Animals have rights but is it OK to eat them??

But seriously. Nobody's really justified eating meat yet. I'm a meat-eater myself, but I still wonder whether perhaps it's not okay to eat animals, when really we don't need to.

There are lots of healthy vegans and vegetarians in the world, who prove that we don't need meat to survive and be healthy. So are we not just killing and eating animals purely for pleasure? Is that okay?

I'd like to believe that it is okay to eat meat, because I do it every day. But I'm not really sure that it is.

One thing I've noticed about vegetarians/vegans/alternative medicine types, et al, is they have an "all natural" remedy for just about every ill, ailment, or discomfort known to afflict humankind, and they KNOW they all work, because they use them all, all the time

I'm an alternative medicine type, and I can tell you, the discerning such type does not believe in or use every "natural" cure out there. We have to be at least as careful as other people in making our choices. There is a hype going on for many bogus products out there that the educated alternative user is wary of.

Oh, I was just engaging in a bit of hyperbole there, edgar - certainly there are exceptions that prove the rule. Didn't mean to offend you, sorry if I did.

I'm not offended, just making myself clear. I've seen many people beguiled by the natural cures offered in ads or by friends. They take the product, expecting a magical change. The odds are, the product is not right for that person or is a hoax, or, they want instant results and don't give the product time to do its job. One more person to knock natural remedies.

Natural remedies have their place

just as antibiotics do.


The stand point behind 'natural healing' IMHO should be- to allow the body time to fight off something with out stripping the very life out of you over a simple cold by dousing your body with Zythromax and the like..
To use what nature has provided and we have relied on for many thousands of years before jumping on the bandwagon of Prozac, and tipping the Xanax bottle.

There are some very disturbing descriptions on this thread of the treatment of animals destined for the dinner table. While this is, obviously, abhorent to me (and anyone else who isn't a psychotic sadist), I wonder whether that's really germane to the subject of this thread. The question was, is it OK to eat them, not whether inhumane and sadistic behavior is ever justified. It never is. This reminds me of Sinclair Lewis's The Jungle in which the author gave a hair-raising account of the brutality of the Chicago slaughter-houses at the turn of the 19th/20th Century and the adverse conditions under which the workers there labored. The book caused a public uproar and was instrumental in getting new pure foods legislation passed and slaughterhouse inspections tightened. The irony was that nobody seemed to give a rat's patootie about the plight of the slaughterhouse workers. Lewis said later that he had been aaiming for the readers' hearts, but somehow hit them in their stomachs instead. All they cared about was that the processed meats they ate were untained, not how the meat preparers had been treated. And Ernest Hemingway once observed (in Death in the Afternoon) that people who are terribly concerned about the welfare of animals, as a rule, aren't too concerned about the welfare of other people.

But when my tooth got infected many years ago, I went to first a dentist and then to a hospital. Likewise, when my wife had severe chest pains, I didn't give her a handful of leafs and twigs, I took her to the emergency room.
Natural remedies require a great deal of personal research, until one finds not just products, but a way of life that makes for healthy living.

And I dont know that there is a real hard evidence that supports eating meat.
For all the reasons vegans give for not eating meat, one could use for not eating veggies. Including the ever popular " you are taking a life" arguement.
Non meat eaters say -
You can get the protien you need from beans, veggies, and other foods.
Use pill suppliments to get your B12, iron.. etc
Add a variety of plants to your diet to get a broad spectrum of nutrients, dont limit to just animal protien.

if i wanted to validate an all meat diet I could say the same things as above.. Suppliment what you dont actually eat, Vary your meat types, plants are alive as well.. you are killing them when you eat them too.

Both sides, meat eaters and non , have good arguements to support both, but neither have the final end all answer I dont believe.

good point.
I have not seen very many HUMAN rights groups lately .. making the news.
But I sure do see a bunch of 'wanna-be" Peta groups sprouting up everywhere screaming about animal rights.

bingo..

Mr. Andrew, Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle" you silly goose.

Dys goosed andrew.

Timberlandko,

It's unfair to lump vegetarians and vegans and people who use natural remedies into the same category. Natural remedies have nothing to do with whether it's okay to eat meat, so let's forget about them.

Shewolfnm,

There are a few things you've overlooked in your last post, in which you said that meat-eaters and vegetarians each have good arguments to support their views:

1. Meat-eaters don't tend to exclusively eat meat. I've never heard of anybody argue that we should eat only meat, or that we can survive and be healthy eating only meat. I'm not sure how healthy we could be if we only ate meat, but that doesn't really matter. It's pointless to mention that you could argue that way, when nobody does - everybody at least eats bread, or something other than meat, surely?

2. Animals, at least some of them, feel pain. And some animals are conscious to some degree. If we kill them, they tend to suffer. Now this is, as people have said, all very natural. Other animals kill other animals for food; it's what happens. But we humans are very clever, and we've discovered ways to survive and be perfectly healthy without killing any animals. We don't need to kill animals and make them suffer, so maybe we shouldn't?

3. Vegetarians might talk about how killing animals is wrong because it is the taking of a life. But what they probably mean is that it is the taking of a conscious life. Plants can't think, so their lives are seen as less sacred. Of course, this might be completely the wrong way of looking at things. The definition of 'living' might fairly arbitrary, and the way in which plants are alive might be entirely different to the way in which animals are alive. Or maybe it's just okay to take lives - it's how we survive. But then is it okay to eat a human? What makes a human life more valuable than an animal life?

That was a bit rambling, I'm sorry.

I suggest peeps who are interested read Alan Watts "Death in the kitchen"

Samuel Butler, in his satyrical Erehwon posits a utopian society in which the tender-hearted consume only vegetables which have "died a natural death."

Sounds tasty.

But, if an animal dies a natural death or becomes road kill, I would think it would then be okay to eat them also.

Im sorry I left my post so vague. I should have specified what my point was.
Im not saying that people argue to JUST eat meat. ( even though those were my words...)
What I ment was ... sort of from the meat eaters stand point....

I live with a vegan and have several friends who are vegan.
One of thier biggest arguements when it comes to health alot of vegans I know share, is that we can suppliment what we get from meat with vitamins and diet changes to ensure that we get what we need to survive.

Alot of times, in our discussions, we talk about how someone could reasonably suppliment a lack of veggies with vitamins as well.
The point of the conversation being that , any source of food is able to be supplimented with vitamins given todays technology.
Does that mean we can go with out physically eating? No.
But it does stand to reason that any piece of dietary needs that are missing, can be supplimented, and or obtained through vitamin form.


I didnt elaborate on that in my first post .. but that was the point I was trying to make.





No, maybe we shouldnt.. .
But that is a question of morality.. not necessarily survival I think.



I have wondered that as well.
There are stories of older cultures / tribes that did eat each other.
Wether it was due to religious beliefs, superstitious fears , or brutality as some people have thought.. .. it has been done.

So who created and where - was the line created that says we are not to eat each other anymore?
We need protien to survive.. in some form or another.. ? Correct?

Why arent we fair game for each other?
Last I heard, the worlds population was getting out of control anyways....

I don't understand why people are so concerned about eating animals.

There's one fact that I can't overlook: humans are the top of the food chain. We rule this world, and it's in our power to kill the less powerful animals and eat them.

I don't see the vegetarians trying to pass legislation for falcon's eating mice, or cheetahs hunting gazelles.

That's because it's a ridiculous thought.