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[scriver]

But if there was no other people where did he get Adam's apples to eat

[TheSteppeWolf]

According to my religion and philosophy, eating meat is moral (also I don't want to bother with supplements which are hard to find in my country). However animals-- even cattle, must be treated with at least some degree of respect and slaughtered quickly, safely, and painlessly (shot, head chopping, or maybe slitting throat). Which often isn't respected.

[delphonso]

Someone might know better than me on this - but I think factory farming is ecologically more responsible than free-range farming. To do with land usage, etc. The issue with modern factory farming is that most of it goes to waste, making it worse on the environment by sheer quantity.

I could be talking out my ass there, but I feel like I've read that. Could be bullshit.

[nenjin]

Factory farming introduces the things I have a problem with though. Penning animals up so they can't move, force feeding them. Having to give them shit loads of antibiotics because they're in such close proximity to the whole herd and its waste. It's a miserable existence, and some argue that their misery makes it directly into the product itself to boot. I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea but I could believe it, and more importantly for me, their suffering while they're alive is pretty shitty to me.

Free range may take more land but it spreads the impact out a bit, both on the land and the herds. If more farmers used actual rotation techniques with their herds in conjunction with their crop farming, they wouldn't fucking destroy the land so much, eroding the top soil and having it and all the extra nitrates they use to make up the difference wash off and in to the water supply. Free range may still not be great, but compared to cramming several thousand animals in to a space they were never meant to inhabit that tightly, it's better IMO.

[WealthyRadish]

Someone might know better than me on this - but I think factory farming is ecologically more responsible than free-range farming. To do with land usage, etc. The issue with modern factory farming is that most of it goes to waste, making it worse on the environment by sheer quantity.

I could be talking out my ass there, but I feel like I've read that. Could be bullshit.

Factory farming means using intensive agriculture to grow feed, which entails using large amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that require energy and petrochemicals to make, consuming unsustainable amounts of water from fossil sources, and is the leading cause of habitat destruction and runoff pollution into rivers and oceans. The practices for handling feed and manure also releases additional methane. It could be you're recalling a study about a difference in fuel use for shipping or something instead, but I'm not sure if there's a significant difference there (although to be clear free-range or "extensive" meat production is not great environmentally either).

If this random vox article is to be believed, in the US around two-thirds of the crops grown go to feed livestock, and provide 10% or less of the calories as it would by feeding people directly (beef is the worst offender on all fronts).


This is more or less why I became a vegetarian as an adult. It's such a minor lifestyle change that has so many future issues wrapped up in it that I don't think it's conscionable to participate in the system as it exists. Then beyond the environment there are also the health issues with the excessive meat consumption today, the ethics of how the animals are treated, the harmful relationship between the industry and government here in the US, and that it's just a cheaper and in my opinion "cleaner" way of living.

That said, none of these problems will ever be solved by individual action, it's really a political issue. I also think that if I were responsible for the nutrition of a child I would still make sure they get some meat growing up.

[nenjin]

There's the argument that, evolutionary speaking, meat was the spring board for the development of humans. Nutrient dense, loaded with fats (which can be hard to come by in nature just out in the wild), it had a higher investment / reward ratio than scrounging what edible vegetation was on hand. Humans hunted for meat before they adopted a pastoral lifestyle, and it's been argued by some that the ability and energy to do so may have come from meat.

I don't blame anyone for going vegan for political/ethical/moral reasons. It continually bums me out when I think about it in a macro scale. I'm not opposed to raising animals for slaughter, even less so hunting. But like a lot of things the scale at which it's done is grossly wasteful, cruel and destructive. And yet if you want to get as close to the "right" side of it as you can, you're charged a premium for your morality. Because the whole point of this wasteful overproduction is to make it as cheap and widely available as possible.

I dunno. I have a lot of respect for people that hunt most of the meat they eat. I think that's as close to honest as you can get on a lot of levels. You burn calories to get your food, your food gets its chance to escape, you make use of everything you can (goals withstanding, I know a lot of hunters don't bother to save the viscera even though it's some of the most nutrient dense parts of the animal) and hopefully you don't take more than you need or will use. But I'm willing to admit I'm simply not manly enough to put in the time to do that myself.

[hector13]

Product tailored wisely.

[Iduno]

Factory farming introduces the things I have a problem with though. Penning animals up so they can't move, force feeding them. Having to give them shit loads of antibiotics because they're in such close proximity to the whole herd and its waste. It's a miserable existence, and some argue that their misery makes it directly into the product itself to boot. I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea but I could believe it, and more importantly for me, their suffering while they're alive is pretty shitty to me.

Free range may take more land but it spreads the impact out a bit, both on the land and the herds. If more farmers used actual rotation techniques with their herds in conjunction with their crop farming, they wouldn't fucking destroy the land so much, eroding the top soil and having it and all the extra nitrates they use to make up the difference wash off and in to the water supply. Free range may still not be great, but compared to cramming several thousand animals in to a space they were never meant to inhabit that tightly, it's better IMO.

Yeah, it's super intensive farming that produces a massive amount more waste than the land it's on can handle, creating a lot of pollution. At least, all of the factory farms I visited when that I was a thing I did.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, that's definitely a thing here in NC.  There were some notable sewage spills from the hog farms last year, IIRC.  There is a system for dealing with the waste, but it's pushed to the limit by capitalism low margins, the profit-motive, and hey how did all these corporate factory-farms buy out independent farmers?
And why are so many owned by foreign investors?

I'm all for efficiency, but also safety, just saying.

Factory farming introduces the things I have a problem with though. Penning animals up so they can't move, force feeding them. Having to give them shit loads of antibiotics because they're in such close proximity to the whole herd and its waste. It's a miserable existence, and some argue that their misery makes it directly into the product itself to boot. I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea but I could believe it, and more importantly for me, their suffering while they're alive is pretty shitty to me.

Free range may take more land but it spreads the impact out a bit, both on the land and the herds. If more farmers used actual rotation techniques with their herds in conjunction with their crop farming, they wouldn't fucking destroy the land so much, eroding the top soil and having it and all the extra nitrates they use to make up the difference wash off and in to the water supply. Free range may still not be great, but compared to cramming several thousand animals in to a space they were never meant to inhabit that tightly, it's better IMO.

I was thinking about this.  A few people argue that animal suffering doesn't matter at all, because they aren't human.  But I feel like they'd balk if they had to watch a cow hooked up to a nonlethal current.

So instead most people believe that the meat industry is relatively humane.  There are regulations for the killing, after all - I'm not here to argue that a spike into the brain is a cruel way to end a pampered life.
But... what about the chickens?
I don't care about how they die - what about how they live?  What if the stories about their idiocy are merely coping mechanisms?  Free range is one thing, but I've driven past the factory farms... and glimpsed footage of the conditions within.

And yet it has always *felt* cleaner because it's not mammal meat.  Because I thought they were as mindless as fish.  Which was something I allowed myself to be convinced of.

[Rolan7]

Sorry to necro, but there's so much to discuss here.

Has quarantine made anyone else more or less vegetarian?  I fell back on my staples of beans and rice and greens, but I feel like every time I have to go out I pick up a burger & nuggets as comfort food.  And yet, stopping by taco bell for my preferred order of Black Bean Quesarito and spicey potato burrito satisfies that craving just as well.  It might just be cheese that I miss...  I was pescovegetarian for years with no real trouble, after all.  Yet abuse of cows bothers me more than abuse of chickens, and I can't unknow it.

Someone might know better than me on this - but I think factory farming is ecologically more responsible than free-range farming. To do with land usage, etc. The issue with modern factory farming is that most of it goes to waste, making it worse on the environment by sheer quantity.

I could be talking out my ass there, but I feel like I've read that. Could be bullshit.

Seems right to me, but that's why I'm so excited for vat-grown meat. 
But really what I want is vat-grown protein - and I feel like vegans have probably worked that out already. 

Third issue: I've noticed some people mention dietary constraints that keep them from being vegetarian.  I'm respectful of that, but someone mentioned diabetes.  As someone whose family is plagued with diabetes, I don't actually understand the logic, and didn't ask.  In general though I understand people eating meat because they need to.  Heck, I understand people eating meat because it's convenient, as long as it's moral - aw hell I approach veganism ever more

(fourth issue:  some vegans kinda worry me because they have the exact same conviction as anti-abortionists.  Except, if you think about it, it's even worse than just killing...)

Edit: I could understand a vegan who eats free-range kills.  For me, veganism is about not causing harm on a factory scale.
Like when my cousin shares a load of venison around Thanksgiving - there's so little harm in eating that.  Encouraging his hunting is tiny compared to what happens in the factory farms every day.

[dragdeler]

-

[hector13]

I still do my pescatarian stuff. Had some trouble getting tofu in the early days of covid, then bought quite a bit when the store I go to got some in.

I seem to be teetering on the edge of going full vegan, but I’ll probably never go over ‘cause I’m a terrible human being sushi is good.

[scriver]

Tofish

[MaxTheFox]

The reason I'm not a vegan? I only care about certain species, mostly endangered ones, plus ones I find cute and/or useful outside of food. And humans. I don't know why but it's downright impossible for me to empathize with farm cows and pigs.

[Reelya]

I love meat. I just wish we treated the animals better and quit feeding them so many hormones and straight garbage like candy, quit raising them in gigantic herds that fart up the atmosphere.

We can do something about that:

https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42523-019-0004-4

Recent studies using batch-fermentation suggest that the red macroalgae Asparagopsis taxiformis has the potential to reduce methane (CH4) production from beef cattle by up to ~ 99% when added to Rhodes grass hay; a common feed in the Australian beef industry.

Note this is also relevant for vegetarians (but not vegans) since the methane issue also affects milk production, not just meat production, and people who switch away from meat might actually increase their consumption of milk-based products (cheese, yogurts etc) to try and maintain their protein intake.