Is there something wrong with vegetarianism?

1. There is nothing wrong with vegetarianism, but it is a personal choice.
2. Yes, seeing what happens to our animals in large factory settings is always awful, but…
3. that is why you should do your best to eat cruelty free meat. Humanely raised, and as humanely, cleanly, and swiftly as possible killed.

You shouldn’t have to stop eating meat to treat the animals well up until their death. At the point of their death, well, you’ve cared for them to that point. You kill them swiftly and painlessly if possible. Then eat them.

It is not wrong to eat meat. It is wrong to be cruel to animals. There is a difference between a beast raised well, fed well, and killed well and a beast in a factory house, in horrifying circumstances.

Unfortunately, financially, this is not an option for everyone. There are many people who look to their purse when in the store, not necessarily a set of morals. It takes a very motivated person to always buy cruelty free. The line between here and there is so disconnected, many people don’t know what happens in those places, it’s not always easy to think of how the beasts are treated.

Also, most of the terms related to being cruelty free are not actually regulated, so just any old person can stick that on their meat. It doesn’t mean much. Supporting the idea is important, but someone who is watching their pennies might choose to wait on supporting cruelty-free until they can know that their meat is actually raised well.

I agree with @EmpressPixie.

Peter Singer, the guy who wrote Animal Liberation and basically the founder of the modern vegan/vegetarian movement, writes from a moral philosophy of utilitarianism. The root of this philosophy is not that killing is wrong, it’s that suffering is wrong.

The reason eating meat is wrong, according to Singer, is because the animals are forced to suffer not just right before they die but for most of their lives. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the author actually interviews Singer and asks him what he’d think about eating meat from local, sustainable farmers that treat their animals well before humanely slaughtering them. Singer said he wouldn’t have a problem with it as long as they were ensured humane deaths and it was completely transparent.

That said, I don’t agree with the “financial” argument since it’s generally cheaper to be a vegetarian anyway. At issue is that people are addicted to eating meat and have to parse that with the obvious fact that most of the meat on the marketplace comes from animals that suffer tremendously. If you can’t afford cruelty free meat then I don’t think it’s morally acceptable to just buy cheaper meat because you like meat. I do it, but I’ll admit it’s wrong and I should try harder to either only buy cruelty free or not eat meat at all.

This poses the next logical question: should animals have the same rights as humans?

no. veggies are cool :)

@abh94: No.

@abh94, no, and I don’t think that’s the next logical question.

In America we think children have the “right” to get educated, because the needs of human children are such that it’s in their interest to learn how to read, do math, etc. The needs of a pig or a chicken have absolutely nothing to do with this—so why would anyone ask if pigs should have the right to be educated?

Should animals have the right not to be tortured, like humans do? That is an area where both organisms have the same needs (their bodies want to avoid constant pain). So I would support laws banning cruelty to animals.

I work at a sustainable farm that sells meat (and fish, and cheese, and produce, and…)

All of our meat is raised locally in a cruelty free environment. The quality is amazing, but it is significantly more expensive than you average supermarket.

Beef will run you $15 to $18/lb. versus $5 to $6/lb.

@cprevite: but with good reason! It’s waaaaay more expensive to raise animals nicely. Since you aren’t cramming them all into a tiny space until some of them trample each other, you can’t raise as many to bring down the cost. You probably also feed them things they would normally eat and stuff.

I know you already know this as you work there and all—just saying it in case it is not obvious.

@EmpressPixie: I was just adding evidence to the argument above that many people who choose to eat meat simply can’t afford to eat cruelty free meat.

They don’t want to stop eating meat, so they buy the cheap stuff which supports the factory system and on it goes.

My opinion is that you have an easier time popularizing cruelty free meat if you focus on the quality and the taste – not the fact that it’s cruelty free.

When I advertise our meat (I’m their creative director), I lead with the fact that it’s the most amazing meat you’ve ever eaten in your life. That’s what sells it. Cruelty free is a bonus.

When it’s more than double the price, the plight of the beast often takes a back seat to the consumer’s budget – until they taste it.

My solution, since I began working there, is to eat less meat. I eat primarily fish and will get our meat when I can afford it.

I absolutely abhor factory farming so I buy free range chickens and eggs, but I know that free range doesn’t mean much here. When I live in a more urban area where true free range is available I will buy it regardless of the price, as cprevite said, just eat less. I eat meat free about 3 or 4 nights a week because I don’t think I need it every day, but I don’t want to go completely vegetarian. Whenever I go to Darwin which is a major port, I inevitably pass road trains full of bawling terrified cattle, goats or sheep, jammed into the trailers and on their way to be jammed onto ships bound for muslim countries that will only buy live meat. That is so terrible, it makes me so sad that these animals spend the last weeks of their lives in sheer terror.

It is of course your personal choice whether you want to be vefetarian or not, but the onf big argument against it is that it is against our nature: Humans and apes are omnivorous, they eat both plants snd other animals, and their bodies are specially made to be constructed with vegetal material, but also animal material (like special proteins, etc.) which can’t be found in any plant…
So at least you’ll have to pay a great deal of attention to what you’re eating because you have to get a balanced diet, but you will never be as balanced as a non-vegetarian!

Still, if it is your choice, vegetarian is the best way to go: It’s your decision!

It depends. I have been a vegetarian for over a decade and I find that some people are reactionary to the idea; that they expect some criticism of their meat eating or some enforcement of my choices on them. I would never do that. But some people instantly set up a defense when finding that I am “one of those folks.”

@James17555 “Humans and apes are omnivorous…”

Actually, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos are almost entirely vegetarian, with the occasional insect or bird’s egg. Chimps eat mainly fruit, lots of bugs, with meat comprising about 5% of their diet. If we’re looking for dietary clues from our nearest relatives, we’d eat little to no meat.

From a purely ecological point of view (cruelty aside), pastured beef can really help build up a crappy piece of land into something rich and fertile. That’s what made the Great Plains so amazing: hundreds and hundreds of years of grazers on hundreds and hundreds of acres of grass.

It’s the farmers who tore out that thick grassy ecosystem to plow up the land for corn and soybeans that started things like the Dust Bowl. Topsoil that was once built up several feet thick is now only inches thick, and more is blowing away with every crop.

For this reason alone, grass-fed beef can be more ecologically sustainable than the vegetarian holy grails of corn and soy. (This is not true when factory-farmed corn and soy is fed to factory-farmed livestock.)

If you want to know more, I recommend almost any book by Joel Salatin, especially this one.

Plus, grass-fed beef also wins if you’re against cruelty, because I have to believe that a lifetime of eating tender grass and wandering in the sunshine would make a cow happier than living in a tiny stall with no room to turn around and having to eat chicken poop, any day.

A lot of people don’t understand why I am a vegetarian. Yes, it is partially for moral reasons. I don’t agree with how the animals are raised and killed. It is also for, I guess you could say, evolutionary reasons. If I had to go out and kill the animals myself and pick off the old, the sick, the weak and the slow, that would be something different. There is no benefit for the species of the animals that are raised in factory farms or any farm, really. Now, I could hunt and fish myself and I have eaten meat that was not raised on a farm. However, at this point, I remain a vegetarian as much out of habit as morality. I could acclimatize myself to meat once more but I have no wish to. I don’t try and convert people and I don’t care if anyone eats meat around me.

@James17555: Vegetarians are omnivorous. I eat cheese and milk and yogurt and many other animal products. Vegans are true herbivores because they avoid eating all animal products, not just meat.

I’ve just begun to study this subject on my Philosophy course – Animal Rights and of course Vegetarianism comes into that clearly. Upon open my course book I felt a severe amount of intrepidation: I might actually change the way I think about animals and become (dun dun…DUUUUN)... vegetarian???? Ahhhhh running for the hills

But! IN all seriousness, I do like my meat a lot…It’s all I’ve ever known…and having been brought up in a christian “we have dominion and jurisdiction over the animals and should therefore eat them” household… I’ve just accepted this stance.

I am however in the clutch of thought that really (and I’ve not totally made up mind mind, but no doubt will in the next few weeks) meat is not the best way to go: My thoughts…

1) I am a single parent – not much money – so that’s an issue for me..
2) I’m not convinced there are any good arguments for buying cheap meat…given it’s not humane
3) I could buy more expensive meat once in a while…which i already do with chicken but not other sources…
4) I’m not sure we should eat the little blighters anyway…isn’t it still disregarding any respect for other human life regardless of how they have lived?
5) Do we really have the right to kill them..is this really what God meant when he said you have dominion over animals – I don’t think so (I’m not quoting directly from the bible because I’ve not picked one up for ages so if anyone wants to correct me…please feel free….)
6) The health issue – I Have IBS…wouldn’t a vegetarian diet be much better for my intestines? which also brings up the question…are our bodies really meant to eat meat….
7) were our teeth solely designed to eat meat – the grinders? or could it have been for something else?

hmmmmm

“Dominion over the animals” does not necessarily corrolate to ”...so we ought to eat them.”

Parents have jurisdiction over their children, but that is usually meant in the “take care of them, don’t let too much harm come to them, and raise them up right” sort of way. I’ve heard it opined that perhaps that’s also the way to take the biblical “dominion” over animals – to make sure we take no more than we need to live, to not cause undue harm, and to be ethical about their care.

@laureth i totally agree…