perhaps you think your far more superior?

You can smell the cognitive dissonance in the defensiveness of some of these posts. 😂

Being serious for a moment, these are the reasons I feel why people are so against giving up meat.

• It is culturally embedded for most people around the world. I am in the UK - meat is normally integral to Sunday roast, cooked breakfasts, Cornish pasties. Turkey at Christmas, lamb at Easter / Passover…
• In wealthier countries we see ourselves as consumers - we want choice and don’t like being dictated to. We like eating meat.
• We don’t like the UPF that passes for veggie / vegan food today, nor the cost of it.
• Instinctively we trust lamb that’s produced locally more than a plant based food that has been shipped from the other side of the world.
• we worry a meat free diet is nutritionally inferior. Not necessarily the case, but that’s a common perception.
• We don’t want to think about the process that brings meat to our plate.
• Giving up meat entirely involves learning to prepare meals in a different way.

I eat a lot less meat and a lot more fruit and veg than I used to. I feel better for it, it works for me. There’s a lot to be said for buying less but better. There are some amazing recipes that are naturally veggie. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

I agree, I can’t listen to ‘my food bill is so expensive’ when the person complaining is eating chicken breast or pork chops every single day.

No Fernbreeze I don't think I'm superior and that exactly why I don't eat meat. I don't see myself as a superior being to that of animals that also call earth their home.

I suppose because we don’t live in that world anymore. We don’t hunt and prepare our own meat and theoretically there are lots of alternatives nutrition and health wise so it feels odd. Like I said, I’m not veggie for animal reasons, but I remember picking meat off a chicken carcass after Sunday roast and suddenly seeing what I was doing really objectively. It does feel odd to me and I think the defensiveness from some people hints at a similar feeling!

OR we realise we evolved over millions of years to be apex predators in a complex food chain and our eating some meat is essential to the ecosystem that we inhabit.

Humans are not separate from the environment. We are not above the food chain. We are in it. We are not superior or inferior, we have a role that is just as vital as that if the humble bee.

To detach ourselves and think we know better is hubris of the worst sort and the kind of thinking that got the world into the polluted mess it currently is.

Oh do join in with reality!! There would be very few farm animals kept for altruistic reasons! For one, they cost too much, and secondly, farmers have a living to earn!!

I don't think I'm defensive about it.

I know what happens.

I've pulled a chickens neck on more than one occasion.

I know I'm unable to get enough protein without meat. I've food intolerances and aversions.

@HadalyEve well said!

People on this thread who think they can separate themselves from the natural word purely because they seem themselves at intellectually superior is quite concerning to say the least.

Sorry think I quoted the wrong poster!

I’ve seen people including children and babies suffering extreme malnutrition, I know what reality is, thanks.

Ok, I was going to say I made no claims about farmers keeping livestock!

Me too.

We decided for financial and health reasons to try and cut down on meat and up intake of non meat protein sources.

We still do this but I've become intolerant of beans/lentils /nuts /legumes /cows milk protein like you so need meat for protein.

Plus we just bloody well love meat!!
And neither do we fly anywhere, don't even have a passport.

So you do know that a vegetarian or vegan diet is associated with higher risk of malnutrition? Stroke?

Most people don't give it up because they like it too much. I've always enjoyed meat (bacon and chicken mostly), but I decided to become a vegetarian 10 years ago because I don't want animals murdered so I can enjoy meat.

What gets me is the number of people that get offended when you tell them you're a vegetarian/vegan. I mean it's not something I talk about really unless I'm actually going to be eating. I don't understand why some meat eaters get so bent out of shape because other people choose not to eat meat. It baffles me.

It's funny whenever I engage in discussion about this you always get some, not all very defensive meat eaters who rather than engage in a decent manner about the subject, will sneer and throw out words of superior when in actual fact that is actually how they are coming across. It's just deflecting from the topic.

I'm waiting for fake meat to be as good, as nutritious and as affordable as the real thing.

Probably not gonna happen in my lifetime, but it will eventually. Meanwhile, I like seeing animals on farms and I like eating them. It'll be sad when grazed livestock has disappeared.

Supermarkets don’t sell much fake meat now as people don’t eat it much

I do enjoy eating dead animals.
The live ones, are hard to keep on the griddle.

I don't care if anyone else is vegetarian or vegan. I'll always cater for them if they come to my house for something to eat and not make a fuss.