Non-vegan who believe themselves to be animal lovers

[Milake]

How do they ignore the obvious hypocrisy?
How do they live with the cognitive dissonance?

I am almost jealous of their ability to live in such a state that allows them to detach themselves from the reality of the consequences of their choices.

So should they stop eating altogether? It will never be possible to eat completely ethically/cruelty free but every person who cuts down on meat is doing their little bit.
I'm not vegan by the way, I'm pescatarian. I don't ever preach and still occasionally cook meat for family, but I feel better knowing that I've helped a little by not eating meat myself.

And every person who chooses higher welfare meat is doing their bit too.

@Lalalalalabambaa I don't think anyone should stop eating ... 🤔
I just wanted to point out this little practice with a huge impact on the animals involved.

I am an advocate for local and seasonal food and definitely not UPF. So much better for the environment and my health overall. Unfortunately or luckily that's meat as well as fruit, vegetables and grains.

I think being vegan is a red herring unless it's focused on local non UPF foods. But let's face it, vegans would be malnourished in the UK following this diet.

But they don't necessarily have / aren't uncomfortable with the cognitive dissonance** are they? That's your first mistake there, to assume.

I don't think it's cognitive dissonance in my case. I completely understand the issue. I am hypocritical, yes.

I'm just gonna leave this here for the meat eaters, for those who feel comfortable with their choice because it's organic/locally grown/free range etc etc. At the end of the day, none of these animals want to die.
Cow video

Would you rather omnivores didn't care how the animals were treated in their lifetime then? Also, a cow feeds a lot of people yet I've seen vegetarians on mn who say they feed their children supermarket chicken that doesn't go far at all for the cost of a life.

The cow doesn’t want to die, neither did the chicken, they had thoughts, feelings, personalities, likes and dislikes and we stab or shoot or electrocute them and chop up their bodies. If someone cares about animals why would they keep paying for that to happen?

To question 1- easily. To question 2- happily. I enjoy meat, and I try to ensure it's as ethically sourced as I can, knowing it's a byproduct and been bred for that purpose.

To quote George Bernard Shaw -

'animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends'

They are vastly different though in the number of lives taken to feed a person. Why feed their children chicken over red meat as a vegetarian?

Well I would argue that neither is morally right. Both involve deliberately ending the life of someone* with thoughts, feelings, a personality, who is young and healthy and doesn’t want to die.

*Although some people object that animals are not “someone”, because they are sentient I do not accept they can be “something”.

Surely if we were all vegan then cows would be superfluous and we’d have to kill then all anyway?

I have a friend who works in fruit/vegetable food production and the amount we product in this country is tiny. So what we are doing is destroying habitats in other countries to feed us, if we stopped having meat/dairy that would have to increase. Lots of our land is suitable for animals but not crops.

Well it’s not exactly going to happen overnight . It’s like the argument that you shouldn’t stop slavery as it would stop jobs for lots of people and change society too much.

And cows would gradually reduce over time.

So why do some choose to kill many small animals rather than one big one? If killing is wrong then surely more killing is more wrong. That's before comparing the living conditions of a typical beef cow to a chicken bred for meat. There is much more suffering involved in chicken. Yet I increasingly hear of people cutting down red meat but continuing to eat chicken or choosing to feed their children chicken over red meat as a vegetarian.

I don’t know why they keep choosing to kill animals full stop. I’d wager cognitive dissonance, maybe some flawed notion that a bird is less intelligent than a mammal and therefore less worthy of life?

Actually most crops are fed to animals. An area the size of Yorkshire is needed to produce the imported feed we give pigs in the UK, and that. Most plants imported are from Spain and Europe and are not destroying habitats any more than we destroy habitats here to produce food. And actually a lot of the land we use for animals would be suitable for crops (obviously not a hill farm or something but that could be rewilded).

As for killing all the cows that’s not how supply and demand work. As there is less demand, gradually less animals will be bred and killed.

But it results in so many more deaths as well. A cow feeds many families for one life.

As I say, I don’t agree with killing any animals so I cannot answer that question. It is still morally wrong in my opinion to kill one animal.

So people eating beef over chicken is a simple swap that would save many lives. Do you not agree with reducing harm or is is really all or why bother at all?

For me I wouldn’t say it’s ok to kill a Great Dane but not ok to kill four Chihuahas. Both, in my view, are wrong (assuming healthy young animals). So equally I’m not going to agree that it’s acceptable to kill sentient beings with thoughts, feelings and personalities, full stop.

Of course if people are choosing to reduce the number of animals they pay to have killed and served to them on a plate, that’s better than not reducing, but from a moral standpoint I still personally see it as wrong. I don’t say this to anyone “in real life” unless they actively wish to engage in a debate like the one taking place here, but that is my view on the matter and I think many others would view it that way as well if they had to be the ones doing the killing.

I'd have thought it was more like one vs 200 lives (happy to be corrected if that's way off). I think that's significant enough that simply choosing beef over chicken means you are making a huge difference.

It's better to murder a single person a year than go on mass killing sprees. I don't think that's an argument for murdering once a year when you have the option not to at all.

Exactly.

Anybody can pick a quote from George Bernard Shaw to hang up as an indicator of their belief system.

“The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man”.

“The overthrow of the aristocrat has created the necessity for the Superman”.

"If you can’t justify your existence, if you’re not pulling your weight … then clearly, we cannot use the organisations of society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to you"