To believe that eating meat should be illegal?

[BySpoonyBlueScroller]

The environmental damage and animal cruelty outweighs the cultural or personal benefits. AIBU to think it’s time to outlaw meat production?

I agree with you but this farmer is not the one to have a go after first. Have a look at some of the Halal meat traders using units in city centres first.

I am NOT the evangelical type, so I just don't eat meat - I don't preach at people.

But we're so conditioned to ignore the cruelties of meat production. We all love to see the lambs with their mums at Easter - but has anyone seen and heard those same ewes crying pitifully all day long for their lambs when they're all taken to slaughter (except some ewe lambs for breeding) after only a couple of months of life? It's extremely harrowing!

This is the kind of thing the meat industry works very hard to keep from most urban dwellers and to stop us thinking about it or joining the dots.

It was put superbly by Homer Simpson when Lisa wanted to stop eating meat:

'But Lisa, it's lamb, not A lamb!'

Have done and it doesn't look like it's a positive choice for many to stop using guide dogs.

Either way, you're suggesting limiting the choices of some of the most underprivileged members of society in trying to reduce the impact of their disability on their lives.

It reminds me of the male leaders of Scientology who declare that women giving birth should learn to do so in silence, because they prefer it.

Doesn't upset you enough not to participate in the barbarity though, does it! Enough with the faux sadness. We see through it.

Not sure I agree with the environmental argument. Bit like electric cars that don’t pollute locally and are ‘greener’ but when you consider the whole supply chain of mining for batteries, faster wear of tyres, and the small fact the national grid still have to produce electricity….

Aside from the air miles of imported food to the UK for a balanced veggie diet through our winters, there are many chemicals used in agriculture to maintain plant health and crop yield. Given recent extreme weather globally as well the UK; rain, flooding, drought etc., we are highly exposed to failed crops. More land would need to be given up. It’s very likely we’d have to move to more GM crops too, which someone will also start kicking off about.

If those halal contribute to this thread, I'll argue with them too. I can 'go after' both. Wrong is wrong. Both are wrong.

Who is we? The poor have always lived, mostly badly, on little meat. But also little vegetables either. And human have tended to starve to death quite a lot throughout history.

Let's all be clear here; a notion to make meat and dairy illegal is a plan to kill a huge number of humans.

Yes, that and smoking.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/eating-red-meat-daily-triples-heart-disease-related-chemical

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-07-21-red-and-processed-meat-linked-increased-risk-heart-disease-oxford-study-shows

Don't be so silly. I said it's a general trend that is actually happening. I didn't do it!

We're lucky to have a very good one down the road but things aren't easy for them and it's one of my biggest fears that we lose them. I was hoping that the grants for small abattoirs would help but the way these grants are being managed I can't hold out too much hope.

Lab grown meat is HUGELY expensive due to the processes involved. Unless that becomes viable from a cost perspective, it’s currently in the realms of ‘interesting science’ and that is all.

It'll be scaled up in decades

Huh? How did you work that out? We need to make whole foods more affordable. Win win.

You might be interested in this little nugget:

"The UK government spends at least £1.5 billion a year subsidising livestock farming, ten times the UK’s annual budget for planting trees. Meanwhile, despite a global explosion in demand for planet-friendly alternative proteins, the UK has only committed £90m in research and development to this sector. "

From https://animalrebellion.org/campaigns/ditch-the-subsidies-defra/

I'd ban subsidies to the death industry, and plough that money into the whole foods plant based industries instead.

See I don't believe that it is 'morals' that separate us. We ARE animals, with no more inherent or objective virtue than any pig or chimp.

The only thing that makes us different is our huge brains, which have enabled us to effectively take over the planet (and ironically also to wreck it), whilst still having brainspace left over to invent/ornament a whole bunch of inessential made-up stuff stuff like games, literature, music, art, religion and morality.

Morality, because it is made up, is relative. The only 'morals' that hold fast across pretty much all human cultures are ones that have a pretty strong basis in evolutionary necessity and other mammals by and large share them.

Otherwise our 'moralities' vary enormously and evolve/attenuate over time based on exigent circumstances. Once upon a time homosexuality was 'immoral' (and still is in a number of cultures). Incest is 'immoral' to varying degrees in differing cultures (so in the UK we'd be pretty repulsed by marriage between first cousins nowadays, whereas it is quite normal in other cultures. Multiple wives is considered immoral in our culture but perfectly acceptable in others. Suicide and even murder/suicide has at various times in various cultures (and even within the same culture) been considered evil, honourable, required or morally neutral depending on its social effect.

So to my mind the idea there is some sort of 'true' morality that all/most human beings inherently share that animals do not is not demonstrable or a good argument for legislation. I would love it if things were different, and that 'my' morality was entirely 'correct' and objective, but it absolutely isn't. Any more than yours is, or a lioness's is, or a kamikaze pilot's is.

A very good one? How so? So you're admitting that there are other not very good ones? Hm.

It's not just meat though, is it?

They'd be no wool, no leather (and no, the plastic replacements aren't anything like the same), no lanolin (goodbye a lot of cosmetic and skin care products), no eggs, no dairy (and you will never convince me that plant milks are better for the environment - especially ones like almond! Not to mention soy is a horrible product).

They're also be no manure (or blood and bone fertilizer) which would mean an increase in alternatives - the production of which isn't great, either.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing stuff that we use every day and are animals by products.

I don't eat much meat as it is, but being coeliac I need some because I struggle to find alternatives. I can't eat soy because it makes me unwell, can't eat too much oat based stuff because it gives me stomach ache and I refuse to drink almond milk because of mono cropping.

Decades is right - assuming those companies can get funding to scale. Which they may not because of the significant consumer purchasing/attitude shift also required.

I'm sure the people of the 1300s couldn't imagine a different world, either.

OK, apologies for misconstruing you - but the links that came up were virtually all based on serious concerns with being able to provide enough guide dogs for folk who need them, not on a widespread desire to stop using them.

So much nonsense.

you do know that animals are barbaric to one another don’t you? I think you are under the illusion that animals are like they are on Disney,

My hens are pretty evil to each other, same for the goats. And as for the pigs….🤪
What would you do with a hen that attacks another to the point of bleeding? Or a goat that draws blood on a newcomer?

Animals have very harsh hierarchies in their groups. They don’t do disability allowances or play “be kind” with any weaknesses

I’m not even saying this to say it justifies us eating them, more that I see you live in a naive innocent world where everything should be nice to each other, And it’s ridiculous, It’s just not true. My animals are slaughtered in as humane conditions as possible, better than how most humans die,

How? Do you live within earshot of farm animals? I do.

To be frank if we're all still in a position to be worrying our heads about the ethics of eating meat in 20-30 years time, I'll be bloody delighted. The way things are going that will be the LEAST of our worries.

Well that's alright then 🙄

The thing is, we DO know right from wrong. And much of it is taught, too. We have been taught they animal abuse is wrong - it is illegal to hurt cats and dogs. But we are also taught that this only applies to certain animals. WHY? Do cows not experience pain the same way cats and dogs do?

Why don't people eat cats and dogs in the UK? Most here will be aghast at the idea, but not understand why.

If I kick a dog, people will try to stop me, and I'll even likely be charged. If I eat a burger from a cow, someone will ask if I want ketchup or mayo. We DO know what's right, if we think about it. But we are conditioned NOT to think, not to challenge. Those of us who DO challenge are called 'preachy vegans', in a tone telling us to shut up. But people do know, they are just uncomfortable with having it pointed out.