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Comment by ciconia | Hacker News Reader

This is sickening. At the risk of starting a flame war I'll still state my opinion: the only reason for eating meat is taste. The same goes for cheese and other dairy products.

The arguments against the meat & dairy industry are well known: chronic disease, depletion and pollution of natural resources, global warming, and above all the moral argument: enslaving sentient beings is wrong.

200 years ago in the US they were breeding human slaves [1]. Today they still breed chicken slaves and cow slaves and pig slaves, selecting for higher fertility and higher production of eggs, milk and meat. Then these animals spend all their lives enslaved, from birth to death, a life of absolute misery.

I'm not saying killing animals for food is inherently a wrong act, but enslaving them sure is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_S...

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  > the only reason for eating meat is taste

I'd rather eat meat than most of the product that passes for protein in many restricted diets. Not just because of the taste.

  > a life of absolute misery.

No. Not all. Some yes, and mistreatment of animals is definitely a problem, but I can't agree with the conclusion that because some animals are mistreated, we shouldn't eat any.

I do know that the majority of the meat (beef) I eat is extremely well treated for its entire life. Yes, they are bred and grown for a purpose. Yes, it lives in a paddock and yes, we eat it. But "enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.

FWIW, I'm not from the USA, and have grown up around farms and farm animals.

(When I say "majority" above, I mean that we also buy some meat from supermarkets and I can't be totally certain of how it has been treated, but in my opinion, the vast majority of farmers treat their animals very well here.)

    "enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.

Regardless of the day to day treatment of animals (which is only even "acceptable" in a tiny minority of places[1]), they are still bred to meet our needs and killed long before the end of their natural life. You shouldn't be measuring the treatment of the animals you eat relative to awful treatment they experience elsewhere in the world, you should measure it relative to the life the animals would lead naturally [edited from "in the wild"]. Animals killed for meat are usually slaughtered very early on in their life, long before they've lived 10% of what they would live naturally [edited from "in the wild"].

[1] Factory farming is near 99% of all livestock farming in the USA.

This certainly makes me think about things. Many animals in the wild fall victim to predators (a terrible and painful death), and many die prematurely of illness and famine.

The meat I eat doesn't have those problems.

We do indeed slaughter it "as soon as it is ready" rather than at end of natural life though, it's certainly something for me to think more about.

edit: to keep it clear about where my stance comes from: we don't factory farm. The beef I'm talking about is grass reared outside in open paddocks, with additional hay during winter, salt lick, "drenched" for worms, and eaten at approximately 2 years old. They come up to "say hi" if you stand at the fence and wait quietly. They are not really exposed to dogs for rounding up.

The vast majority of farmed animals are only alive at all because they are farmed. Wild animals would not fare well - what is now farmland would be put to different use.

(I don't live in the US, and I grew up in the Irish countryside amongst the many cows in the fields.)

How comfortable is the "natural" life an animal might live? Talk to any hunter and ask what kind of animals they come across in the wild: starved, infected (parasites, bacteria, fungi), horrible injured due to a predator attack, etc.

I'd argue there is probably less suffering for farm raised animals then those in the wild.

> the only reason for eating meat is taste

While you are entitled to your opinion, be aware that your opinion is likely factually wrong.

Hunting animals for food is core to what we as humans evolved to be. The way we sweat, walk, stand, etc. all seem to have evolved to be an endurance hunter. Clearly, our evolution favored those who hunt and eat meat.

In addition, we know from those who try to avoid consuming animal products completely that you will have to supplement your diet rather stringently with some nutrients that human digestion extracts really easily from meat.

You would have much more success arguing that we eat too much meat rather than we shouldn't eat it at all.

This is a great point.

In addition, as far as I know, there were no vegetarian groups of people before religious reasons, and later ethical reasons came by.

Hunting consumes a lot of time and energy. If it was completely unnecessary, I would expect a lot of traditional societies just drop it and survive on plants.

The reality was quite the opposite - the game that hunters brought in was more valuable and sought after. That does not make sence if it was unnecessary for better health and survival.

I think what he wanted to say was "the only reason for eating meat _nowadays_ is taste." Evolution doesn't affect that.

> the only reason for eating meat is taste

I've come to the same conclusion myself, after stopping eating meat several years ago. People are addicted to the taste of meat and they eat it out of the desire for pleasure. We can have a healthy and beautiful body without eating any meat.

Sometimes I wonder, how would the world be like if people ate no meat and didn't keep billions of animals as slave prisoners ? What if people stopped killing animals for food ?

Would that affect the way that humans treat each other too ? Would people treat plants and nature differently too ? Would that be a more aggressive or a more peaceful world ? Would that affect the social structure of humans ? Would that be a more spiritually evolved world ?

....

my opinion is that we wouldn't even be here without developing animal husbandry.

In general, mistreated animals do NOT make good food products. Eg, they taste bad, and are tough, and have low yields.

I don't think the worlds problems would be solved by us not being opportunistic feeders. If you do, then you are clearly deluded.

> by us not being opportunistic feeders.

Is that the only description of "us" ?

We can be opportunistic feeders, but we can be kind and affectionate towards each other and towards other species.

Given the state of our technological development, It's now a matter of choice.

We choose to be in a certain way (eg. opportunistic feeders) according to our ideology and system of beliefs.

But technically, we don't have to do that anymore. We are now technologically advanced enough to actually be able to make that jump. Or, rather, we are ready to start making that jump and we can improve the technology until we've made it.

We have to, in order to evolve to the next level as a species...

Surely I'm deluded, but no less than people thinking that having (more) concentration camps for billions of animals is the path to a brighter future.

Again, "concentration camp" is not a suitable term for the kind of animal raising I'm talking about. Look up what concentration camps are. Then look up a picture of some healthy cows on a sunny grassy field. Not nearly the same. The vast majority of farmed animals are not mistreated. [But in saying that, I have probably drifted a little from the theme of the article, which is more about factory farming, which I'm not totally on board with]

Mistreated animals don't thrive. They don't make a good product.

We treat our animals better than some vegans treat other people, despite the fact that we eat them at the end.

Are shrimp potential slaves too? How about plankton? Insects?

If a silicon wafer becomes sentient does it become a slave?

How can you tell which is which?

Considering we are talking about life in all cases including plants I have always wondered how people draw this imaginary arbitrary line. You can't really survive without consuming living organisms, so by what criteria does consuming one become sickening?

> the only reason for eating meat is taste

It's a hell of a reason, though.

Thanks for the link to breeding human slaves article, didn't know about that.

And agree with you, that article is totally sickening and we should look beyond meat - we certainly have the brains and the tech, but not enough people are willing to kick their meat addiction or are just not aware of the destructive effect the large scale meat industry has.

You must admit though, labelling the entire gastronomic aesthetic as "taste" is almost deceptive in its ability to downplay the level to which this drives human experience and motivation.

You might as well say that the only reason we have sex is because it feels good, and while celibacy is a great policy for self mortification and moral self-superiority over the common man, it has about as much realistic place as a policy for how we should manage community sexual mores as does vegetarianism or veganism does in a discussion on meat.

Indeed, the phrase "spice of life" makes inherent reference to the importance of taste, and I do not think a world without such as a prime accessible experience is a world most want to live in.

You're right - it is sickening. And it's increasingly becoming this elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.

I used to be totally in the bandwagon of "those annoying vegans trying to make people feel bad for eating meat". Now I agree - why shouldn't you shame someone for doing something bad? Buying and consuming animal products is bad for everyone involved: bad for the person eating them, the environment and the animals. We would shame corporations for polluting the environment and we would shame a person for abusing their pets in the way factory farming does animals, so why is it ok if they do it by proxy?

I read a nutrition book called "The China Study" about 6 months ago and it was the push I needed to seriously give veganism a try. I don't deny it, I love the taste of certain meats and at times I do miss them and I do occasionally still eat fish (sushi is my favourite food).

I'm feeling better in every sense. I was surprised to see that my body composition is actually better now, even though my protein intake is markedly lower (I was 95kg and ~14% body fat before and am 87kg and ~10% now, judging BF% with calipers so not exactly precise), my weightlifting strength is up, my cardio endurance is improved, my skin is _hugely_ clearer and I anecdotally seem to have more energy - I definitely feel less lethargic after eating. My biggest concern was loss of muscle mass given lower protein intake, somehow I am looking better and feeling stronger than before. I'm eating around 3-600g of carbs per day (!) which is all coming from whole fruit and veg, which seemed totally ridiculous to me before coming from a close-to-paleo high fat high protein diet.

FWIW I'm a 22 y/o male and consume around 3-4000 cals/day and work out 5-6 times per week so YMMV.

Driving a car increases your risk of death via accident by an astronomical amount. Shame on you!

The only leg vegans have to stand on in the argument against meat is the cruelty occurring in factory farms. That cruelty isn't inherent in the process of raising and slaughtering animals though. Not to mention life in the wild can be pretty rough as well.

I don't eat for health reasons - I eat because I'm hungry and good food tastes great. Lunch and dinner are the two best parts of my day. On birthdays of myself and my partner, we go out and eat a tasting menu with matched drinks at one of London's best restaurants. On holiday, probably the most enjoyable part of the day is eating local food with local wine.

Food including meat is not something I would want to live without. Meat is one of the best reasons to be alive, from a hedonistic perspective.

Lifelong vegetarian here, and I can say from my experience I feel healthier and more fit on a mostly plant based diet, with some animal protein (eggs). I did take a year when I was 22 and experimented with eating meat, and I will still occasionally cheat and eat a bit of animal flesh here or there. Maybe not the right diet for everyone but works for me and you too it seems.

If you are a lifelong vegetarian how can you even anecdotally say you feel healthier?

Because I spent a year eating meat regularly specifically to see if I would feel healthier or perform better in exercise, and ultimately found I felt better eating mostly plants so switched back. Still eat some animals rarely so I am not a puritan veggie.

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