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.

Unless you’re growing your own food or buying from the Co-op, animals are being shot to keep them off the crops.

DH comes home after 2-3 hours in a field and has easily shot 20 rabbits and a few dozen pigeons. On a night-time shoot, he’ll be adding deer and foxes to the count as well.

To the best of my knowledge, the Co-op is the only big UK brand that does not use lethal pest control methods. All your local farm shops will be shooting the shit out anything that comes within a metre of their crops.

Why does he shoot foxes to keep them from his crops?

This, I only eat a small amount of meat for this reason and to keep a balanced diet. I'd prefer to go without as I struggle with the morality of eating animals.
We as a society also accept perverts in our midst whilst claiming to love kids.
We as a western society dress in cheap clothes made by kids in far flung countries.
We claim to care about the environment but import huge amounts of food.
There is much wrong with the world.

They dig. The buggers dig up my windowboxes.

In OPs view no meat eaters are allowed to disagree with this, so crack on mate, don't want to be a hypocrit an all that 👍

That's what you mean, isn't it op?

Ha ha busted!

They did up the vegetables and soil in search of small rodents to eat.

So they just want made up shit rather than people's actual reasons?

I guess it was a vegan chicken that they cooked in the air fryer 🤷‍♀️

Which horrible comments?

Oh come on, it’s 100% obvious to me (non vegan) that op was wanting to pontificate with fellow vegans. Unfortunately thread appeared in active convos, so here we all are 😁

Let me guess, you're vegan? 😏

Yes, it's like PP says about people supporting human rights but also knowing they don't live perfectly and do buy things made in sweat shops, or people who do their bit for the environment, with recycling or cycling when they can, but still fly on holiday.

Personally I don't consider myself an animal lover, but wouldn't support deliberate cruelty. The industry has persuaded me animals are kept in reasonable conditions before their deaths.

This

The amount of animals killed when plants are planted and harvested is colossal.

Ignoring for the moment the insects intentionally killed and the pesticides used, and the intentional shooting of pigeons etc, if you consider a combine harvester harvesting grains for instance, that will kill rodents and rabbits. It will literally chop them up as it cuts the crop down.

Baby deer hide in long grass, they won't move when the combine goes through, they'll just crouch down and hide, and be killed, horribly.

All harvests of fruits and veg will contain 'foreign bodies' that have to be washed off or removed in some way. A significant portion of those foreign bodies will be animals and insects, and the process of removing them from the crop will kill them.

Even if you grow your own veg and live entirely off that, you'll never avoid killing animals - stick a spade in the ground and you're killing worms and beetles.

I love animals. I’m also very practical and know that we have no choice. Our bodies evolved to eat meat. Animal products are unavoidably in everything. People who think they’re vegetarian are fooling themselves - even fertiliser to grow vegetables has animal products in it, and the farmers use pesticides which kill animals, and poison to stop mice and bugs stealing the food after it’s harvested. It’s impossible for people to live without harming animals.

I love my dog.

I will still eat chicken. Maybe that’s not perfect but it’s the best I can do.

Some people anthropomorphize animals too much. I once watched a smallholder harvest pigs. He had two pigs that were littermates. They had spent their entire lives together, slept curled up together, etc. He put down food for the pigs so they would put their heads down and quickly dispatched the first pig. The second pig kept eating and never even looked up.

Food animals are not people. They don't have the emotions we do and they have no knowledge of death. To anthropomorphize them is a disservice to them and us. And bacon is delicious.

I love lots of animals species, including humans. Some are carnivorous, some are herbivores, some are omnivores...some are head lice or skin mites. One is not superior to another, and we are all just leaves of grass really. Humans have big egos though.

And this is why I’m vegan. Because I love animals. I cannot be part of an industry that so openly abuses them I just can’t. I end up in floods of tears is I think about farm animals too much. When I walk past fields of sheep and cows I apologise to them for the world they’ve been brought into. My dream is to one day save enough money to buy a house with some land to rescue farm animals.

I also couldn’t kill an animal so I just can’t comprehend paying for someone else to do it for me. I personally think if you aren’t prepared to kill the animal yourself then you shouldn’t be eating it. I’d have far more respect for people if they did this.

In general people love certain animals like their pets but in general they don’t love all animals. I’d consider myself an animal lover but many of my friends who claim they love animals cannot truly love them if they’re so complicit in the meat, dairy, egg industry.

I don’t see anything wrong with this, if people want to just pretend it doesn’t happen etc. but just don’t claim you are an animal lover.

In response to people’s argument that the animals wouldn’t exist without us farming and eating them… you’re completely missing the point. I’d rather the animals didn’t exist and weren’t born in the first place. What’s the point of being born to be killed so young in such a brutal conveyor belt style way.

My mother did a degree on agriculture, my father a vet… I’ve heard first hand their stories of animals being killed. They’ve both worked in abattoirs and from a young age I’ve always felt it was fundamentally wrong to eat animals. I went veggie age 9 and vegan 7 years ago.

This.
Also, most people do have basic school level education and know that humans are omnivores.
Our digestive tract and ph are developed to eat meat. We need essential aminoacids from it.
I am not going to get supplements to stay healthy so some daft chicken, that would not be born without a chicken farm, can have a Disney life OP imagined.
And hundreds of animal species would be happy to eat me. It's just life.

I think there's a big difference between eating a sheep or cow and eating a dog, which we domesticated to live alongside us about 50,000 years ago.
I also think there's a difference between shooting an animal, which has been raised for food, through the head with 20,000 volts of electricity to kill it and, say, slowly beating it to death with my fists.
So it's complicated.

Because the local economy here is heavily reliant on agriculture especially rearing of livestock. And I want to support their livelihood.

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

I am a meat eater and an animal lover, I believe both can be true. I don’t feel I am hypocritical or have to live with cognitive dissonance, I just have a different view to you.
I have no problem with vegans unless they speak, as you have in your OP about people with other views.
The world would be a better place if everyone could live and let live.

You hit the nail on the head in the first response! I love all our pet animals but I also enjoy eating meat.