henryscat
Well-Known Forumite
Consumers of meat consume. They do not take the lives of others.It is separate act.
If a person consumes meat, they are responsible for the death of the animal concerned, if they consume dairy they are contributing to the death of calves and the huge emotional stress caused to cows by a calf being taken off them. The problem is the psychological separation where most people don't properly make the connection - even if in some cases they think they have.
Whilst that separation exists and continues (and it will) and is not thought about to any great extent, bacon and all other meaty food stuffs will still "taste nice".
That separation needs to be challenged... Whilst it continues people cannot and do not make objective decisions about their food. The website www.carnism.com is well worth a look and Melanie Joy's book explains the principles very well. Carnism contends that consumption of meat is an un-named ideology, which I agree with entirely. It further contends that violent ideologies rely upon ignornance to be perpetuated.
I have long held the view that that meat as a wasteful product of consumption whilst others starve is a more convincing argument as it avoids the cloudy definitions of pain, senses and animal rights.
Feed fewer animals, eat less meat, feed more people.
This is another powerful reason not to eat meat and dairy. People are starving because a minority of the world's population are stuffing themselves with meat. There are also environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas from a billion cattle, deforestation because of soya being grown to feed animals, pollution caused by soil and so on.
All of this defies logic (which comes back to the Carnism stuff) since most people do not wish to see animals suffer nor other people suffer, yet this is exactly what they contribute to through their dietary choices in eating meat and dairy.