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.

How can you say not natural?

Where did I say you couldn’t eat meat?

Thank you. I will check it out.

The strongest opinions on here seem to be from the meat eaters who as ever are keen to bash the veggies. It's very interesting.

I've seen some pretty strong opinions on here from posters regarding the apparently horrific abuse of farm animals - because they "saw a video"!!!

I live in a rural area of a country where agriculture is very important to the economy. Despite never having lived on a farm I believe I know far more about rural life than many of the people on this thread, honestly some of you need to get out more and actually learn a little about food production. I don't eat a lot of red meat, our family weren't big meat eaters, and I do eat a lot of chicken and fish, but it is noticeable that on the days I don't eat any meat I am more hungry than on the days I do. Meat is good for humans, vegetables are good for humans - in fact a balanced diet is good for humans.

As for all these animals being "abused" by apparently all farmers- what sort of a life do you think animals have in the wild?

It's not easy for everyone to be vegetarian.

You can’t talk unless you’re witnessing the processing of animals in a slaughterhouse, there’s enough (too much) evidence out there that animals in the meat industry are routinely abused, it’s bizarre you can claim you know they’re not when you are hidden away from the realities of factory farming and slaughter houses. They don’t all live in nice little airey barns, that’s naive beyond reason, 85% of animals are intensely factory farm reared for meat. It’s neither ethical or natural.

Also video footage is factual, there is nothing ‘apparent’ about the abuses that took place.

@RoyalGala I know exactly how beef cows, dairy cows, lambs and chickens grown for food not eggs live. And die.

I still eat meat.

I wonder what those who say meat eaters abuse animals for selfish and greed make of this.

After all plant neurobiology is still a very misunderstood and poorly researched science.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/15/scientist-stefano-mancuso-you-can-anaesthetise-all-plants-this-is-extremely-fascinating-tree-stories

We have never farmed so many animals so intensively: over 70 billion of them a year are slaughtered for meat. Global food production now relies on vast flocks and herds of genetically identical poultry, cattle and pigs being reared in high-intensity, overcrowded, confined, entirely unnatural conditions. The growing danger is that industrial farms are becoming disease factories, incubating and enhancing pathogens like flu, and enabling hyper-virulent pathogens to spread within flocks or cross to humans.**

I guess it’s all ok to continue the intensively reared meat in order to satisfy human beings taste buds, until everyone gets struck down with diseases created by mankind. Meat is not sustainable, it’s damaging the environment, it impacts health and it causes unnecessary suffering to animals but humans being selfish will always find a way to justify and defend their ‘choices’.

@RoyalGala I guess it’s all ok to continue the intensively reared meat in order to satisfy human beings taste buds, until everyone gets struck down with diseases created by mankind.

It's already happened, remember BSE ??

Maybe something we could all agree on is that food waste is very wrong. That about 40% of edible food gets thrown out, wasted, binned is shocking. That to me is a huge moral crime. Eating animals, not so much.

Well good for you 👏🏻

Absolutely I can agree with this. I have hardly any food waste - I had to throw out half a banana today because it had gone black from the bottom but the rest have been frozen.

Do you only eat food grown in this country ?

Because i fucking love a good steak and hate veg.

My 9 year old was a vegetarian (her choice) before she was diagnosed with coeliac disease. It is harder undoubtedly, but nowhere near as impossibly dramatic as you make out.

My 9 year old was a vegetarian (her choice) before she was diagnosed with coeliac disease. It is harder undoubtedly, but nowhere near as impossibly dramatic as you make out.

That is incredibly dismissive of someone's medical condition, bloody hell.

A good friend has Crohns, really quite unwell with it, and he can't tolerate soy or pulses and is already underweight but I suppose he can just do without protein then?

we know it's better for our health

No we don't. This is not factually correct.

Bearing in mind that I exclusively shop and cook for my coeliac daughter and basically control every aspect of her diet, do you really think I don't understand the condition? Everything this poster has said is indicative of coeliac disease. She didn't even use the name but I undersood immediately due to the description. She just didn't want to use the term because she didn't want people who also have it to tell her she's being dramatic - which she is.

I am a vegetarian witb ulcerative colitis, so I also understand crohns, thanks very much.

@NewCracker in answer to your original question, it's cognitive dissonance. If people think they love animals but still eat them, they have had to do some mental gymnastics to make that okay with their conscience. If people think they care about the environment, they are telling themselves some fibs to continue to eat large quantities of meat and not try to cut down. Sadly, the thing about cognitive dissonance is that the more you challenge people, the more they push back and intensify their beliefs.

@Quinoawoman all you know is about your own family health conditions. You can't know about anyone else's.

I am a vegetarian witb ulcerative colitis, so I also understand crohns, thanks very much.

Okay I'll pass that on to my friend who has had multiple operations and now has secondary cancer. I mean he's only about 15kg underweight, I'm sure he can just scoff down some pulses he can't digest and be in crippling agony because someone on the internet has a daughter with a different disease.

Point to where I said he has to eat pulses? Or in fact anything at all about your friend? Oh yeah, I didn't, because you are constructing a straw man argument.

@Quinoawoman so he just doesn't get to eat any protein then? How is that meant to work?

Since you want to play judgeypants, I think letting your child eat a vegetarian diet with her condition is actually really poor judgement.