The Price We Pay for Cheap Meat
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There is a lot of respect for the animal and we treat every square centimeter of edible meat with the utmost care. It's quite a strange sensation to be working so hard (it's extremely heavy and time consuming to field dress such a large animal) but have this feeling that it's the right thing to be doing. Somehow, I know my ancestors have been doing this for tens of thousands of years.
When I cook at home I make certain that every plate is eaten or saved for leftovers. I would never let someone simply scrape that into the trash, as I might have done when buying shrink wrapped meat from Safeway.
It's a highly rewarding and enlightening process which I highly, highly recommend to anyone that eats meat.
UPDATE: I've been putting the finishing touches on a blog entry about this experience and photos from my first moose hunting trip.... I'll try to have it done later today, the post will be at the top of http://theroadchoseme.com when it's done.
A: THEY'LL TELL YOU.
(full disclosure: married to a vegan, I couldn't resist)
You said you're married to a vegan, suggesting you're not vegan yourself. So by you're statement you're not truly aware of what you're eating? Or are you vegan as well?
I think that their veganism is part of a broader health consciousness, where they most likely pay more attention to their nutrition and exercise than do the average "morbidly obese guy" in Northern NJ. I've no doubt that if they were to practice a similar lifestyle but include meats they would look and be equally healthy.
And for an equally anecdotal counterpoint: look up Crossfitters and the paleo diet, of which meat makes up a key proportion.
Morbid obesity is likely due to overeating plant-based carbohydrates. Hi Fructose corn syrup is basically vegetarian. As are Pringles and coke. Doritos and guacamole. Don't forget Beer and Margarits! Snickers really satisfies your vegetarian cravings too. Nuttella tastes great but is mostly hot choclate made with palm-oil rather than milk, which makes is closer to a vegan health-food, but there are traces of powdered milk in it. Pop-tarts are a great vegetarian breakfast, too at 400 calories per pack. Not to mention the greatest caloric density in snack foods, the humble almond at 180 cal/oz. You can find those in your grocer's health-food isle, tho. Not too far away from the 250 calorie cliff bars and the the sucrose loaded "vegetarian" gatorade. =D
There are a lot of problems with pushing an agenda as extreme as veganism. It defines itself prohibitively, instead of positively. It says "I don't eat meat" instead of "I eat vegetables". That's off-putting and turns the conversation quickly into one about absolutes and morality. I think that's a super high-cost, high-friction path to changing behavior from a practical standpoint.
Further, I worry about the constant association with veganism and health. It's far from my field of expertise but it seems to quickly lead to pretty boolean discussions about whether meat is good or bad for you, and those discussions don't resolve very clearly. I'd rather we talk more often about the fact that the modern meat and dairy industries are completely and irrefutably destructive to the planet.
[Edit: See Zike's excellent response to your comment for a perfect example of what I'm talking about above.]
I know vegans who have resorted to just saying they have allergies, because it's easier than dealing with how poorly people treat them for simply not choosing to eat certain things.
If there was a population that arbitrarily decided to stop wearing underwear and came to me and constantly announced that they are underwear free and told me that wearing underwear was morally wrong and constantly chastised me for it, I'd think they'd be treated in much the same way.
My brother is vegetarian, and bordered on vegan for a few years, my girlfriend is the same, and before hunting I was eating meat maybe once a week or two.
Going into the first hunt, I said to myself "if you can't handle this, then you should stop eating meat". The first time it was a little gruesome and shocking, but it was a fantastic learning experience and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I found the experience it very self-illuminating, the hypocrisy of will-not-kill-but-will-eat-from-store became much more focused.
The experience of hunting wildly varies. I've had one or two gut-wrenching bad shots, hitting the animal in the leg then having to track it down and end it. Most of the time, the animal is dead before the sound of the shot reaches them, before which they were blissfully grazing.
Regardless of the experience, you reflect on what you've just done far more than when you buy meat on a shelf.
I think the main problem here is that when some people have an experience they find illuminating, their reaction is to look down on other people who do not share the newly acquired viewpoint.
I highly disagree.
Why would wearing a leather jacket make me a hypocrite? It's very much possible to raise and butcher an animal humanely, and still enjoy its meat and leather.
So far I've been involved in 4 moose, 3 bison and a few sheep. Because the animals are so large, and we're often in extremely remote places making recovery a challenge, we won't take a shot unless we know it's a good one. So far I've never seen an animal take more than 1 step after the first shot, though we usually unload on it to kill it as quickly as possible. I only shoot a 30/.06 180grain which is the minimum legal for bison, so unloading quickly is a good idea.
> Regardless of the experience, you reflect on what you've just done far more than when you buy meat on a shelf.
Absolutely, which I think is the most important part. Every time I unwrap some meat from the freezer I can't stop the memories flooding into my mind of how it looked standing up, how we butchered it, how back breaking the work was, and how hard it was to canoe/hike/whatever out of there with it. Amazing.
* Will you only cook what you kill?
* If not, will this experience change the type of meat you purchase? (e.g., free range only)
* Have you or will you now cook offal?
* Will you only cook what you kill?*
Yep. I have only eaten meat and fish that I (or my close friends) have hunted for the last ~2.5 years. We get a Moose every year, we've gotten a few bison, I go salmon fishing lots.
* If not, will this experience change the type of meat you purchase? (e.g., free range only)*
It's been so long since I even looked at meat for sale, I honestly couldn't tell you how much it even costs. I buy free-range eggs, and prefer local when I can find it.
* Have you or will you now cook offal?*
We always keep (and cook) the heart, a friend keeps (and cooks) the liver. So far, I have not kept or eaten anything else. I'm not against the idea, it's not something I've explored or learned about. I have kept a few of the hides, but getting them tanned is wickedly expensive and I don't have much use for them. I try to give them away.
First of all, the animal couldn't care less if someone treats its corpse with respect--it's already dead, so I don't see how the animal benefits from this. Second, I'd say that the negative effects on the killer's mind from the act of killing far outweigh any positive effects from mindfulness in handling food produced from the kill.
Killing desensitizes, you become accustomed to taking life from another sentient being. The meat industry is likewise taking care to use every edible part of the animal, they're not producing any waste as far as that goes. Further, I don't think eating everything in the plate is making any measurable difference in terms of total meat consumed (if that's the implicit idea behind this). It's like the “think about the starving children in Africa” routine, which never made sense: people in Africa aren't starving because kids in the West aren't eating their whole dinners, and what good does cleaning the plate (i.e. making the food gone) do to remedy the situation. :)
> It's a highly rewarding and enlightening process which I highly, highly recommend to anyone that eats meat.
The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is I just can't see anything enlightening, let alone rewarding, in a process which necessitates killing other sentient beings. Of course, there is absolutely no doubt that hunting is infinitely more ethical than what is being done by the meat industry. It's really incomparable, so if you have to eat meat do take care it's from a reasonable source like hunting or “organic” (I hate that word) farming. However, that likely doesn't scale at all at the current levels of population. In my mind the best thing to do would be to just stop killing animals for food.
Some time ago I came across this interesting Youtube video[0] but never got around to post it here, and this discussion reminded me of that[1]. Basically, this guy (a Theravada monk) summarizes almost perfectly what I'm trying to say. Because of the horrible things industrial meat production does, I can't quite agree with him that it's OK to buy meat in the supermarket (as long as you're not specifically desiring meat), but otherwise I think he is spot on.
Do I think hunting is the ultimate answer? No.
Will I hunt for the rest of my life? No.
Right now, I'm learning a lot and my awareness and perspective continues to grow and change almost daily. When I stop learning, I'll likely stop hunting.
I was never much fond of killing animals for food, but what ultimately compelled me to go vegetarian was an article similar to this[0] I have read many years ago. I always “knew” this is what's happening in the animal derived food industry, but somehow reading that with all the depictions stuck some cord in the emotional and moral part of my mind and I decided to simply stop eating meat from that moment on. It was remarkably easy for me once I had that moment of “illumination” (for a lack of a better word), I've never had any desire to try meat since then (although I've tried one small piece of meat several years ago just to see what will happen--nothing, complete indifference). But, I haven't gone further, I haven't even tried being vegan. Although I understand the vegan argument, and agree with it in principle on an intellectual level, but that emotional part of the experience leading to moral commitment, that spark is missing (there's also the practicality angle, I live in a culture that's not really conductive to being vegetarian, let alone vegan, eating out can be a bit complicated sometimes).
So there, I just wanted to share my experience of learning (and I still am). I understand what you're saying when it comes to changing perspectives.
[0] In a magnificent anarchist magazine, The Match, self printed (non digital, on a Linotype machine IIRC) and published by Fred Woodworth[1], a great anarchist and an amazing individual in general. I had to take this opportunity to mention The Match (I consider it a form of community service to HN, a lot of people here might like to know of this) because it's severely disproportionally unknown in comparison to its quality (in large part because of some of Fred's uncompromising stances on publishing and printing).
That's the problem with axioms.
Edit: Not going to be acceptable as an alternative to animal cruelty to the American public. I think that is pretty objective in terms of what is actually feasible through legislation/cultural change.
If you are disgusted by the reality presented in the article, then its incumbent upon you to find an alternative you find more humane.
Cruelty to animals/non-vegetarianism/humane treatment of animals etc. are all highly subjective and personal choices. You won't find all the easy answers in one article.
1. What makes you think this is the worst case? (That is, not comparable to the average case.)
2. Why is it unacceptable to stop eating meat or drinking milk?
The fact that in all cases, animals are born (without choice) into captivity, for the purpose of having their life exploited or ended, is one of the most compelling reasons you should consider your consumption of meat and whether it's really worth it.
Kindly explain to us all how "eating meat" and the suffering that inevitably accompanies it is necessary or even desirable.
In other words, bullshit. Are you really trying to convince us that because some large number of people want to mindlessly eat meat, nothing can be done?
;)
I've been reading your posts and I can't help but notice that you sound like someone who just started taking 'Philosophy 101: Introduction to Logic' in college.
I don't mind a salad, but we are omnivores and I have no issue eating meat (or byproducts like milk and cheese). I rather enjoy being at the top of the food chain.
There is nothing wrong with enforcing humane treatment and handling of animals. I think THAT is a very valid cause to fight for. Animals do deserve to live comfortably without the idiocy that they are somehow people too.
Eating meat = Suffering is every bit as stupid as Guns = Violence. It's all about doing stuff responsibly.
In other words, more complete illogical bullshit.
The question remains: if eating meat is not necessary for nutrition, and it (killing animals) causes unnecessary suffering, then tell us again what argument you have other than the utter brilliance of "it tastes good"?
Maybe you could explain to us all how taking life unnecessarily somehow does not equal suffering in your little snowflake dream world. Maybe you could explain to us all why adults (top of the food chain, eh ominivore?) shouldn't eat children if they meet your gourmet taste test, eh sport?
Explain to us all again how taking life unnecessarily is "responsible". I'm not aware of any legitimate ethical codes that would align with that particular thinking, but perhaps yours is special.
1: Here's a direct link to the actual report so you don't come off as someone who gets his information from tabloid newspapers: http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/Fishy_Business_updated...
So it goes with farming. However having grown up around this industry I do know that farmers themselves do not tolerate suffering of animals in their care, and regardless if they are dairy or meat, they are in your care. You are also on the lookout for conditions that will get you fined or shutdown.
So my bias when it comes to this article is this, if the evidence is so convincing then where are the inspectors? Where is the government? Surely something so exaggerated must deserve immediate attention!
Sadly, considering the names of some of involved organizations I dismiss their stories immediately. Especially anyone dealing with PETA and similar. Groups whose only interest is headlines and are more than willing to ignore abuses to animals in government run shelters, if not their own run facilities.
The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing can be considered morally worse than killing.
This does not make it right for a human to deliberately cause harm to an animal for pleasure or entertainment. I also would consider trophy hunting to be immoral if one leaves the body to rot.
Why?
They are different things that inflict a different amount of suffering and distress on a creature capable of feeling suffering and distress.
He said that these cows have exactly one bad day in their lives, as they spend their entire lives with their mothers in grassy pastures.
I know it's considered a failing of hn that commenters tend to attack the style rather than the content, but here the style is aggressively designed to provoke a particular reaction. I find that pretty insulting to the readers: "Don't bother to make up your own mind, let the sounds of dripping shit do it for you!"
It's the multimedia equivalent of Taibbi's expletive-laced purple prose.
I'm about 1 more story from just flagging these from HN because the discourse on these subjects is as predictable and brain dead as a Daring Fireball discussion.
Whatever your opinion on eating animals is, where our food comes from is a discussion that needs to be had. We need less of Stallman and Bitcoin.
This is an issue that people feel strongly about, in both directions. Both sides make all kinds of strange claims sometimes but there is good stuff there too.
I think the widely varying level of argument shows that this is an infant discussion that needs to mature. It is only going to do that if we keep talking about it.
It's fascinating to see that people who want to eat meat are okay with the fact that we're so detached from what it actually is. The objectification of everything in this world is definitely playing a part in this, we just remove the moral context of the products we buy so we don't have to think about it, problem solved.
I eat meat, but I am struggling with where I buy it, what I pay for it and how much I eat it.
I recommend reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffran Foer, where he leaves the decision up to you but is providing you with interesting thought experiments (why not eat dog meat?) and information so you can make up your own mind. It is unfortunately written about the American meat industry, I'd love to see exposure like that on European countries as well.
I used to love bacon / pork, but cannot eat that stuff anymore after reading about how toxins are formed / retained in the meat.
The only beef I eat is grass-fed pasture raised - no hormones or antibiotics.
My opinion is that you pay for your health one way or the other, either in preventing illness or after you become ill, there is no escaping the high cost of staying healthy in western, urban centers.
You can go largely vegetarian, eating meat only rarely. But you have to take care that your diet is balanced.
It's also a great way to save energy. I recall reading once that going even mostly vegetarian saves more energy than trading in a Hummer for a Prius.
It's not a US or EU or CN thing. It's a feeding 6-billion+ people on-the-cheap thing.
If the world consisted of 100 million people, and everyone one wanted to eat half a kilo of meat per day, there would be little problem satisfying that need without a FIC.
The problem is the anonymity of meat that is sold in grocery stores. You literally have no idea where your meat came from, how it was treated, how it was raised. Organic/free-range labels give you a little bit more info, but not a lot.
Improved labelling would go a long way toward solving this problem for me. Perfect world: I'd like to be able to scan a barcode or QR code or something and see a basic chain of custody. Where the animal was raised, where it was slaughtered, where the meat was packed, etc.
* EDIT: typo.
So...yeah chickens don't fly.
Otherwise this article is good. There's a lot to be said for responsible consumption.
Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although lighter birds are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens may occasionally fly briefly to explore their surroundings, but generally do so only to flee perceived danger.
So…yeah chickens do fly short distances, unless they weigh too much.
The point is, since these two similar species have similar flight habits, and one of them is not domesticated, it's misleading for the editors to say "domestic chickens are not capable..." as if there were some ancient ancestor chicken that soared with the eagles.
Found it wasn't possible.
- There were no expensive ready meal options at my local supermarket - Labeling contains no information about what kind of environment animals are brought up in
Solution: - Enforce labeling about environment animals are kept in - More NGOs need to take initiative to make it easier to access information - e.g. packaging should tell me name of factory meat was made in. I should be able to go online and view (ideally) live webcams for welfare and if not at least periodic photos of all areas where animals are 'processed'
Ultimately I wish I had the will power to turn fully vegetarian but my issue isn't with eating meat as such - more that I don't want to be a part of any operation that kills animals en masse and I hate words like 'processed' being associated with my food and live animals.
Working post, feel free to build on it.
I think you know why. :)
>Ultimately I wish I had the will power to turn fully vegetarian
The way I started (I'm a veggie now) is not to fully eliminate meat completely for your diet, but just 1 day a week.
The way to look at it is not that you're missing out on meat for 1 day, but as an opportunity to try out non-meat options.
Here's some suggestions: go to a middle eastern place and order falafel wraps, or tofu next time you go to a Chinese place. Also there's lots of Indian food that's veggie friendly. i.e. Indulge your palette in food that you generally wouldn't try. You might like it!
My issue is that when you're traveling or you just come across a really tasty meat dish, that's when I lack the willpower to be 100% vegetarian.
So all in all, I eat far less meat than the average person and I have cut down intentionally but I am not vegetarian all of the time.
If you believe those statements, it stands to reason, the only thing these companies will ever respond to is competition. I think PETA, HSUS, and the over activists need to stop focusing on trying to get these companies to do the right thing because they never will when profit is their motivator.
We also know the demand for meat is going to remain high in perpetuity. What the activists need to focus on is a model which can compete and is humane enough for their standards. Yes, the activists need to turn into farmers or at least partner with farmers willing and able to scale up to the size of these meat companies. They need to put them out of business; or make consumers not want to do business with them, by giving consumers another option (trying to expose them, and shame consumers for eating meat will never scale).
So, start a farm. Innovate on every process so that it's humane and cost effective. Focus on scale, without scale you can never compete or put a meaningful dent in their market share. Maybe it is never as cheap as the other guys, but it's better - and you can sell that. It will be a slow difficult battle, but I think the activists are used to that. Over time, you can create a "PETA approved" meat stamp, market that to consumers, and much like the "organic" movement - a great deal of people will be willing to pay for what is better.
As for vegan vs. meat. Well, few things in life have more evidence than the support provided by millions of years and thousands of species who would not have survived had they not used other species' meat for food, for energy and nutrition. The species that did evolve to survive on plants (cows, for example) have radically different anatomy and mechanisms evolved over millions of years of adaptation to that diet.
We are meat eaters. More accurately, we are omnivores. The only reason one could even consider going vegan is that we've industrialized food production and distribution.
Drop two people on an island. One of them is constrained to eating plants while the other is able to eat anything, including any animal, plant and even his left foot. Over time the vegan will either get horribly sick and maybe even die. In addition to that, he would have to devote huge chuncks of the day to finding vegan food. The omnivore could easily ingest all the energy and nutrients needed to function at a high level of exertion for a full day during one meal. One could focus most of his time trying to get off the island while the other has to focus on eating constantly.
Here's another way to look at it. Veganism can be hypocritical in that one's ability to choose this approach would not exist without millions of years of eating meat. You are who you are and you exist because our ancestors, including your parents, grandparents, etc. killed and ate meat. A vegan is only possible because of millions of years of eating meat. Our species would not exist without eating meat.
Yet another view is that millions of meat eaters make veganism possible.
The vast majority of the people in a vegan's food supply chain are almost guaranteed to be meat eaters. How much of a hypocrite does someone have to be to rationalize eating vegan when tens of thousands of meat eaters --killing and eating hundreds of thousands of animals-- are quite literally feeding them their vegan diet. A vegan who makes sure their entire food supply chain is vegan is, of course, being absolutely honest in support of their choice.
Really? I think a lot of these decent/moral farmers are getting replaced by huge corporations that are only interested in profit.
>Drop two people on an island.
Sigh This point is taking it to an extreme. Yes, I'm a veggie/vegan becz of the environment I'm in. Put people on an island and most likely everyone will turn into a raving beast (aka Lord of the Flies).
>The omnivore could easily ingest all the energy and nutrients needed to function
Are you some crazy survivalist? I would guess not. Also most of the (let's say US) population couldn't survive. Most people get their meat from fast food restaurants or else packaged in a supermarket.
Scenario, you land on a desert island. You don't have a gun or a knife. You think the mass population could trap and kill a wild pig? You need training to do something like that. Even something smaller like a wild bird or some sort of rodent is not easy.
Then there's the question of having to cook it. Do you think most of the population can start a fire without matches?
Still, both people would be handicapped in different respects. How many vegans can climb trees and identify the various edible species of plant life on an island. I'll tell you one thing, the idea of having to live off plants in the wild scares me. Unless you happen to come upon something like an apple, orange, fig or other recognizable tree you are screwed. The guy in the Survivorman show makes it look easy, but he has an army of consultants preparing him before each trip. That's how he knows that a specific grass is edible and that the root of a given plant is good food. Without that most city dwellers would not know what to do with most vegetation on an island. You could easily kill yourself if you eat the wrong plant.
In that sense meat is easy. So long as the animal doesn't kill you first and you clean and cook it you are generally pretty safe.
An omnivore can eat anything, ants, grubs, bugs of all kinds, worms, snakes, lizards, crabs, rabbits, rats, etc. You just have to be smart enough to make a trap and a fire. Find a reasonably flat rock, heat it up and use it to cook. I think most people who have watched a little television can figure out how to do that, particularly when coupled with the intense need to survive. Making fire isn't easy. I've done it. I failed miserably a bunch of times before I got it. My hands were shredded, but I did it. If you are not injured and persevere it isn't impossible. It can be painfully hard, but not impossible.
the reality is that a lot of people still struggle to survive like other animals, and it can be brutal.
Given the volume and nature of advice in the vegan community for how not to hurt yourself eating as a vegan, I would say that "easy" or "healthy" is not a word that could be reasonably associated with a sustained, long-term vegan diet.
Even long-term vegans have difficulty in getting complete nutrition on their diet which is offered almost by default in a basic omnivorous diet.
Like I said, it's depressing how much ignorance is thrown around here on this topic.
You over estimate the difficult, yes it's a little more work.
Heck you can say the same thing about the current US omnivorous diet. Most omnivores have problem getting sufficient nutrition (in the form of fruits, veg and Vit.D) in their diet. It's not that they can't get it, it's just that they are a little lazy.
Tip to Vegans: for B12 put nutritional yeast on your popcorn... kinda tastes like cheese and super nutritious and delicious!
Tip to vegans: Hey! I thought you were going to have at least a little popcorn with that.
Thanks for pointing that out and it's really what I meant. My Mrs loves her popcorn this way (although she eats meat).
Citation please? I've looked into this subject pretty intensely over the last decade or so and know of no controlled studies (or even poorly done observational studies) that demonstrate this in the least. The only place I've ever even seen this claim is on vegan advocacy forums as unsubstantiated claims or in studies of nutrition absorption problems as a general factor in the elderly. The amount of animal meat needed for full dietary B12 is actually shockingly small. A few grams a week. And it's water soluble so you just piss out any that's not used.
On the contrary I've read several studies that show that in the study populations, up to 92% of the vegans in the population were B12 deficient.
In another a little over 50% of vegans were deficient, while less than 10% of vegetarians and a single omnivore were B12 deficient.
I know of no studies where the studied, randomly sampled, vegan population was not majority B12 deficient.
In other studies that look for it, elevated methylmalonic acid (associated with B12 deficiency) was found in the vast majority (over 80%) of vegans while only 5% of ominivores and 68% of vegetarians. In the same study almost 70% of vegans were diagnosed with Hyperhomocysteinemia (caused by sustained deficiencies in B-vitamin groups or chronic alcoholism) while less than 20% of the omnivores were.
The most effective and reliable treatment for Hyperhomocysteinemia is a regular omnivorous diet of meat and eggs with a cure rate of nearly 100%.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/2/693S.full
"Vitamin B12 deficiency is a common but under-recognized, yet easily treatable disorder in older adults. Although several causes exist, food-cobalamin malabsorption is now believed to be the most common etiology."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12650116
Older adults because it can take 20 years+ for deficiencies to become apparent.
http://chriskresser.com/b12-deficiency-a-silent-epidemic-wit...
I'm looking for non-elderly studies, who, because of general age-related issues suffer from all-around nutritional deficiencies. In other words, we already know old people are sick in a variety of ways, I'm challenging you to support your claim, directed to non-vegans that
> you too, are likely to be running a vitamin B12 deficiency
I want to say it's absurdly untrue and laughable on its face, but I'm willing to eat my words if you can produce a couple independent studies that demonstrate your claim without citing some unattributed nonsense from veganforum.com or other rubbish filled site.
Pretty much agree, but the kinds of nutrition omnivores lack are absurdly easy to get even by accident.
But then again, you had to put a nutritional tip in your post which is a perfect exemplar of what I was talking about. Considering how small a percent of the population Vegans are (1-3% I believe), the amount of nutritional advice available and needed by the average vegan to sustain such a diet is...voluminous to put it mildly.
Socially, it's also highly irritating to be around. Since most Vegans are converts to the life-style, it's like any other recent convert to a chosen life-style (religion, fitness, chosen computer platform, etc.), endlessly inserting it into every conversation and constant moral chastisement to self-justify the difficulties of their chosen life-style to those that honestly don't care in the least and have better things to do with their time.
It's more complex than that.
Every time I sit down to eat in a social situation, everyone around me is fishing for small talk to make. So, they comment what I order, and want to hear all about it. Since I've had this conversation a thousand times before (at least), I'm sick of it, but also well versed in any responding to anything they say.
It's also stressful, because many times I've had to play this game, people will say patently offensive things - sometimes obliviously so, and sometimes because they genuine assholes. Either way, it slowly sticks to your psyche
So, I'm making small talk, on a topic, which makes me feel bad, that bored me to tears long, long ago, and has marked me as a permanent outsider in more than one situation. And this is while my erstwhile friends sit around chewing on a steaming piece of something that I could have easily made friends with too.
So, I'm not at my best.
Even as a veggie (and vegan dabbler) I 100% agree that these types of people are annoying and I avoid them. Generally I avoid talking about it the same way I avoid what colour underwear I'm wearing. :)
If you genuinely feel bad about what you are doing, I would suggest a two pronged approach: try and incorporate more kinds of vegan foods in your diet over time and educate yourself on a visceral level on the nastiness that is the food industry: watch the videos made inside slaughter houses and feedlots. Having options will make you want those options, and seeing the unhappiness that is actually going into your sausage will make you >feel< differently about the sausage, rather than just knowing that it's wrong.
I was vegetarian for 10 years before going vegan (vegan for 10, now), so I'm the last person to point fingers at people taking the slower road. That said, the selections and choices available (at least in western countries) today were inconceivable back when I became vegan ten years ago. It's the promised land!
The social part (ie, people being shitty, every dinner conversation revolving around what I just ordered, etc,etc) is always the hardest, still as hard today as it was then. Sure, people are more tolerant of dietary differences, but for the same reasons, they are also more full of dietary scientism (Soy gives you man boobs. Wheat gluten is a radioactive GMO byproduct. By eating locally, no cows were harmed in the creation of this steak.)
Killing animals may still be acceptable in western society, but it's wrong. It's wrong just as slavery in the United States in the 18th and 19th century was once acceptable but wrong. Just as hanging, drawing and quartering to an audience of thousands in Europe was acceptable but wrong.
To disregard the pain and suffering of animal persons without regard for their interests - just because they're not human, is a form of racism. Peter Singer[1] calls it 'speciesism'.
We don't need technological advances in this society as much as we need advances in morality.
I believe that you can eat meat, provided that animals live in a decent,stress-free environment. I know it's very hard to find meat that carries any sort of a guarantee on it,but at least here in EU "free range" and "organic" mean something that is legally enforceable, so every time I buy chicken/beef/pork that is organic I hope that these animals were kept in good conditions.
I do feel sorry for the American readers,for whom the meat industry is just a massive black box with no way of finding out what is going on - and I genuinely believe that if I lived in America, I would have stopped eating meat too,for that very reason.
Would it be moral to kill you if I'd let you live in a decent, stress-free environment before your death?
Would it be moral to raise human children, give them a nice childhood and then kill them before they reach adulthood because they're super tasty then?
I'm not saying I agree (or don't) with GP, just noting that you missed his point.
Fact is: people eat meat. People will continue to eat meat, that's not something that's going to change (in the short term, anyway). Given that, how can we improve the treatment of these animals?
I feel that equating eating meat with murder is just sacrificing the good for the perfect.
Lets find a way to give consumers better choice. We should be aware of the treatment of the meat we consume (and articles like these are helpful in that sense), and we should be able to make purchasing choices on that basis. We should be able to buy ethically raised / humanely slaughtered meats at the grocery store.
Slavery was a "world reality" too. Would you have suggested a compromise instead of just banning slavery?
I do not find them equal - I find animals worth carrying about, I would like them to have decent lives, but ultimately - they are food and if they are killed quickly and painlessly then I don't have a problem with it.
We're essentially food too, so it'd be okay to kill and eat you.
But human society as a whole has moved on from the practice of cannibalism.
Only we have laws that prevent you for doing so, and a culture that says it's bad. Otherwise, have a go at it.
Canibals, which lack such laws and culture are totally fine with eating other people.
(At least in Papua New Guinea - other regions YMMV)
Edit: In the US, a lot of how cruelty is valued is based on how alike the animal is to us. Mammals get more attention than birds, which get more attention than fish. There is a hierarchy and I think it's based on how closely the animal resembles us, a part of which is the capacity for pain and suffering.
Who thinks that? Is it true or you'd just like to think it that way?
It isn't even relevant. We're talking about meat here. Animals made of meat have the same capacity for experiencing pain and self-awareness. Animals want to live and try avoid death. Even mosquitoes.
> Animals made of meat have the same capacity for experiencing pain.
This is what I don't see as a clear and obvious truth. You shouldn't get on my case for throwing something out there without any kind of validation and then do the same thing yourself.
So their nervous system and brain pain centers (which look just like ours), the physical reaction to pain, the chemical reaction to pain (stress, releasing adrenaline...) and all the death avoidance... that's just a ploy?
I'm not sure about mosquitoes, but I'm pretty sure meaty animals do feel pain.
That's a tautology. It doesn't tell us anything.
The real question is, what makes EVERY killing wrong?
Are you wrong for taking antibiotics? If not, why not? After all "killing is killing".
Are you a murderer for killing a mosquito? Why not? Since, you know, "killing is killing".
Should a lion be punished for eating an antelope? Why not? After all, "killing is killing".
Should a man that caught 10 fish be put to prison for life, just the same as a man that killed 10 people? If not, why, since "killing is killing"?
Perhaps you were wrong, and now you see that not all killing is equal?
Indeed, you're a murderer for killing a mosquito without a reason.
About the lion/fishing analogies, bringing law here doesn't make sense. Law is an artificial system. Punishment is essentially arbitrary. Both the lion and the fisher are essentially murderers anyway, regardless of their punishment.
---
After some downvotes I think I have to say this again: I don't hold these views and acknowledge it's a muddy topic, but you can't ignore these facts! These are legitimate points. I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
My personal opinion is: the lion would eat you. The mosquito would eat you (if it could). That's just how nature works.
But then again, killing another person is just how nature works too, right? I eat meat and will eat meat forever, though I can't help but feel like such an hypocrite for doing so while condemning murdering people.
Not killing people is just an implicit agreement. I won't kill you if you don't kill me. It's not "morally good" or "morally bad", not killing other people is just convenient! The punishment for murder is just the punishment for breaking this agreement.
I fail to see the hypocrisy. You condemn murdering people because a) they are your OWN kind, and b) they have brains capable of writing HN posts.
How about just constraining our moral obligation to just: don't eat/murder your own kind?
Let's get to that first, abolishing capital penalty, war, murder and such, and then we can worry about eating steaks and/or prawns...
That second example is more akin to taking antibiotics. If we accept that killing microbes is wrong, and accept your argument that using antibiotics is moral because it's legitimate self-defense, we have a problem. Antibiotics kill a lot more than just the invading bacteria. So does radiation and chemotherapy. In fact, they kill a lot of microbes who live in a symbiotic relationship with me and live in my body because they help me break down food or fight infections.
The point is, things are a lot more complicated than simply saying that all forms of killing are immoral. At some point we have to accept that there is an ordering of life forms, and killing some of them to save ourselves is acceptable. If we don't, using antibiotics, chemotherapy, radiation, or other similar forms of care crucial to modern medicine is immoral. Once we accept that not all killing is wrong, it becomes an issue of line-drawing.
Many Americans (in the fly-over states) have access to local butchers that can drive you to the actual field where the animal lived.
We recently bought a side of beef for the family from one of these shops. There are eight within a day's driving distance to me (midwest Illinois). I know the first name of the young man that bottle fed and raised the hamburgers I eat.
A majority of individuals in the communities near my home purchase their meat (beef and pork at least) this way. There are other options for people, they are just more expensive, or are perceived as being more expensive.
Please don't lump the entire country into one box. Do you realize how many people there are in the US, or how very large this country is?
That means that even less of the country is ignorant about the source of their meat than you would think, but not everyone is in a position to be able to do something about it. Many of us don't have the options available to you, and if we did and we all chose the most ethically sourced options available, the prices would either be astronomically high or the previously ethical source companies would have to resort to less ethical measures to be able to keep up with demand.
Do we just ignore that? Genuinely curious.
Animals kill other animals, only when they are hungry. They also don't raise animals in a confined, cruel environment, pump them with drugs, don't beat them, treat them like crap etc. Humans do all of these. Animals also don't waste - every inch of meat is eaten, while we liberally waste.
False. I've seen cats killing birds and then not eating them many times.
> They also don't raise animals in a confined, cruel environment, pump them with drugs, don't beat them, treat them like crap etc.
Strawman. He didn't say that we should treat animals like crap. It is possible to treat animals well, except for the killing part, and that's what this discussion is about.
> Animals also don't waste - every inch of meat is eaten, while we liberally waste.
Also false. Lions kill animals and then only eat a small part of it. Sure, later other animals & bacteria eat the rest, but the same applies for humans.
Likewise with slavery and Human Rights. Human's have been enslaving people for eons, why stop now? Power dynamics are inevitable. Who cares if you are enslaved, or eaten for that matter? The logic simply doesn't hold up.
I sometimes draw an analogy between veganism and the extreme anti-force / volitionalist stance of radical libertarians. In both cases is may be radically moral, but the problem with the libertarian case is similar to what you just said.
Government force is just so easy. Is there some systemic social ill that manifests in an emergent fashion from the market? Pass a law and force it to change. Wealth redistribution by force improves the lives of the vast majority of people too.
There may be force-free alternatives to these mechanisms, but it's clear that if they exist they are more difficult. Thus most people are willing to sacrifice some of their (and their neighbors) freedom and autonomy for free health care, free retirement, easy fixes to emergent problems and tragedies of the commons, etc.
I can't say I'm different. I would prefer to have a "softened" market in which some wealth is redistributed by force to me and my middle class contemporaries (as well as to those less fortunate than me) even if it is less moral according to a radical moral theory.
"You just need to educate yourself. Read this website and watch this video: you'll never want to eat meat again!"
What if I'm educated, have read the books, the websites, and still choose meat?
In my country there's a huge deal about rhino poaching for their horns. Pictures of dead rhinos with only their horns chopped off generally horrify us and most can't imagine why someone would kill a rhino for its horn. However, I recently read something about how these pictures have no impact on foreign purchasers of rhino horn - the desire for the commodity far outweighs any feeling for the animal, despite it being endangered.
So you might care about the rhino, but not about your food. Some might care about orphans, but not rhinos or food. Others might care about everything but vegetables. Who is correct? I don't know, but I think it's important to at least engage with the issue so our decisions are conscious. The end result isn't as important as simply having gone through the process.
I for one would immediately switch to vegan meat and dairy.
Animals all over the planet kill each other for food. It's part of life. Farm animals are not people and never will be. It's silly to think they deserve the rights of people or to be on the same moral high grounds as people.
When we harm or show an incorrect appreciation for other sentient beings, it shows not only disrespect and lack of understanding and compassion, but it diminishes human dignity.
[1] http://m.livescience.com/22178-parrots-reason-three-year-old...
[2] http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/researchers-say-mice-feel...
[3] http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/squint-if-it-h...
[4] http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/when-doves-cry-scientific-a...
[5] http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-hold-avian-funerals-...
Agreed. But the least you can (and should) do is spare them the suffering and kill them instantly.
Animals deserve, at the very least, the right to not be put through unnecessary suffering.
They're not people, that's correct. Humans are the highly evolved species of the planet. In fact, we're so evolved that we've come to realize that taking pleasure in others' pain (animals included), just like the lack of ability to feel remorse or empathy, are potential indicators of serious mental illness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad).
It's precisely because we're more advanced that we should show some humanity (I think this is a common sense definition) and not harm sentient beings without a clear need to do so.
Or we can just treat anything and everything like expendable resources. Sounds a tad inhuman to me.
Wow, wait until you watch an animal kingdom video. Your mind is about to be blown but the amount of animal on animal violence you'll see.
I mean blue whales will eat litterally 10 of thousands of shrimp in one meal.
Lions will attack and pick on the weakest of the gazelles. nature must have really gotten it wrong.
Look, you just can't come out and state that eating meat is wrong without providing some sort of rational around it. Just claiming its morally wrong doesn't really make an impressive argument at all.
The biggest problem you make is to lump together the poor treatment of animals and the eating of meat. Many farms treat animals in ways that are considered by the vast majority of people to be fair and proper.
Many people who eat meat have educated themselves and consider you to be wrong about the ethics of eating meat.
TD/DR, you just can't take your own beliefs, state them as fact and then state that they are the correct moral thing to do and any one who dares disagree with your narrow beliefs is just wrong.
Unlike most animals (as far as we know) we are in the unique position of being moral creatures. We created this morality idea, which was not present in nature before us.
Killing any kind of sentient creature whose death could have been avoided is immoral (whether legal or not). That some countries still apply the barbarous death penalty doesn't make it less immoral. We don't know exactly the level of sentience of the animals we kill and eat, but they are at the very least self-conscious to some extent. Pigs, squids, dolphins, dogs, cats, etc, are all clearly human-like in some ways. Killing such animals is not that far off from killing sentient beings.
I think it's a fair statement to say that killing animals is wrong.
That being said...
The issue is complex. There is a lot of historical baggage that we have to deal with here. And it could be argued that many of those species only exist because we eat them (or at least that most of their numbers exist only because we eat them). Endless such arguments can be contrived. None of them make it right, but they explain why this is not a simple "X is wrong, let's stop doing X" situation.
I say all this above as a meat eater, btw. I eat (a lot of) meat. That I do so while knowing that it's morally wrong is, I guess, just one of those "contradictions" that we humans get to live with.
Completely agree here, luckily I never made that argument:) I basically made a tongue in check throw away remark
> Killing any kind of sentient creature whose death could have been avoided is immoral (whether legal or not)
Here we disagree if by sentient creature you included animals, which I'm assuming you do or you'd just say humans:)
Look I recognize your name on this site now and I respect a lot of what you say but you just can't make this statement and assume its a fact that isn't debatable. Because its very much debatable.
Look we just disagree on this point, which is fine as its all opinion based and no right or wrong here.
Most morality stems from the Golden Rule (treat others as you'd want to be treated). If we take that as a given (a reasonable non-controversial starting point imho), then we can easily agree that breeding and killing other humans for food is immoral.
The Golden Rule is generally applied to a small subset of sentient beings, of course. However, one thing is observable throughout history, which is that the group of beings included in the Golden Rule has generally gone up with time. It used to be only a subset of humans, and has progressively grown to include most (and yet still not all) humans in most (still not all) cases. But it continues to grow. And already some types of treatment are considered abhorrent even when applied to non-humans.
For example, we may debate eating pigs, but we would presumably all agree that deliberately torturing a pig for your own personal satisfaction is immoral (hence all the laws against cruelty to animals).
This progress of history seems pretty constant - it may be the only progress we can measure as far as the question "are we getting more civilised" goes. Our measure of progress is, how many more groups do we include under the shield of this Golden Rule.
It's pretty reasonable to predict that, unless things go very badly for humanity, eventually many animals that we currently breed and kill for food will come join us on the safe side of the Golden Rule. We may start with the more inspiring or cuddly ones like Dolphins or Whales, but can you doubt that humanity from 500 years in the future will consider eating a dolphin as abhorrent as we would consider, say, eating someone's pet labrador?
Did eating someone's pet become less moral over time, or has it always been immoral, but before it was tolerated? What about eating other humans? What about other applications of the Golden Rule?
Obviously you can respond that morality is a moving target... and you're right. But then you're still agreeing that the topic we're discussing is something that could easily be conceived as immoral in the future (unlike, say, petting a cat or painting a nice painting, which are unlikely to ever be considered immoral as far as we can predict without resorting to extreme scenarios).
I take the view that something which will be immoral in 500 years is already immoral, we're just too undeveloped to realise it yet, much in the same way that I'd say that death penalty or torture were always immoral, but people weren't civilised enough to realise it in the past.
Interestingly, humans rarely live as a solo species. Most concentrations of humans are part of a larger menagerie of symbiotic utility and pest animals that rely on human existence and activity and despite the constant presence, it's rare that those animals ever enter even the most carnivorous human diet outside of very specific cases.
Reducing the arguments to "because we don't strictly need to, modern civilization can construct a balanced diet without meat" requires that we follow this argument and consider all elements of chosen behavior that go beyond what modern society has made possible that will strictly allow for life-sustainment and reduce life to an ascetic, needs only, life-style where every person is "morally" wrong for occupying more than a 6'x8' housing unit that are stacked into constructs as tall as modern engineering will allow and for using more than x number of joules for life-sustainment etc. etc. ad nauseam. Arguing that doing anything other than strictly necessary life-sustaining activities is morally questionable becomes absurd.
You simply can't say that meat is "so essential" because it clearly isn't, any more.
I eat meat for no other reason than pleasure, convenience and laziness but I, and most probably everyone else on the planet, could easily sustain a healthy, long life not eating meat.
- Vitamin B12, you don't need a lot of it (a few grams of meat per week provides more than 100% of the dietary sources), but every single study of populations of Vegans shows that the majority of them are deficient and have Hyperhomocysteinemia as a result. Hyperhomocysteinemia is only ever seen in four populations, the extreme elderly (due to age related nutrition absorption and metabolic issues), third world countries with chronic poverty, extreme alcoholics and vegans. You can get by for a very long time as B12 deficient, but it will catch up to you and the result isn't particularly pleasant. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883090 some more I've compiled on this
- DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid), an Omega-3, pretty much available only from animal sources (and a very small algae source which is often used as a supplement precursor) has been shown important to normal cognitive functioning. Every study I'm aware of has shown that vegans are deficient in DHA (even though it can be synthesized from ALA which is the kind of Omega-3 found in flax seeds and chia etc. it's preferentially synthesized to EPA another Omega-3 which also has plant sources). Omega-3 is essential and not all O3FAs are equal. Despite being able to find DHA in algae in sea vegetables, most vegans simply don't eat enough of it.
- Vitamin A - readily discussed in Vegan sources as "available in plants, but hard to get sufficient quantities of a complete source". Vitamin A is a group of compounds, not just one, and plant sources don't offer a complete source. It's readily available in animal sources, especially liver. Vegans are typically deficient in retinol which is used in the development of epithelial cells an essential and basic component of animal tissue.
Non-essential, but had to very hard to impossible to get in plant form in sufficient quantities (i.e. studies of vegan populations show shortfalls in the majority of the studied population):
- Arginine (partially synthesized by humans, but needs to be supplemented by food sources. Animal sources are much better sources than plans. But if you eat sufficient plant sources, which majority populations of vegans have been shown not to do, you can get by.
- Creatine, synthesized by Arginine, along with Methionine (which is better sourced from eggs then plants as well) and glycine (which is readily synthesized by humans), has been shown to be majority population deficient in every study of vegans I'm aware of. Creatine is important for muscle development and maintenance. You'll find that vegan athletes are aware of this dietary shortfall and supplement.
- Carnosine, only available in animal sources. Carnosine has been shown to be an important dipeptide and important in normal muscle function (where it can be used to significantly boost performance with sources of beta-Alanine). It also has been shown to be a major preventative factor in Alzheimers, Diabetes proper skin function and various age related illnesses suggesting long term consumption is important for healthy long-term living.
- Vitamin-D - especially in northern latitudes or people who don't get enough sun exposure. The primary dietary sources are all animal sources (beef liver, eggs, cheese, fish, etc.). Vegans have shown to have higher rates of vitamin D deficiency than other populations.
and it goes on and on and on.
Vegan diets also make adequate nutrition decisions and monitoring more complicated. For example, complete Zinc intake should be at around 15mg per day, but diets high in phytates require more as phytates disrupt zinc absorption. Similarly iron intake has to be measured at higher doses as what humans actually need is Heme, which is synthesized from Iron. Heme only has animal sources, which is generally used to explain anemia that's common vegan populations.
In addition, animal sources are simply required for normal child development even if adults can get by for longer periods without some of the above. Studies of children raised on vegan diets show significant health and cognitive deficits as animal sources are either the only or the best sources of critical bone, blood, muscle and brain development.
Long term studies of vegans have shown that over 90% of vegans are deficient in one or more of the above, despite supplements being a traditional part of the vegan diet. Most vegans do not stay vegans for more than a few years as the health and nutrition deficits build up, they'll wax on and off the diet -- this provides essential B12 at interval, and since B12 doesn't require constant intake, is usually enough to keep off the worst effects of B12 deficiency. Carnosine however has been shown to be a significant problem in long-term vegan (and vegetarian) diets and is generally attributed to the reason why vegans, despite being healthier in several categories, die at ages and rates similar to omnivores.
Every single one of these deficiencies and health issues are solved on normal omnivorous diets.
Cruelty to animals for survival might have some moral justification. However, as vegans prove every day, survival is no-longer a reasonable justification.
Therefore what we're left with is the willful choice to cause suffering for our own pleasure. Please explain to me how that is morally justifiable.
It's a difficult sell, not least because humans are omnivores and by that it is natural to eat meat. But our higher level thinking allows us to reason and determine our own morals, if killing / eating other humans is wrong and animals are not that different from humans then how can killing and eating animals be right?
I sympathise with this view, but still enjoy eating meat, it's a situation that's becoming more uncomfortable all of the time.
Just as? Are you kidding me? For one, animals kill and eat other animals ALL THE TIME. It's what they do.
>To disregard the pain and suffering of animal persons without regard for their interests - just because they're not human, is a form of racism. Peter Singer[1] calls it 'speciesism'.
That's just a word made up for that disregard. The invention of an ad-hoc word for it doesn't automatically make the disregard imoral or bad, much less "as bad as slavery".
The author is trying to communicate equivalency in the seemingly paradoxical categorization of being both "acceptable" and "wrong" through providing examples of things which also fit this hard-to-grasp classification.
I'm surprised this is not more readily apparent to people. Justice is a fiction. The Republican form of government has helped create stable governments, and acknowledges the inherent FORCE the govererned people can bring to bear against those in power if the government doesn't operate at least somewhat in their interest. Again, morality as popularly conceived has nothing to do with it. It has more to do with the propensity of kings to end up with their heads chopped off. It always boils down to the sword. If animals could organize and rip out faces off for eating them, society would suddenly have a great moral revelation that eating animals is wrong.
We have canines for a reason; meat is part of our evolutionary heritage. I respect the moral decision not to eat animals, and the fact that we do not raise livestock more humanely is unforgivable; but eschewing all animal proteins is extremely detrimental to one's health (the poster child being Steve Jobs in his last ten years of life).
Given that consciousness is a spectrum and not purely binary, I think the proper middle ground is to eat primarily fish (whose nervous systems are probably closer to carrots than to cows) and by-products such as eggs and cheese (from animals who are well-cared-for). If one does choose to eat red meat, it should at least come from pasture farms where the animal has a real life before it is slaughtered.
I'm sure that's why horses have canines, as well, but they don't eat much meat!
Of course I agree with the overall point; in fact I shot a delicious young deer a few weeks ago. I sometimes wonder whether the meat-is-murder trolls aren't really just cannibals hoping to mainstream their own predilections.
I've seen lots of horse fights, among individuals with and without wolf-teeth. In few of those were the bites even deep enough along the mandible to engage the canines, and in no case did the bite come from the side to emphasize the canine.
The relevant part follows:
Originally “fighting teeth”, they have no occlusal contact, i.e. the opposing upper and lower canines do not meet, so they are of no benefit in the eating process.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/29/steve-jobs-fruitarian-di...
Gorillas also have canines[0]; they're herbivores.
> by-products such as eggs and cheese (from animals who are well-cared-for).
In some sense, eating eggs and cheese is actually worse than eating meat.
0 - http://www.igorilla.org/assets/images/who/mgsilverteethcu.jp...
When factory-grown meat takes over the shelves of meat departments, cow and chicken population of the world will dwindle significantly. Only milk cows and egg-laying hens will remain, along with a small population grown specifically for slaughter, for those perverts that prefer natural, pasture-grown certified organic meat.
Finally humans' beloved pets, cats and dogs, will stop being animal racists and stop feeding on the suffering of other, less fortunate animals.
The only remaining area of unethical killing will be the pesky wild nature, where merciless foxes eat rabbits, and brutal trouts eat lesser fish, which eats small defenseless crustaceans, which.., etc. But I'm sure that progressive humankind will find a way to sort this out eventually, too.
Irony aside, have you heard about the "first noble truth" of Buddhism? Very short and rather enlightening; google it.
Why don't you read a real book instead of learning from YouTube celebrities? Learn the truth.
EDIT: ... to assume so much.
1. are carnivorous animals immoral?
2. where do you draw the line in your definition of racism/'speciesism' - homo sapiens -vs- non-homo-sapiens, mammals -vs- non-mammals, mammals/birds/fish/etc. -vs- metazoa/insects/amoeboids/plants/etc./etc./etc.?
3. if suffering of animals as a result of the meat industry is morally wrong, what are your thoughts on suffering of animals caused by non-meat food industries? If grain/crop agriculture killed more animals than the livestock industry what would you do? Stop eating?
The reality of course, is more nuanced. Rarely do absolutist statements like "Killing animals is wrong," bare fruit in the pragmatic reality of everyday experience.
For one thing, freeing all livestock and allowing them to live as nature intended, would be releasing them into a much more savage existence. An analog to freeing slaves does not exist because people have the capacity to improve their station, while animals in the wild fall back to basic survival.
My wife and I run a backyard hog farm, raising animals on pasture with ready access to clean water and plenty of highly nutritious food. In return for the kindness we show them, at a pre-determined point in their life, we kill them and eat their meat.
I will not do that for my children, because the (mostly) tacit contract I have with them and their own capacity allows them pay back my kindness and generosity with their nuanced human emotion and industrial capacity.
Most animals do not have such an industrial capacity. Though where they do (horses, mules, etc...) there actually does exist a very different contract (i.e. we don't eat them).
The problem with your black and white view of morality is that it fails to account for the reality that if I keep 15 hogs, eventually they will die, because all life dies. If they live into old age and become emaciated and weak, their bodies are useless to me. Aside from perhaps companionship, they have not had a net positive impact on my life. Why then should I care for them?
As members of the Animal Liberation Front have discovered, releasing animals back into the wild is rarely a kindness to them. If you ever look closely at a wild rabbit, you find them swarming with parasites and usually living with chronic low-grade infection of some sort or another. Compare that with rabbits raised humanely and holistically in a small-scale rabbit farm and the differences are stark, indeed.
None of this applies, of course, to an industrial farm where animals are treated, as a phase of the end product instead of animal. But that's a whole different argument from "killing animals is wrong." I have no problem arguing that industrial farming is, at it's best, amoral, and more importantly completely unsustainable. But nature has a way of handling unsustainable behavior.
EDIT: Dairy animals would be another classification of animals that we do not kill for their meat. Of course, they do die, as one of our dairy goats did a few days ago. But then we dig a hole, say some kind words and let the decomposition feed the apple trees in our orchard.