Veganism/vegetarianism and "ethical" lifestyle choices

[ebola?]

Black salt is some interesting stuff, if you've ever used it. I don't know where to use such a sulphurous seasoning though.'

This is great for a traditional South Indian mock omolette (vegan). It's based in besan, chickpea flour. Its texture is a bit dosa-like.

ebola

 

[infectedmushroom]

When I was eighteen, for the first time in my life, I watched an animal being butchered for consumption.

It was a chicken, and I was in Africa. One person stood on it's back legs (which must have caused it pain) and the other stood over it with a knife and cut it's head off - the entire thing was over in about 10 seconds. It was morbidly fascinating.

I say morbidly fascinating because I was in two conflicted moods whilst the animal was being plucked and gutted. One side of me, the more animalistic, had a definite experience of blood lust, and a sense of pleasure that soon a meal was to be placed in front of me. The other side of me, whilst staring at the head of the chicken which had been separated from its body, felt remorse.

Then I started contemplating death. This chicken lived as free-range a life as you could ever imagine. It ran around, being, put simply, a chicken. Nothing more, nothing less. Then suddenly, someone picked it up, stood on it, and before it could say "squawk" it's head was on the floor. In one way, it was cruel, but I actually felt there was something very natural and normal about it as well.

I won't go deeply into factory farming, because that's where the vast majority of my disgust for the meat/animal industry lies - for obvious reasons. Few souls could say the images and videos and facts they hear and see coming from those places don't make them sick and horrified.

BUT. I compare the images of factory farms to the image of that chicken being beheaded (which, by the way, ended up feeding 10 people well, not one piece of the carcass gone to waste) and in my heart of hearts, I know it wasn't wrong or immoral for that animal to die. We are, at the end of the day, HUMAN, and eating other animals is not wrong.

Where immorality enters this argument is in consumption levels.

We are so ravenously greedy for animal products we force animal production industries to become increasingly industrialized to cope with the demand, which makes conditions for animals and people alike within the industry atrocious.

If we all cut our animal product intake by a quarter; hell, even ONE HALF, the benefits would be enormous. Except for one thing. Profits.

And here, my cynical, nihilistic side comes out. This will take a VERY long time to happen, and everything takes so long to change, because the mighty dollar bills comes first. It can change, and I believe it will. It will just take time. A big part of it is up to us.

I'm trying to cut down on my animal intake atm, choosing more veggie options when I can. I'm not a vegetarian though, and never will be. To me, the answer is less, not none.

Also, if anyone is interested in some out-there reading, google "Declaration of War" by Screaming Wolf. Fascinating.

 

[Ninae]

If we all cut our animal product intake by a quarter; hell, even ONE HALF, the benefits would be enormous. Except for one thing. Profits.

Not just affect profits, the industry would have to be completely re-orgiansed, with more acres of land to grow food, etc. It would be an enormous project and things would be both harder to produce and less profitable to sell, so there's not much enthusiasm for it, to say the least. It's ok if a few people turn vegetarian for health reasons, etc. but for the vast majority to is very undesired.

And here, my cynical, nihilistic side comes out. This will take a VERY long time to happen, and everything takes so long to change, because the mighty dollar bills comes first. It can change, and I believe it will. It will just take time. A big part of it is up to us.

That kind of thinking is the reason things never change. If everyone just stopped over night it would stop. If 50% of us stopped half of it would stop. But it takes one and one at a time, over a long period, for something like this to actually change.

It's just what it takes, so it's confused to see it as pointless. It would only be pointless if only you did it, which it can seem like from your own limited viewpoint, but is not how it turns out when more change the way they live. If everyone thought like that at the start there would be no vegetarians, when now the 5-10% there are makes a real change.

 

[Ninae]

if a animal suffer physically or not, it doesnt matter.

I wonder how you would feel if someone said that about you. Feeling compassion for other creatures counts. It's not just about following certain principles according to one's belief-system.

 

[Ninae]

Ninae's posts highlight, to me anyway, a problem with being opposed to eating meat based on grounds of pain/suffering. It's easy to see beauty in that little donkey or other fluffy animals but that is merely you projecting beauty on to it. As was stated god is just as much in a banana as something fluffy.

I see it the other way around. We tend to deporsonalise and take out the soul and beauty of the animals slaughtered for us to eat. As opposed to a cute kitten we take with us home and raise as a family member.

But the difference is more in our mind - the cute kitten doesn't deserve life more because we're emotionally connected to it. And that was my point. You can see things in different ways. I also don't see the logic in your thinking when I belong to those who feel all animals should be treated the same.

 

[-=SS=-]

Then I started contemplating death. This chicken lived as free-range a life as you could ever imagine. It ran around, being, put simply, a chicken. Nothing more, nothing less. Then suddenly, someone picked it up, stood on it, and before it could say "squawk" it's head was on the floor. In one way, it was cruel, but I actually felt there was something very natural and normal about it as well.

Hurrah! Another person who understands

Your post reminded of another point in this debate, the fact that in our modern lives we're almost totally insulated from death and that imagination fills in the void for us.. we build it up to be something so massively horrific. Suffering is horrific, death not so much. Then there's the "cute fluffy omg!" factor in that we attach emotionally to these creatures as if they were all so pure and innocent. Very Disney-esque thinking from childhood. All these cute creatures that talked and were human in personality. Yeh.. go to the wild and try to befriend some of those animals and they won't think twice about killing you.

Really there is no difference in killing an animals for food than a wild animal doing the same. If anything we can ensure less pain and suffering by giving a clean, quick death.

Also remember the food chain. What is the point of the mouse's existence? Food for the cat, poop/fertilizer for the ground. Everything depends on assimilating the essence of organisms beneath them on the chain. It's called life. We are animals, not angels.

 

[ForEverAfter]

there's the "cute fluffy omg!" factor in that we attach emotionally to these creatures as if they were all so pure and innocent. Very Disney-esque thinking from childhood. All these cute creatures that talked and were human in personality. Yeh.. go to the wild and try to befriend some of those animals and they won't think twice about killing you.

People (generally) don't eat predators large enough to consume / kill them.
What innocent animals that we - as a species - consume on a regular basis would kill us in the wild?
(Limit it to Western diets, for the sake of argument.)

Sharks... ?

there is no difference in killing an animals for food than a wild animal doing the same.

There is no difference between humans hunting and another animal species hunting, but farming is quite different... isn't it?

If anything we can ensure less pain and suffering by giving a clean, quick death.

As hunters we can ensure less pain and suffering than other species, sure.
But farming means the animal is never free, regardless of how much relative suffering it endures at the moment of death... It's like the prison system. We can ensure that we execute people in a humane way, but they're caged for years / decades prior to death. The cruelest part of the death penalty (for humans and animals) is what happens before death...

I don't see how this can - realistically - be reduced to (what I consider) an acceptable level...
It can theoretically, of course...

Also remember the food chain. What is the point of the mouse's existence? Food for the cat, poop/fertilizer for the ground. Everything depends on assimilating the essence of organisms beneath them on the chain. It's called life. We are animals, not angels.

The food chain is not a parallel to the meat industry.
God intended us to eat other animals, but he also intended us to question whether or not we should.
We're no longer simply animals. We've moved outside of the food chain. We empathize with our prey.
We don't need to contribute to the suffering of animals... emphasis on need.
If you agree that we don't need to, then why do it?

Societal change is a long-term process. I could be wrong, but I genuinely believe that - one day - we will look back at the meat industry as barbaric and immoral in the same way that we do with (human) slavery.

 

[Ninae]

Then there's the "cute fluffy omg!" factor in that we attach emotionally to these creatures as if they were all so pure and innocent. Very Disney-esque thinking from childhood.

That argument doesn't make any sense against a vegetarian who already feels all animals are worth the same. That is the way the average person feels so it's usually used as an argument against meat-consumption. But the existence of a lesser evil doesn't mean a greater evil should also be acceptable, quite the opposite. That's a twisted way of thinking but that's the kind of straws people grasp for.

Arguments like these are just in theory, anyway. No matter what someone says they wouldn't actually be willing to consume flesh from the animals used as pets and most wouldn't be willing to stnd by and watch it happen. So it has no actual connection with reality. No one can really give any intelligent arguments for eating meat because there are none that stands up to scrutiny.

And it's true what has been said about hunting. If people actually had to go out and hunt for their own animals it wouldn't be so bad as it would be more balanced and the amount of animals they would kill woud be limited. It's not right the way it is now where everyone can consume as much animal-flesh they want from their own armchair and dissociate from or suppress what they're really doing.

 

[murphythecat]

you dont understand what I meant there.

what I meant was that even if a animal, while being killed do not suffer, its still immoral to kill him, because the animal want to live, and we take his life.

killing is killing and we have to stop killing things not only because the animal suffer when we kill them, obviously.

I wonder how you would feel if someone said that about you. Feeling compassion for other creatures counts. It's not just about following certain principles according to one's belief-system.

lol

 

[Ninae]

Oh well, in that case. You can just sound like a robot who repeats Buddhist principles sometimes.

 

[murphythecat]

close your eye, put your attention to the breath and look into your heart.
See all the hatred, judgments, resentment you have in there, and let it go away, like a black cloud. fill your heart with love. Breath in peace and breath out love and feel the love in your heart.

Oh well, in that case. You can just sound like a robot who repeats Buddhist principles sometimes.

 

[ForEverAfter]

You should give out flowers at airport terminals.

 

[What 23]

you dont understand what I meant there.

what I meant was that even if a animal, while being killed do not suffer, its still immoral to kill him, because the animal want to live, and we take his life.

killing is killing and we have to stop killing things not only because the animal suffer when we kill them, obviously.


lol

Life feeds on life. Plants "don't want to be eaten" either. And I doubt a bird doesn't "want" to fail at munching seeds-- some of which, the 'failures', end up dispersing these seeds, helping the tree.

Humans require B12.
And I would love to put a strict vegan (or vegetarian) like you in a place frozen over with shelter and tools for survival, but no food. No vitamins. There are fish under the ice. There are deer in the forest.
I don't think you're going to find enough berries under a foot of snow, and frozen ground. You might find roots, but eventually you're going to need to kill a deer or eat some fish.

Are you calling entire peoples, such as the Inuit, immoral? Their diet is largely salmon.

You are very narrow minded.

 

[Ninae]

And I would love to put a strict vegan like you in a place frozen over with shelter and tools for survival, but no food. No vitamins. There's fish under the ice. There are deer in the forest.
I don't think you're going to find enough berries under a foot of snow, and frozen ground. You might find roots, but eventually you're going to need to kill a deer or eat some fish.

But again this is a hypothetical scenario that is never going to happen. Why not wait to worry about that until you end up frozen in? For all you know, you could end up trapped in a place with only plantfood to live off.

 

[What 23]

You don't know that.

Basically I'm saying... This diet requires human constructions (and human morality is this as well- construction, even if that is another topic), which are not permanent, and can fail. This diet requires lab synthesized white powders. Vegan, that is.

 

[What 23]

I'm allergic to most plant food that I try. It could be something in the processing (though I don't eat processed food per sey, or I eat minimally processed... but packaging).

And if that is all there is I'd have trouble in a few years. I require b12.

 

[Ninae]

Well, let's just hope you won't be stuck for years.

 

[-=SS=-]

No one can really give any intelligent arguments for eating meat because there are none that stands up to scrutiny.

Sorry Ninae but you are talking out of your arse. How about the simple truth that we are animals living in a terrestrial aquarium where we require nourishment by consuming other living entities. That is what biological life is. One eating another, the transmutation of energy upwards to more complex and refined forms.

There is no difference between humans hunting and another animal species hunting, but farming is quite different... isn't it?

Animals farm other animals, we're not the only species that does it. If the animal is treated well and ensured a comfortable existence in exchange for its produce or flesh, how is it any different to any other symbiotic relationship in nature. The animal gets a good existence, gets fed, gets a safe environment to roam around in (obviously industrial practice fails here). Proper farming gives the animals ample freedom.

Besides, what about us? You think we're not being farmed by the establishment? Cities are basically concrete factories to milk humans of their time and energy. Don't see much complaint about that these days..

And despite our pretense at being the 'top dog' it would shock most people to learn we are in fact being farmed by another species, we just can't perceive them with our senses. I wish I could prove that point to people but unfortunately I can't, but I'm certain it's the truth. Not talking about reptilians or anything here, you wont find it printed anywhere. We have our own essence that is valuable to a species higher than us on the chain and the milking takes place most days for people. But no one complains about the process, in fact we revel in it *hint*.

God intended us to eat other animals, but he also intended us to question whether or not we should.
We're no longer simply animals. We've moved outside of the food chain. We empathize with our prey.
We don't need to contribute to the suffering of animals... emphasis on need.
If you agree that we don't need to, then why do it?

How do you claim to know gods intentions on the matter? I assume you're joking, you don't strike me as a religious person.

As I've stated I don't agree with the suffering of animals in the food production process but it's something I have zero control over. And I'm not going to make my life more difficult and punish myself for something I had nothing to do with in the first place. Forcing me to adapt to toxic circumstances only breeds more toxicity for myself and those I interact with. The problem is squarely on the greedy fucktards in business and government who know exactly what the facts are and continue to force an industry on us we can't change. They undercut the legitimate sources of food and sell us stuff they ripped off from other businesses. Tesco's (UK supermarket) routinely tries to fuck farmers over by undercutting/asking for a stupidly low price on food. I know how they think, and it was confirmed by someone I know who worked in their head office. The supermarkets and industrial processers have a monopoly.

Like I said, when I have more money I will want to buy better produce and support the better practices. My lack of choice does not equal my condoning the bad practices that take place.

 

[murphythecat]

Life feeds on life. Plants "don't want to be eaten" either. And I doubt a bird doesn't "want" to fail at munching seeds-- some of which, the 'failures', end up dispersing these seeds, helping the tree.

Humans require B12.
And I would love to put a strict vegan (or vegetarian) like you in a place frozen over with shelter and tools for survival, but no food. No vitamins. There are fish under the ice. There are deer in the forest.
I don't think you're going to find enough berries under a foot of snow, and frozen ground. You might find roots, but eventually you're going to need to kill a deer or eat some fish.

Are you calling entire peoples, such as the Inuit, immoral? Their diet is largely salmon.

You are very narrow minded.

eating seeds, fruits, nuts do not even hurt the plants.
its been showed clearly that we can live off that no problem.

as for inuits, the matter is so complex
we are not inuits, are you a inuits? as for inuits, if they cant change of environments, they have no choice but to kill to survive.

but they have no choice, you will tell me. I'm not sure about that. if someone has no other choice but to kill in order to survive and cannot decide to move to a better environment, the matter is a bit different. but if one decide to stay in his environments which force him to kill to survive BUT could move to a place where he could live off plants and stop the killing, the matter is again different and his choice is to be questioned.

as for africans starving to death, they can kill what they want. they have no choice and cannot find alternatives.
When I speak in this forum, i dont talk to inuits, poor africans, I speak to the rich population who buy meat and encourage the worst industry in the world voluntary, without even looking for alternatives and the excuse you guys make is false. you guys dont eat meat because its needed in your diet, its because you like the taste of meat. if meat tasted like shit, im sure even if we were told its needed in our diet, we wouldnt buy meat anymore. the number one cause why people eati meat in our rich society is because we like the taste.

 

[Ninae]

Sorry Ninae but you are talking out of your arse.

The problem for most is that they don't know anything about cooking or nutrition. What most live off is hardly nutritious and not exactly high-cuisine. And drug-addicts, who tend to feed themselves on potato-chips and chocklate, are even worse than most.

And there is not much energy in a sausage compared to what living plant-matter can give you. Most can't afford pure, newly-killed, high-quality meat. A sausage isn't much petter than potato-chips. The intestines of an animal mixed with milk and spices. Sounds wonderful. Enjoy burgers, kebabs, and hotdogs.

(The intestines of an animal includes what's in them too. They don't drain them before they're killed).

As I've stated I don't agree with the suffering of animals in the food production process but it's something I have zero control over. And I'm not going to make my life more difficult and punish myself for something I had nothing to do with in the first place.

Of course it's not something you have direct control of. But like I said it's something you can influence by being one of many who takes a stand against it.

Besides, what about us? You think we're not being farmed by the establishment? Cities are basically concrete factories to milk humans of their time and energy. Don't see much complaint about that these days..

Like I said, the way we continue to treat animals gives us the karma for this.