Reddit reviews Eating Animals
We found 57 Reddit comments about Eating Animals. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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We found 57 Reddit comments about Eating Animals. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I upvoted you, but I want to add that I also used to make jokes to disassociate from the reality of what I was contributing to by eating meat, so one day several years ago I just stopped. It was a lot easier than I anticipated and the physical and emotional rewards of that decision have been pretty profound so I just wanted to encourage everyone who was disturbed by this picture (in the least preachy way I possibly can) to read the book "Eating Animals" and give this issue just a little more thought.
That's an awesome decision to look into going vegan! It's so much easier than you'd think once you start. This veganuary website is loaded with tips and info to get folks started. Plus the FAQ on the side bar might answer some basic questions.
If you're up for more motivation Earthlings is a very powerful movie which will likely cement your resolve to step out of an unnecessary system. Also Forks over Knives and Vegucated are on netflix which are much less graphic and provide lots of info.
I also like to recommend books to help people learn more about the ethics of animal consumption. Eating Animals is a great read from an investigative angle from a renowned novelist and Eat Like You Care is a short and very powerful case for the ethical necessity of not consuming animals.
Regarding your health, so long as you eat a varied diet and occasionally add a B12 supplement you health will not suffer and very possibly improve!
You're making an awesome decision and you will be amazed at how easy it gets after just a few weeks!
For those interested:
Peter Singer is amazing. I remember having a 2-week breakdown and existential crisis when I read Animal Liberation. I just didn't know how to handle and accept the mind-blowingly immense suffering happening every second; I couldn't figure out how to go about my life with that fact existing. How could I simply turn my back on that fact, and not fight it every second? How could I possibly forget those animals and go about my life as if it weren't true?
Ultimately I had to make the conscious choice to forget. I could only do what I could do - become vegan, evangelize, be an advocate, protest, boycott, take part in everyday activism. But beyond that, what can I do for the billions of animals suffering unimaginable horrors every second?
There are facts and images seared into my brain that I cannot and never will forget - pigs snouts being sliced off and salt rubbed in the wound, cats being boiled alive in cages, raccoon dogs skinned alive and thrown in a pile of agony, animals caught in unbearable suffering in steel traps, others anally/vaginally/orally electrocuted to death for their furs, pigs boiled alive, chickens trampled and pecked to death in too-small to move cages, cows beaten and prodded to walk on broken legs, the heartbroken wail of a pig or cow whose baby is stolen away, male chicks ground up alive... I have SEEN these things. And it is unbearable.
I think these things should be shown to everybody. How anybody could bite into the flesh of a chicken after that is beyond me.
Edit: for those who may be interested in learning more:
I can't remember the other videos I've watched, and frankly, I can't deal with finding them right now. But they're on Youtube, or at least they were a few years ago.
For further reading check out Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer--very interesting read.
My main reason for going vegetarian was that I was appalled by the conditions today's farm animals endure in order to become food as I learned more and more about them. If you'd like a good primer on that topic, I'd wholeheartedly recommend Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals; it's incredibly well written and goes into good depth on factory farm conditions as well as other topics related to animal agriculture.
And if it feels like too much to switch entirely all at once, you're allowed to do it in steps. Some people can cut it out all at once, but some need more time, and that's totally okay; your goal should be to transition in a way that will help you stick with it for the long term.
I seriously recommend Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran. It's awesome for understanding why we're doing this and how it helps. It's a look at the factory farming industry and is great if you need to debate family members who think you should start eating meat again.
You can get used copies for like $2, too! That's what I did.
Haha, that's awesome and I think you're probably right.
I can definitely understand the hesitation. There are a lot of reasons that going vegan is hard that often get undervalued by people that have already done it and adapted to the lifestyle.
It's hard to imagine what you would eat if you gave up animal products. You probably have favorite foods you'd never be able to taste again. Food is such a big part of our culture, too, that it's scary to consider self-ostracizing yourself. You'd have to tell grandma you can't eat her special chicken soup from the old country anymore. You wouldn't be able to go in on the bulk buffalo wing buy at the next Super Bowl party.
Then there are concerns about nutrition. How do I get enough B12? Omega 3s? Protein? Is a vegan diet even healthy long-term? Will I be sacrificing athletic performance in the sport I care about?
And finally, it can sound exhausting to have to read every label, remember to take the cheese off every burrito order, plan every lunch outing at work so you'll have something to eat, and suffer all the other small inconveniences required of a vegan living in an omnivorous world.
Fortunately, dealing with all those concerns doesn't have to be done all at once. You can reduce your meat consumption and experiment with vegan food while still eating grandma's chicken soup whenever you visit her. Plus, it's better for your health, the environment, and the animals.
I recommend this book to people who are interested in investigating the issue: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Even ignoring your immediate and inappropriate insult, your post is full of emotional regurgitation of Big Agriculture propaganda and simple marketing campaigns.
You've been sold a commercial you reiterate without realizing it. America is not "Feeding The World™". Since your post was entirely lacking in facts and sources, I'll provide some:
So no, we are not the World's Breadbasket. Modern factory farming is not sustainable and constitutes at least 10% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the US. The only purpose it serves is to stuff the coffers of Big Agri.
Farm Subsidies are a big part of this. Initially meant as "a temporary solution to deal with an emergency", the majority of these (still active and growing) subsidies go to
farmerscorporations with net worths of $2 million. That's not to mention the > $130 million spent on lobbying last year from these same companies, companies which already own many local representatives from Agricultural meccas in the mid-west.Despite the hard data representing the U.S.'s contribution to combat global hunger, Monsanto claims that feeding the rest of the world is America's "moral imperative", and not only in the interest of their bank accounts and stock options.
No aspect of factory farming is intended to be humane. The sole purpose is to be as cheap as legally possible, and where possible, change the laws. There's much more data and news articles regarding the scummy practices in local politics, in spraying feces-and-toxin coctails into the air because you can't legally keep it in pools (in some areas). I highly recommend you do some research and come to understand the true motivations of this industry.
I could go on, but others have done it much better. If anyone's interested in a non-preachy and fact-oriented account of a fantastic author researching what would be best to feed his child, I highly recommend Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
Recommended reading!
My transition into veganism was probably initially generated by a general reevaluation of the habits I'd developed and inherited as a kid growing up. My parents never second-guessed the morality of buying and eating meat, and I didn't either. But eventually I moved out of my parents' home and then in a rather haphazard, lazy normal kind of way set about challenging my beliefs as I matured. One of those beliefs was that buying and eating meat is essentially a non-moral issue.
Reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals" was eye opening for me. I became a rather naive sort of vegan after that for a while. A more recent but very distracting spell of interest in ethics has given me the opportunity to refine my beliefs somewhat.
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer
Links to the books for the lazy ones:
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591024501/ref=mp_s_a_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495878180&sr=8-2-spell&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=slaughterhoue+book
It was hard, until all of a sudden it was easy. My method? I learned as much as I could about the issues with animal agriculture. At first I continued to eat eggs and dairy (I'd already been a vegetarian for several years), but I'd feel conflicted and guilty afterward. Still, convenience or cravings would keep me coming back. But I kept reading everything I could find on the subject and one day, suddenly, no amount of tastiness or convenience could justify my continuing to support those practices.
Two of the main sources that informed my decision were the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and Colleen Patrick Goudreau's Food for Thought podcast.
Eating Animals is an extremely well-written and comprehensive overview of the ethical, environmental, and health effects of animal agriculture. Food for Thought touches a lot on the "why" of veganism, but where Colleen's work has really been helpful to me is in the "how." She explains, among other things, how to make sure you're properly nourished, how to stave off cravings for old foods, how to respond to questions and confrontations, and how to really take joy and pleasure in your new lifestyle.
As far as specific advice, here are a few tidbits.
> I guess what I'm trying to ask is, where should we draw the line?
I'm not a vegan (I am a vegetarian though so I guess I'm just a really bad vegan), but I typically dislike this line of inquiry on any subject. We're constantly drawing lines in life. While it's fair to ask where those lines should be drawn, I feel like more often than not this is a rhetorical tool to justify taking no action at all, rather than to really get a sense of where that line is.
I could apply this reasoning to anything - sure, I should recycle, but where do I draw the line? Should I reuse lightly soiled toilet paper? The fact is we don't have the time or the passion to go all-out in everything we do in life, but enough people taking the minimum effective action still adds up to a huge difference. A quote that's always resonated with me is from Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of Eating Animals. Someone posed the "Where do you draw the line?" argument to him in an interview, and he gave a pretty detailed answer, but the snippet that stuck with me was "We have such resistance to being hypocrites, that we would prefer to be fully ignorant and fully forgetful, all the time."
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Every time I read something like this, I think of this quote:
> “This isn't animal experimentation, where you an imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Tell me something: Why is taste, the crudest of our sense, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other sense? If you stop and think about it, it's crazy. Why doesn't a horny person has as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it?"
Jonathan Safran Foer
What an amazing video! It's fascinating to see him think about it because he's purely speaking him mind - not worrying how what he says will be perceived by others, and how it fits in society and what not.
As someone else said, a lot of kids don't feel like they have an option, or are tricked into eating meat - and then when you're old enough to decide for yourself, it's a big thing like rejection religion - your whole family may not take it well.
It's great that she just listens to her kid and respects what he says, rather than forcing him to do things. Think kind of thinking should be nourished and sadly so often it's just shut down and the kid is told to go along with what "everyone" does.
I'd also like to plug Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Great book, and he's not preachy about it at all.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884/
Since you said you're a meat lover, I'd encourage you not to rely on substitute meat (fake chicken, sausage, etc.). Even though some of them are good, chances are they're not going to live up to actual meat (at least not at first), you may get disappointed and then ultimately get discouraged and go back to eating meat.
Instead, I'd recommend a gradual process where you stop eating one type of meat at a time, starting with your least favorite and ending with your favorite. This will simultaneously encourage you to keep going (because it will be easier to stick to) and it will also slowly train your mind to start focusing your diet around other types of food! You may also start viewing meat in a different way, and may find that it's actually a little weird-feeling when you eat it.
I'd also recommend learning more about factory farming and where food comes from. I know many people recommend Eating Animals, by the author of Everything is Illuminated (great book). He wrote it when he was about to have a son and wanted to explore the farming business and decide how to raise his son (vegetarian or not). He's a fantastic storyteller, and you'll see it has some amazing reviews :)
Whatever path you take, I congratulate you for having a higher consciousness about your food! Best of luck!
How do you feel having to do an IAMA up against this guy?
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3
Although I think it's unrealistic for most people to cut meat out of their diets, I do think it's important that the general population understands what factory farming entails. It's very difficult to find videos about farming that aren't sensationalized in some way, so take this with a grain of salt:
Inside Canada's Factory Farms
People who actually work on these type of farms, if there are inaccuracies in this video, I encourage you to reply and clarify.
A lot of people also praise the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
For more information on the animal products industry and advertising, check out Jonathan Foer's Eating Animals.
I haven't eaten chicken since reading it.
I've read a lot of interviews from butchers that seem like they have to really disconnect from the animal to do their job. In most cases they will hide the animals face before killing it because it's the only way to deal with the guilt of being a literal murderer.
(The book I'm mainly referring to is "Eating Animals" by Johnathan Saffron Foer, which is also coming out as a movie this summer)
Here is the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
What is your moral opposition to eating meat? I ask not in a defensive tone, because I too am a vegetarian (and I have been all my life). I think it should really just boil down to this: we pretty much know that animals are capable of feeling pain. This assumption is codified in laws regarding bestiality and animal cruelty. From a utilitarian perspective, disengaging from the meat-eating society allows you to engage in life in a way that more successfully limits the pain that living things experience on earth.
Another thing to consider is that the meat industry is one of the most environmentally unsound human endeavors ever conceived. The economic model for creating meat-based products is essentially "grow food, harvest that food, transport that food to the real food, have the real food eat the food we already grew, and then harvest the real food." Meat is needlessly expensive in a 21st century economy in which many people could be healthy with a vegetarian diet. This expense is far more than just in a monetary sense, it is a cost which resonates environmentally as well. Think about all the fuels used merely to transport grains or corn to the animals that will eat them. This kind of stuff adds up.
Someone else in these comments recommended that you should consult a nutritionist to see what kinds of things you would be lacking from giving up meat. I just want to let you know that everyone should consult nutritionists, and that people who don't eat meat really don't give up much. A common misconception about vegetarians is that they don't get enough protein. In reality, most meat-eaters are receiving an excess of protein (nothing harmful, but nothing necessary to their diet).
A final thought: I questioned my vegetarianism when I was about 15, as I had grown up with vegetarian parents and for a while it felt as if I was living under someone else's philosophy with no real thought of my own factoring in. I read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals during this time and it reassured me that vegetarianism wasn't just right, it was right for me. Do some reading before you reach a decision. You want this to be something that's truly yours.
Welcome! I am so happy you made this decision!!!
If you're interested, do some reading up like Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.
Browse blogs for recipes. My favorites are Oh She Glows and Post Punk Kitchen.
Enjoy the vegan life :D
I am downvoting you. Not because I'm a rabid vegetarian who hates meat eating and criticism, but because your statement is inaccurate. I do eat meat, but only that which is confirmed from sources where the animals are treated humanely (which in turns means less chemicals, hormones and antibiotics are in the meat, as less are needed to prevent the animal from dying). This is more expensive. It is a bit of an inconvenience (I can't buy it at the 24-hour Safeway). As a result, I eat less meat than I used to (a few times a week, but not every day).
however, it is so worth it. For my health but even more so, for the animals (and my conscience).
The standard meat chicken is bred to grow fast and have a large breast. The end result is a chicken that is so top heavy and fast-growing that its weak legs and bones cannot support its weight for very long. Instead, they spend hours sitting. Have you ever been near a chicken farm? You can smell them from far, far away. That smell is the ammonia from their sh*t. They sit in it, getting burns on their legs from their own sh-t, until they are killed. Next time you are in a grocery store, check the cheap chicken - sometimes you can see the burn marks on the plucked ones. The air would suffocate the chickens themselves if powerful fans were not always running. They sometimes get agitated in this environment, so they are kept in near darkness to keep them calm. "Free range" chickens have a small door somewhere where they can theoretically go out. The majority of chickens will never even get close to that door, and there isn't enough room for most of them out there if they could.
The slaughtering process is equally terrible, but others have done a better job than me describing it and I don't want this to become an essay, so please just click that link. Oh, and the same goes for Turkeys, only there they are bred so disproportionately that they cannot breed, so that is all done through a very fast and very rough insemination process.
So what about beef? All beef (except veal, which is raised in boxes) is free range. They are too big too keep in sheds. They are, however, kept in feed lots. A feed lot is a place where the cow sh-t is everywhere. This leads to unhealthy meat and co disease. It is small, with too many cows (sometimes up to 100,000) to keep the group from being anything but covered in it. The cows don't like this, they like to be cleaner, to have some room to move, to graze. The latter doesn't matter though because they are fed corn (and hormones to grow even faster). The cows grow faster that way and have fattier meat. They also have serious gastro-intestinal problems as their systems are made for grass, not corn. They get very serious, painful gas and stomach problems that are treated by forcing tubes down their throats to release gas, all without pain killers of course. The corn diet also removes a lot of the cows' abilities to shed bacteria themselves, making our meat unsafer. If the cows were allowed to eat grass for one week before slaughter, they would lose 85% of the e coli in their systems. but they aren't, its cheaper that way.
Slaughtering cows is also a real problem. By law they must be stunned first, but the rates at which they are killed are so fast, that frequent mistake occur and cows are skinned and butchered alive.
Pork is even worse, if that's possible. Similar issues exist when it comes to slaughtering pigs. They are crowded in very tight conditions, with so much manure that it become a toxic environmental hazard instead of the fertilizer that is would be in lower concentrations. The pigs themselves almost all suffer from respiratory problems from living in their filth, as do 60% of workers who spend only part of their day in the sheds.
As for the breeding sows, its worse again. "Modern breeding sows are treated like piglet making machines. Living a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth, the sows each have more than 20 piglets per year. After being impregnated, the sows are confined in small pens or metal gestation crates which are just 2 feet wide. At the end of their 4 month pregnancy, they are transferred to farrowing crates to give birth. The sows barely have room to stand up and lie down, and many suffer from sores on their shoulders. They are denied straw bedding and forced to stand and lie on hard floors. When asked about this, a pork industry representative wrote, "...straw is very expensive and there certainly would not be a supply of straw in the country to supply all the farrowing pens in the U.S." (source)
In slaughterhouses for all animal types, undercover videos show frequent abuse beyond the process. There are some studies linking daily participation in slaughter to desensitization to pain in others, as well as coverage of the difficult conditions in which workers must operate, but this is an additional problem.
That si a sleepy, hurt hand very abbreviated and oversimplified version. If you're intersted in learning more and makign an educated decision, {Eating Animals](http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/product-description/0316069884) is a good place to start. Well written, not too long or too preachy.
It is immoral to knowingly participate in this, not spoiled.
There is a book that goes against Pollan's views that I found interesting to read. The guy just brings up a few points throughout his book about why Pollan is right and wrong.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Try
Buy
Have you read the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer?
I read a neat book not too long ago by Jonathan Safran Foer that talked about meat-eating as a cultural thing. It argued in part that one of the reason some people get so upset by others being vegan/vegetarian is that it is a deviation from the cultural standards they expect. It was a really good read on the topic.
There's an excellent chapter in Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals that's all about fish and other seafood.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316069884/
the book is great as well! you might check out his other book eating animals which explains why he doesnt.
Welcome and congrats on your decision!
Here are my tips on getting started:
There is a great plant-based diet you might be interested in, it's called "The Starch Solution by Dr. McDougall":
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/shopping/books/starch-solution/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_7rrkG3xYk
1.1) Learning new recipes
It takes a few weeks to learn new recipes and get to know new products.
Also, there is quite a bit of misinformation in the area of nutrition.
It will take a while until you see "through the fog". Just hang in there :)
http://www.chooseveg.com/switchnditch (get their free guide on the homepage!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmnPM6QzDTw
https://www.youtube.com/user/thevegancorner
https://www.youtube.com/user/hotforfoodblog
veg restaurants: http://www.happycow.net
1.2) Doing your research (health, ethics, environment)
No worries, 3 documentaries and books and you are fine :)
http://www.forksoverknives.com/the-film/
http://www.cowspiracy.com/
http://www.nationearth.com/earthlings-1/ (graphic)
Watch these with your husband, if possible, so that he is part of your journey and understands the basics.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/shopping/books/starch-solution/
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Dogs-Pigs-Wear-Cows/dp/1573245054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457183607&sr=1-1&keywords=why+we+love+dogs+eat+pigs+and+wear+cows
Also has a great TEDx talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0VrZPBskpg
(I am not affiliated with amazon, btw)
2) Really, no need to worry about protein
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/vegan-sources-of-protein/
http://www.forksoverknives.com/slaying-protein-myth/
http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/protein/
You can enter your meals into http://www.cronometer.com just to be safe.
And finally some basic help on getting started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2k4NHjAP84
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htf5eCgyt5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o9uzH_vrXA
That will keep you busy for a month or two, but it will also get you over the hump :)
Let me know if you got any questions or need help.
Good luck!
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer might interest you. Almost seven years old now, but still interesting.
Maybe you would like something written by the animal rights philosopher Tom Regan. His Empty Cages are a great read, and he has written a very readable introduction to moral philosophy on ~150 pages: Animal Rights, Human Wrongs
Not OP, but I can tell you that all of those dishes are super easy to "veganify." Start buying different veggie burger patties, check out Beyond Meat products (they make burgers, ground beef, and chicken type meat currently - honestly I've been meat free for so long that it's all a little too meaty for me, but I wish the Beyond brand had been available when I first stopped eating meat). There are a ton of other veggie patties out there. Check out your nearest vegan restaurant if there are any around you. If you're a milk drinker, I honestly prefer plant-based milk, pea milk, oat milk, almond, flax, soy... all so good. When my husband first went vegan we went and bought a whole bunch of different plant-based kinds of milk to do a taste test b/c he's very picky about the creamer in his coffee. He ended up choosing the pea milk - it's got a good creamy feel to it in coffee. Chao Cheese is delicious (a lot of vegan cheeses aren't so great but that one is).
Easy snacks: almond butter and banana, or avocado and hummus sandwiches, soup and bread is easy, something about coconut oil on toast tastes EXACTLY like butter to me, but there are vegan butters available that mimic the real thing very well also... there's a lot of vegan junk food out there like chips, Oreos, cookies, and ice-cream too to get that fix. Ben and Jerry's dairy-free ice cream is unreal. I didn't even know it was vegan when I used to eat it as a vegetarian.
Vegan cooking blogs:
[Minimalist Baker] (https://minimalistbaker.com/) - she has a good shepherds pie.
[Hot for Food] (https://www.hotforfoodblog.com/welcome) has a lot of good comfort food
[Thug Kitchen] (https://www.thugkitchen.com/)
[Here's a list of the Top 50 vegan food blogs] (https://www.culinarynutrition.com/top-50-vegan-blogs/)
Reading ["Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer] (https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884) was really instrumental in helping me make the shift as well. Foer is a fiction author who went vegan irl and the book is autobiographical of his decision making, so it's very approachable and not guilt-trippy at all.
Welcome to the right side of history! Also, I didn't feel different at all going from meat-eater to vegetarian, when I went from vegetarian to vegan, however, I felt a world of difference in terms of improved mood and energy and getting to poop like three times a day ha.
And, like someone else said, you don't have to do it all at once. Maybe try cutting out one animal group at a time. If I had to do it over, I would start with dairy, then chicken, fish, pork, beef... Dairy is really just awful in terms of cruelty and health impact.
Okay now I'm rambling. Take care!
Edit: formatting wall of text.
The internet is a very good place to go for people who are very worried about what other people believe. It's not so good at changing anyone's behavior, since you can't observe others' behavior through a computer. But you sure can tell people they are wrong and demand that they agree.
That means that the vegans you're encountering online aren't representative of all vegans. They're just the vegans who are very worried about what they and other people believe. By definition, that's not going to be a very humble subset of vegans.
Most vegans change other people's minds far away from the internet. They do it by simply purchasing, preparing, and eating vegan food, and when asked why they eat that way, explaining their position simply and without judgement.
> I also can't mention to anyone I know that I'm eating vegan because of the obvious social consequences.
I don't know if that's true. I don't think many people experience social consequences for their diet alone. Here's what I do if I don't want to talk about my reasons for being vegetarian, but someone asks me. I say, "Oh, you know--the usual reasons." If they press, I say, "Animal rights, environmental impact, that kind of thing." And I always go out of my way to explain that I "just ate less meat" for a while before becoming a full vegetarian. And also make sure I compliment others' omnivorous meals so people know I'm not judging anything as personal as their diet.
There's a wonderful book called Eating Animals whose author, I think, takes a very reasonable and humble approach to the ethics of eating meat.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
OK, so I want to preface this by saying that I'm not an expert. I'm also not a vegetarian. However, I did just this morning finish reading this book to see if it would change my view on meat, and it did. There are some flaws with it, but it was still enough that I'm going to try to avoid factory-farmed meat from now on.
>Do pigs at the slaughterhouse know what's going on?
So to answer your question...in THEORY, no, they don't. Most slaughterhouses have the live pigs outside and they get let in one by one through a non-transparent door, beyond which they are stunned and then killed.
In REALITY, however, it's not at all uncommon for this process to work imperfectly. The pigs are not always stunned effectively or killed quickly. Just this morning at the end of the book I was reading interviews with slaughterhouse workers and one talked about his time working as the guy who killed the pigs, and how many of them were conscious when he killed them, or in some cases mutilated and then killed them by doing things like ripping out an eye or cutting off their nose. At this point they're obviously inside a slaughterhouse and the smell of pig blood is all around, so yes some of them definitely do know what's up.
>Has there been any reports of sows somehow seeking to sacrifice themselves, being first in line, to save their young?
Heh...no, but not for the reason you think. Most factory-farmed animals have been very genetically fucked with, and in some cases they're literally not even capable of reproduction (this is true of most factory-farmed turkeys, i.e. 100% of the turkey you eat, for example). I think it's less true of pigs, but pigs - like most animals - are still slaughtered quite young (usually around 6 months) because that's the way it's most profitable. For that reason, the pigs we eat don't get to do things like "have offspring."
The offspring are produced by specific breeding sows, which spend most of their lives in gestation crates like this. These pigs do get to live a lot longer, but they only keep their "young" for around 20 days of nursing before the piglets are taken away and it's back to the gestation crate for the next artificial insemination and pregnancy.
So, no, there are no reports of sows cutting the line to try to save their young.
>whether or not I should think twice before having that delicious BBQ pork.
You absolutely should. That doesn't mean don't eat pork, as there ARE some places that do things more ethically, letting the pigs outside to walk around and stuff (for example). But they are few and far between, and they take work to find (and of course the meat costs more). If you're buying the grocery store stuff, there's pretty much a 100% chance that your meat was factory farmed, which means you're eating a sixth-month-old fattened up, genetically altered pig that's been pumped full of antibiotics to compensate for the fact that it has spent its entire life inside a giant, shit-covered warehouse. It almost certainly lived a short and fairly nightmarish life, and its death may or may not have been quick and painless, depending on how lucky it got at the slaughterhouse.
eating animals by jonathan safran foer
The only book I've read on the issue is Eating Animals, but I don't remember the ratio of facts vs storytelling.
I mostly read up on these issues online, on different animal rights sites. As long as they provide the sources to their claims, it doesn't have to be a (big) problem that the site has an agenda of its own. I think Vegan Outreach has some good info, and they have good advice regarding how to present the knowledge you have too. (How to be an effective animal advocate.)
As for the "humane meat" part, you might want to listen to someone like Gary Franscione to get some idea of what the philosophical arguments are: Do we have to find instances of suffering on "humane farms" to say that they are indeed not humane? Or is it sufficient to point that the animals are all eventually sent to slaughter? (Ie. isn't it immoral and inhumane to kill someone, ending their lives against their own will, regardless of how good their lives was up until that point?)
I read Eating Animals about a month ago. Really awesome and eye opening, even after having been vegan for a while
How 'bout some Safran-Foer?
I actually became a Vegetarian a year ago Tomorrow all because of this book. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
For me it was the environmental impact of the industry. It was an easy way to stand up for what I believe in.
I hope they will include
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884/ref=zg_bs_14454_1
and
http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Liberation-Definitive-Classic-Movement/dp/0061711306/ref=zg_bs_14454_9
or
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Dogs-Pigs-Wear-Cows/dp/1573245054/ref=zg_bs_14454_14
or
http://www.amazon.com/Terrorists-Freedom-Fighters-Reflections-Liberation/dp/159056054X but i guess not.
There are a number of books on the topic of Evolution or Evolutionary Psychology that will provide a greater understanding of how connected and similar we really are.
Hopefully this is something to start this thread off in a positive direction.
If this topic interests you, I'd recommend this book.
Couple of links:
http://www.eatinganimals.com/site/book/
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
“Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand ... that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-- disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
There's a pretty good book on it by Jonathan Safran Foer :
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
I love Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
As for cookbooks, this cookbook.
If you have an ice cream maker/plenty of free time, I love this for vegan ice cream
My research goes back many years. A lot of my research has shown me proven results because I’ve done my own experimenting. I’ve gone through huge eating and dietary changes over the past 15 years. I also read a lot of books on these topics as well as follow many people on social media who have profound research done of their own.
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
https://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1941631568
https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/blog/eating-animal-products-making-us-sick/
https://blondevsbooks.com/14-books-that-will-make-you-think-twice-about-eating-meat/amp/
https://instagram.com/alkalinehumanism?igshid=k8850d755uy5
https://instagram.com/the_raw_herbalist?igshid=17qe82edk1f6l
https://instagram.com/alkaline_vegan_news?igshid=1o9559eqvsgts
https://instagram.com/fruitifytheworld?igshid=1lsvu5nbt79ii
> What you are trying to do is impose a moral scale, a ranking, on life that says that taking this life is moral but taking this one is not.
So, I'll try to get this straight. Please set me straight if I have any of this wrong.
You're asserting that in moral terms, ALL LIFE is equal, completely regardless of its nervous system, capacity to perceive the world, form social connections, experience emotion, or suffer. For example, a herd of cows should be given exactly the same ethical consideration as a leaf of spinach: none whatsoever. Right? Because humans have a moral mandate to kill. And since all nonhuman life is equally worthless in these ethical terms, according to our moral mandate, we are allowed to destroy as much life as we please in order to eat what we'd like. Deciding if I want to be responsible for the "death" of a few beans or some spinach, or be responsible for a lifetime of captivity ended by a violent death of a cow (not to mention all the "plant death" that was necessary to make it grow in the first place).
Except humans. We can't kill each other, because we can acknowledge rights for each other.
What would you say about very young children and or mentally handicapped humans who don't have the mental capacity to "respect and protect the rights of others?" If this is where rights come from, then obviously not all humans have rights. Or is there more to it than just that?
> The arbitrary categorization of one life as more valuable than another is not made for moral reasons. It cannot be because morality is binary. A choice is either moral or immoral.
Please cite any theory of morality or ethics at all that says that there is no gradient of morality. While you're at it, please cite any theory of morality or ethics at all that says that if you must kill something, then you're justified in killing anything you want.
Actually, if you could cite anything to support your position, instead of just asserting things, that would be great! In particular, I'd love to see any credible ethical argument that all nonhuman life should be treated exactly equally in ethical terms.
> If this theory is true then the pure herbivores of our species did not survive natural selection - the omnivores proved better adapted for survival.
So, we should take our ethical cues from natural selection, then? I thought you said earlier that we shouldn't.
Regarding "human efficiency," what do you think of the environmental destruction caused by animal agriculture? Or, if human efficiency is only measured on an individual scale, how is it affected by the mounting evidence that eating animals isn't so great? (each word is a distinct link.) What about the antibiotics issue? Please address this.
> Yes - if both animals and plants suffer and several lives have been given already to create the animal then the animal causes the least loss of life and the least suffering. How many plants do you have to slaughter and digest screaming to equal one animal?
You said earlier that plants can't scream. And can't suffer. And the answer, once more with feeling, is: about a 10:1 ratio! Remember? I linked those wikipedia articles for you! Did you read them?
Which reminds me, I've been careful to only cite things that are reasonably "impartial": news articles, PubMed, wikipedia, that sort of thing. Nothing from the Humane Society or anything like that, since I imagine that you'll probably just dismiss it. If you'd be willing to read those things seriously, then by all means let me know and I'll share a few. And if you wouldn't mind addressing some of the things that those linked articles address, I'd appreciate it.
I'll go back a couple posts of yours, if you don't mind, because I forgot to address this point:
> The animal would have eaten the plants regardless of your decision. By eating the animal you are not participating in the death or the potential suffering of the plants.
Yes you are! You've paid for the animal to be bred, raised, fed, and slaughtered. You are contributing to the demand for this process. Are you claiming that by supporting something financially is completely divorced from all ethical responsibility? Please explain this, since I don't understand this view.
> Farming an animal for food is not torture. Torturing an animal for the sake of seeing it suffer is morally wrong.
Well, if you're in America, more than 99% of the time it is. Is it permissible to torture an animal to eat it more cheaply?
Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals, by the way, is an excellent and very honest investigation of the ethics of eating meat. It's written from the perspective of someone who's oscillated between eating meat and not eating it for his life so far, and I hope you'll believe me when I say that it is absolutely not judgmental of those who do. There's no way around the fact that it's been a human tradition for a very long time, and there's a great deal of sentimentality around it, and this book approaches the subject with great intellectual and moral honesty. I hope you'll at least consider reading it, if you would like to, I'd even be happy to send you my copy in the mail (although I'd probably be unwilling to give out my address over the internet), and you can keep it after that. And if you're right about the ethics of it, you'll blast through it in a few days and come away completely unchanged, since your position is totally bulletproof. If there's no threat, all you have to lose is a few hours of reading time. And, if you don't want to read anything, he's given a couple brief interviews 1, 2, 3, 4 that you can watch in a few minutes (the longest is an hour).
And of course, since I'm suggesting some reading material for you (I hope you're actually reading those articles by the way... it's hard to tell, since you haven't address any of them except the ADA abstract, which you dismissed with an appeal to nature), it's only fair that if you recommend any books or articles or films to me at all, I solemnly swear to read (or watch) them with an open mind. I'll even get back to you about what I think!
I think it's extremely telling that the industry has fought so hard to pass laws against documenting abuse in their operations. Would you agree that given a choice between cheap meat that has been raised in torturous conditions, and expensive meat that was raised in a way to give the animal a good life while it was alive, one has a moral obligation to choose the one that caused less suffering? This, I expect, is in line with your moral mandate to kill. After all:
> Certainly limiting the amount of pain inflicted is a desirable choice.
Try this: go to your refrigerator, and look at the label for the animal flesh you already have in there. See what farm it's from, and look up a phone number. Give them a call, and pretend that you're interested in taking a tour of their facilities to see the conditions. Then, when you're at the farmer's market, find someone selling meat and ask if it would be possible to go see the farm sometime.
Look, I don't want to be hostile. Clearly we disagree on some very fundamental things (like the notion that suffering has anything at all to do with ethical decisions) but I want to be very clear that I'm not trying to pick a fight or belittle you in any way. I just find some (most, frankly) of your views baffling, heartless, and honestly, pretty terrifying. But honest discussion is the whole point of CMV, right? And, I'd like to encourage you again to cite anything to justify your assertion that plants and animals should be given exactly the same ethical consideration (none). And again, please cite anything at all to support the notion that the capacity to suffer is of no moral consequence.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to your reply. I've tried to be very clear about the points I'd like you to address, and hopefully I succeeded.
Probably worth a read:
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
Denial, denial, denial. It’s so sad that you can’t see that animals that are raised in torturous conditions, then MURDERED. just for their meat, which humans don’t NEED, is a terrible problem in our society. You just don’t want to see the truth. These animals deserve better than to be alive just to die for your lame, fat ass. Deep down, you know you’re wrong or maybe you’re just terribly stupid?
BTW - all meat starts rotting the second it dies, you idiot. And all factory farmed animals are tortured by horrible conditions. Read “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer and if you’re still okay to eat meat after that, well then, you can’t be saved lol. By the way, it’s very rude to call people retards, don’t you have any manners? You seem to be such a sad little man, I hope you get help.
Maybe not what you are looking for, but I just read Eating Animals and it terrified me.