If they kill this much chicks, why are people who choose to be vegetarian for moral/religious reasons OK with eating eggs?
As soon as it has a formed element of biological life to it, then no. I don't eat fish neither as it was alive.
Honey, milk I'm fine with it's a byproduct if sourced ethically. Unless I know the source, I won't eat it.
The problem isn't eating meat, the problem is the inhumanity caused by producing meat. We produce so much meat that we are slaughtering animals for the sake of rather than. Meat being of quality.
Having 12 McD chicken nuggets on the drive home is whats wrong. Not cooking steak from a butcher to have with wine for dinner.
Your logic is inconsistent on multiple levels. You won't eat fish because "it was alive" but accept eggs from an industry that kills hundreds of millions of male chicks. You claim honey and milk are fine as "byproducts," but this ignores how dairy cows must be forcibly impregnated, separated from their calves, and killed when production drops, while honey is literally the bees' food that we take, often killing many in the process. These aren't benign side effects - they're fundamental to how these industries operate.
You claim to only support "ethical" animal products while acknowledging industrial meat production is inhumane, yet fail to recognize that "ethical" animal agriculture is simply not scalable to feed the global population. These distinctions you're making (McD's vs butcher, etc.) are arbitrary moral lines that serve more to make you feel better about your choices than to address the fundamental ethical issues. After sharing your perspective on these broader ethical concerns, falling back to "it works for me and my family" isn't a meaningful response to systemic issues affecting billions of beings.
Milk comes from cows that had their calves slaughtered (maybe a little bit of it comes from cows that already weaned their calves?). Unfertilized eggs come from chickens that were bred for the explicit purpose of popping them out one after the other.
There are people who don't eat meat, but drink milk (dairy industry is horrific too) or eat egg based products (cakes etc). There are people who classify honey as an animal product and there are people who disagree.
> each to their own
So while I generally agree with this, is it fair to say it when it doesn't apply equally for all sentient life—or is it just convenient?
> There are people who classify honey as an animal product and there are people who disagree.
This really isn't subjective.
In my previous job someone new asked me about my diet. I responded vegan and another colleague exclaimed : YOU’RE NOT VEGAN YOU GOT PETS!! (Two rabbits in whole garden free range with their own-dug-house). I’m not sure if he was right about the definition but fore sure that was correlated: my garden _is_ a (big) cage/prison/limit. However the way he said it triggered my defence mode[0] and it took me months to process the message.
Consider also cobalt associated with slavery. From the view of biologist and most vegans, humans are animals and then cobalt consumption problematic (it’s used in many tech, not just smartphones).
I also occasionally wash my hand in public places with probably animal sourced soap and yes it’s for convenience as for cobalt and my pets.
_Anyone_ allow themselves to slightly bend their ethics to not becoming mad. From the "only-good-meat" eater that don’t restrain for the (probably industrial) delicatessen slice during a wedding cocktail. To the vegan that use electronic devices or feed his cat with animal products.
I’m a rational guy and hate seing those irrational behaviors everywhere including myself, but pointing others wrongness is often inefficient to pass a message, if not counter productive.
[0] Here’s a masterpiece if you don’t know it yet: https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/conflict/media/gibb-defensive...
All those assertions said lol, I’m quite bad at communicating and the best behavior I found is to never ever engage myself a conversation about veganism or ethics, I just wait for questions and respond with neutral and concise terms. Often the interlocutor gets curious and ask more details and I believe there’s more chance he update his opinion by himself than me teaching him.
> but I draw the line at tolerating vegetarian ethics
Which reads for my as not accepting the existence of it, which sounds a bit absurd. Flat earth theory exist even if it’s silly. You may have used tolerate in the sense of approve or consent I guess.
> it's not merely a personal choice when it affects others' wellbeing.
I agree this is problematic for the victims which usually doesn’t get to participate in that choice. It’s not fair. But I believe it is a personal choice, constrained by societal statu quo (or you get trouble) even if irrational, silly or awful. Some countries prefer maximizing freedom or tradition over fairness or minimizing victims.
You should work on that, I guess?
As someone who has actively tried to minimize my contribution for more than 25 years, I feel quite strongly that vegetarianism is a net negative in terms of progress on this cause.
> kill
This is the part everyone seems to get incensed over, but for me this is actually the highlight. I guess it's difficult for people to accept that their grocery shopping habits contribute to what is essentially billions of individual lives not worth living.