eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat).
octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.).
sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (isolating a calf from its mom to steal its food.)
doing one or the other does not absolve us. because one is more commonly accepted than the other
Is the isolation necessary or just an implementation detail? When my family had a goat we didn't do anything like that, the kids grew freely sucking the mother and then she was giving milk for years after that.
From my understanding this is doable in a context like yours but if you want to run a business out of it you have to optimize it which requires this separation.
modern cow, goat etc. are selectively bred to produce more milk than their youngling needs. so separation is not a strict requirement ( you might lose 5 - 10% more if you just let them be.)
But when we used to own cows & goats, it was very common practice to keep the youngling tied away a few hours before milking. you can feel the pain of separation the parent goes through. ( goat and cow crying, while looking at their offspring is indeed quite sad https://www.flickr.com/photos/murfalizer/4429214117). to add insult to injury it is also common practice to tie the youngling in the line sight of the parent to milk more freely.
Yes I don't get it why milk is considered more ethically sound than eggs in my country. Milk is stolen baby food extracted industrially under not so nice conditions.
Precision-Fermented (animal-Free) milk does exist but it is not easily available.
Unfertilized eggs are products that come out anyway and cannot become a chick till it is successfully fertilized outside of the hen. Granted that these two are extracted industrially under not so nice conditions.
Just to note, eggs are not as ethical as you may assume... We have bred chickens so that they lay an unhealthy amount of eggs, which is likely a pretty stressful life experience. The original breed of bird (Red junglefowl) laid roughly a dozen eggs a year, where as modern layer hens will lay 300+. So it's not really "comes out anyway".
They often get medical conditions like Keel bone fractures and reproductive tract disease and they're also culled at around 18 months when output drops (tiny fraction of their lifespan). Oh and the male chicks don't lay, so roughly one per hen gets killed on day one.
I still think overall milk is probably worse, but plant-based is biggest win to reduce suffering overall!
Your italicised text is /exactly/ wrong. Hen eggs are fertilised inside the hen’s oviduct. I mean, eggs are somewhat porous after laying, but they’re not that porous.
(I don’t know about you. I’m just a programmer holding strong opinions about avian physiology. Maybe there’s an actual biologist on the plane who can correct me)
Oh! Thanks for correcting me. Now I learned that the egg is fertilized (if at all) before the shell is formed. The hen would lay the egg anyway fertilization or no fertilization.
Simplified egg laying are the chicken analogue to human female menstruation. It is technically quite different (chickens don’t have a uterus, for one), but it is still analogous.
For sure I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but I don't know anything screaming more "processed food" than the meat alternatives. The component list is longer than this thread, sorry I wouldn't touch that with a hundred feet pole (hyperbole mine).
This just proves you don't have a lot of knowledge about food.
First of all, there are many studies that show that plant-based meat alternatives are healthier than their meat counterparts. Just because a food is processed doesn't mean it's unhealthy. Or are you under the impresssion your sausage and burger patty are health foods?
Second, just like with non-vegan foods, there is a variety of plant-based meat alternatives: Some companies include much healthier ingredients than others.
Finally, even if it weren't for my two first points, the main goal of replacing animal meat with plant-based meat is not health, but ethics and environmental concerns (but again, it's not unhealthier).
> First of all, there are many studies that show that plant-based meat alternatives are healthier than their meat counterparts
Define healthier, and link the studies.
I eat vegetarian more often than not these days (although I don't usually use plant-based meat), and I'm not disagreeing with you. But cite your sources rather than making vague health claims.
Well, why are people who are afraid of a long ingredient lists (without understanding what the ingredients actually are) and just blurt out that vegan meats are unhealthier not asked the same?
In any case, the sister comment linked to some studies. Have a look.
Also, a simple web search will show you that many animal-based meats (such as red meat) are linked to many cancers, this is not even disputed.
Fair point, there's a lot of nutritional bunk going about. I'm not an expert either, but the Wikipedia article seems to cover the big studies that I've heard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_alternative#Health
I'm only familar with the brands in Germany unfortunately. You might have Beyond Burger available in India — not my favorite vegan burger patty, but I think it's good enough.
Is 100% taste match more important than not supporting an industry that kills Billions of animals a year and on top of that causing a huge amount of greenhouse gases and biosphere destruction?
What if it's 85% taste match, wouldn't that be enough to make the jump to plant based alternatives?
Male chicks for example get thrown in a wood chipper.
Hmm not sure. Depends on how well it is prepared. But yes, I said, there are much better brands. But the question was specifically about what's availabe in India, which I have no cllue about.
I think, in a cthullian universe, its actually very acceptable- as long as you accept the burden of upholding the habitat of the hunted. The predator is responsible for the continued existence and the thriving of the prey. So, one should sink concrete pylons with sawblades to destroy the dragnet fishing fleet.
Purity spirals are madness and a brittle luxury, edangering nature and the world, the moment the surplus financing that luxury snaps.
Stop doing it then. Often we see the logical conclusion to something, but then our brains just shrug it off and chooses ignorance. I think it is necessary at this point to find emotionally stimulating content such as videos of slaughterhouses not following regulation, this can help us come to terms with what we already know.
but I find meat and the associated horrors that come with it, to be no more or less repugnant than the broader society and industrial complex that I'm forced to be a part of.
I suppose, I personally could contribute to be one less living being suffering. but in the broader scheme of things (new wars, poverty, deaths etc.).
in a very nihilistic way, I don't see how it changes anything.
> surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.
Measured how?
It would indeed be a surprise if cows were equally emotional, smart, and curious as any other species. Equality on three different dimensions should essentially never happen.
cows might be more in some dimensions like emotion because cattle raise their young unlike octopus which doesn't . does that make the equation any easier to accept?
why is this a controversial idea? mammals indeed are smarter than mollusks (of which octopus is one).
> Compared with meat-eaters, vegetarians were more likely to have a higher educational level, whereas vegans had a lower education level
I think it’s good to question these things but the people who go full black/white on everything is where that whole movement died. Saying something strong like “eating any meat” will generally not win over hackers. But “we won’t bring cows to Mars” might work better.
I wonder how many of these "self-reported" vegans were true ethical vegans vs instgram influencer, "I eat chicken once a week" vegans.
Also, what's your point? Is there a proven direct correlation between ethics/morals and educational level? And even if there were, does that imply that this less educated group is as a whole completely wrong? And are you implying that ethics and morals were even objective and measureable? I mean, completely no idea what you are getting at here.
The linked study does show that correlation. But I personally believe it’s more of a second-order effect.
Vegetarianism selects for openness and analytical/reflective thinking but the extra step to veganism selects for absolutism/purity and rigid category-based thinking. Reflective thinking and openness are definitely correlated to IQ so I believe the result in the article.
The point here is to know your audience. The people on this site are perfectly primed to respond well to a vegetarian/environmental point of view.
Vegetarianism, in Europe at least, requires one to be open to a different diet than what one is used to, usually going against social and cultural norms due to a personal conviction that is reached by analysis and reflection, while veganism brings that to the extreme
Everyone has different ethical frameworks. The label of "extreme" is arbitrary, not objective. I'm sure you would never rape or murder someone. Does that make you an extremist? You don't think it's OK to occasionally rape and murder people right? Vegans' ethical framework is that the murder of animals is unacceptable, and so there is no middle ground. That's not extremism, it's a different framework. To frame it as a spectrum is a misunderstanding.
Pretty sure vegetarians and vegans both are against the killing of animals, so don't know what you are trying to argue. And yes it is very much a spectrum that (very roughly, and not exclusively) goes from: cannibalism -> eating animals -> eating animal derived products -> eating only vegetables and fruit -> eating only vegetable and fruit that fell to the ground without being picked.
And I find it ironic in that you are kind of proving the point, by painting it as a black and white issue. This is what the "extremism" means to me. Another form of that spectrum could be: Endangered species -> wild animals -> farmed animals. Do you think it would be as wrong to kill the last specimens of an animal that is about to go extinct as it would be to kill an animal that has been bred over thousands of years and could probably not survive in the wild on its own? While i am against all killing, when presented with this choice the answer is pretty clear to me.
And you even made a similar distinction yourself in another comment here:
>I hope people say the same about all animals, but especially mammals.
You have a conclusion that you want to defend and some biases you're unaware of, so you're also not aware how tortured this argument sounds.
Pick some other topic. For example: are people who thinkthat slavery is inherently and always wrong just stupid extremists, compared to people who accept that 'some' slavery is fine?
I feel like you're the type to walk around with calipers.
> Compared with meat-eaters, vegetarians were more likely to have a higher educational level, whereas vegans had a lower education level
this is such a... wrong conclusion to make from the study. the study has found a correlation and by no means is it a causation. there are so many cultural, societal reasons for this to be the case. (eg. in india, upper caste people are usually vegetarians who generally have more access to education.)
Dude, most of India are vegetarians. If you have seen the sanitary conditions for storing meat (or at least in 2008/2010 when I backpacked around the country), you would also become one. I certainly did.
Curries with meat were more expensive than vegetable ones in every dhaba. The bonus of not having to pick tiny pieces of meat from heap of chicken bones was a nice bonus (since touching food with hands was generally a very bad idea, sanitizer or not).
>eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat).
I think this is very wrong. Doesn't account for when you don't have a choice, to be healthy. You need to eat more, you need to consider all possible situations, construction work people need to sustain all that physical labor somehow. It's a more serious chore to even attempt to build a non meat based diet, let alone sourcing everything.
If we could have a healthy alternative that accounts for everything (taste included) then maybe you can make that argument. Until then it's quite shortsighted and ignorant.
Verfiably false statement that you need meat to do physical labor.
Lazy statement that “sourcing” a vegetarian meal is difficult.
Eating less meat is better for your health and better for the planet.
The few exceptions I think worth noting are if you were born into and continue to live in largely/culturally hunter culture (Inuit, bushmen) or where you live is not sustainable for agriculture (Tibet.)
Most folks could just cook more rice, beans, greens and be fine.
>Verfiably false statement that you need meat to do physical labor.
I don't think a lot of people like you understand the real state of things, how a lot of stuff gets done, costs and what's needed for it. One is the quick maffs you do in your head and it's a different thing how real people in real situations behave at scale. You cannot shame billions of people into not eating meat, they'll just come for you and anyone deciding it for them. You need to have a realistic alternative for it, this shaming nonsense is puerile and gets us nowhere, just allows you to finger wag from your high horse is all. I find this perspective and way to go about it extremely shallow and childish.
Interesting that you think having any drawbacks whatsoever to not eating meat is sufficient to justify eating it, I would've thought the drawbacks had to at least outweigh the suffering involved.
As compared to what, those animals never having experienced life ... at all? All farmed animals get to live and experience this place because of us. What you are fundamentally proposing is wiping them from existence, from possible existence. You cannot really argue for that without it being more goulish that you're trying to make it seem when they get turned into food. All of them die eventually, even if we don't eat them. And none would even exist if we didn't need to eat them.
So provided we offer decent conditions for their lived experience it can be a fair trade, since they wouldn't even exist in the first place. Who are you to judge if the cow thinks it's worth it or not? I mean the cow could very well go "moo yeah" if you present the deal "couple of years of grazing running around then get turned into a hamburger? Or no existence at all, what say you?"
It is not only totally possible to be vegan, but it can be more healthy too. The Acadamy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the largest org for nutritionist and dieticians in the world, have a position paper out saying that a well planned diet is appropriate for all stages of life, including pregnancy. The NHS says the same thing. We even have vegan top athletes nowadays such as Djokovic and Hammilton. You can be vegan, so any justification you bring for violence against animals is for taste pleasure, habbit, culture and just generally not having evolved nor being up to date with the science.
by design eating meat is morally questionable. (as do so many things with our modern society.)
all meat is fair game, because all animal dependent diet is questionable anyway.
Your excuse for participating in one of the most vile enterprises in human history, factory farming, is that it's too much effort to collectively figure out a less barbaric diet?
And literally no vegan has a problem with people who medically need to eat meet doing so. I own several cats, they are carnivores. The problem is scale: The fact that some people medically must eat meat does not give a free pass for apathetic barbarism to the rest of society.
Even collectively cutting out a single meat or dairy-based meal a week would contribute to a massive reduction in demand. You have no excuse. Use this energy to build a fairer world for all animals instead of using it to get defensive whenever someone brings up how massively inhumane modern factory farming is.
Please read this as an information instead of an advice
> cats, they are carnivores
Carnivores eat (mostly) meat in the wild but thrive on a vegetal kibbles diet, granted they includes the right nutrients. I get the "non natural" intuition, however that's also the case for others kibbles - from the cheapest to the best ones.
Your links go to pet food shops online that sell vegan food. How is that "veterinary recommendation"?
Giving vegan food to cats is animal abuse. If you can't stand the idea of feeding other animals to a cat, don't keep a cat as a pet. Dogs can handle plant-based (but not vegan) diets much better. There are many other animals you could keep as a pet, also. E.g. goats are vegetarian and they have strong, interesting and engaging personalities. If you want a vegan pet, get a goat.
Edit: And if you don't have enough space to keep a pet goat then you probably shouldn't be keeping a pet dog or a pet cat either. One reason people abuse the animals they keep as pets is they assume that an animal is just like a little, furry human and can thrive and be well in any condition a human can, e.g. like living in an apartment etc. This is so far from the truth it's crazy. Most people should really not keep pets.
Wrong wording, I updated it to "My veterinary recommendation".
> animal abuse
What makes you think so? Those kibbles allow happy and healthy cats while avoiding animal abuse to produce the non-vegetal kibbles. It sounds you can't stand the idea a cat thrive equally with mouses, beef/pork/tuna leftovers (+supplements) or soy/algae (+supplements), but you only provide recommendations without information to support your claim.
Benevo FAQ pages has responses to most interrogation one may have, including health and palatability: https://www.benevo.com/faq/
octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.).
sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (isolating a calf from its mom to steal its food.)
doing one or the other does not absolve us. because one is more commonly accepted than the other