Cows are suffering on even the most “humane” dairy farms
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
To produce meat you need to kill much more of the ecosystem than for vegetable option + eventually killing those animals.
The commenter is reading an article on the failure of regulation (regulating organic in such a way that as soon as any non approved treatment is used the animal cannot produce organic milk anymore, dropping the value of the cows output to a small fraction of what it was and heavily incentivizing waiting and seeing rather than minimizing harm through effective and early treatment) into a claim they know none of us should have meat when they are clearly unqualified to make that claim because they can't even read the article posted and see the regulatory failure, they just see more justification for their harebrained anti meat agenda.
Also, your last statement is not true, if you spend the time to find a good farmer. The cows I have eaten for the last ten years have been raised in the Joel salatin style, regenerating the degraded prairie the farm bought for cheap, harming very few insects,small mammals, birds, etc (in reality they are building a space that supports a much higher population of all of those), likely sequestering more carbon in the soil than they emit all for not much more than the factory farmed crap you buy at the big box store. One cow lasts almost a year for me. Contrast that with all the insects killed by pesticides, all the small animals and birds killed by farm equipment, etc. that goes into raising grains, vegetables and fruits to feed an equivalent amount of people over time. Vegans/vegetarians are mass murderers in comparison if you value more than the fuzzy large mammals and instead take a whole earth view.
The way I look at it, it’s an issue of consent. The animals can’t consent to how they’re being treated, so we shouldn’t do it. At least not in developed nations where we have so many alternatives. The idea that “free range” means it’s okay to corral these animals at will and kill them well before their natural lives just doesn’t fit for me.
Meanwhile, lentils and soybeans are amazing!
I found it easy to stop once that clicked. A moment of pleasure can’t justify the immense suffering that made it possible.
Anyone with an acre of land (i.e. most Americans that don't live in cities) has enough space to raise enough chickens to fully feed their family on eggs, or meat if they so chose.
Whether their HOAs or municipalities allow them to do so is another matter.
Chickens are very easy to raise for eggs. We have a dozen chickens who have really excellent lives, and we are overflowing with more eggs than we can eat.
I think the most hypocritical example are pets, especially dogs, which are kidnapped off their suckling mother's tit, to be handed to a human for imprinting. To the extent that catts, and other pet animals, are manufactured for consumption, the same applies to them.
People will claim these animals are "a part of their family", and that the dogs have more empathy to their problems than other people do, but still feel OK with them being stolen away from their actual families.
Go figure...
Dogs seem to genuinely love being taken into human families when there’s sufficient attention, activity, and love. I can see issues from a naturalism perspective, but I don’t personally agree with that. If the dogs are experiencing good lives and exceptional wellbeing, it seems acceptable to me.
I don’t agree with animal exploitation at all. I don’t eat meat or dairy. I think ethical pet keeping is possible, though.
In my aquarium hobby I meet people who take better care of their fish than they do of themselves. It seems to me that there are caring humans with happy animals in their lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/dining/milk-dairy-industr... | https://archive.today/RHkvs ("Big Dairy Is Trying to Get Gen-Z to Drink More Milk")
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-11/milk-over... | https://archive.today/LY5uY ("There’s So Much Milk That US Farmers Are Dumping It in the Sewer")
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/me/maine/news/2023/03/30/state... ("Portland Press Herald: State considers $5.5 million bailout for Maine dairy industry") (My note: "The heritage industry is approaching the point of no return, they warn. If it shrinks much more, the industry won't be able to support the network of fertilizer, feed and farm equipment suppliers and truck drivers needed to sustain any dairy operation.")
https://www.google.com/search?q=generational+shift+away+from...
https://www.google.com/search?q=dairy+farm+closures+us
(TLDR Farms will keep closing, demand will drop as generational turnover continues, unnecessary supply greatly exceeds demand and go forward demand trajectory)