Do you eat meat?

[idcjazmin]

one thing i find baffling is that when i, or other vegan and vegetarians, bring up the fact that the animals being eaten are pumped full of hormones and steroids and all sorts of chemicals to make them grow bigger, and people who eat meat end up consuming that, they just don't care?? that's actually part of the reason i stopped eating meat.
i'm literally always hearing "eating meat is good for you", and i'm just thinking "how is eating drugs and chemicals GOOD for you?"
i honestly find it pretty disgusting that people don't care where their food comes from, and how it's raised :|

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It doesn't make a lot of sense. To me, it's all about society. We are told that livestock are raised to be eaten so we are supposed to eat them but if you ever offer to eat a snake, people go ape ****. They are ALL animals at equal value. It's what society has taught us of what is okay and what is not okay to eat. Which is why in some cultures it is okay to eat one animal and in another it's disgusting.

yup. culture and religion make a huge impact on foods, especially meat! i know in india the cow is considered sacred and they don't eat it. and in china they have "dog eating festivals"
i'm constantly seeing petitions against the dog eating festivals, but i always just wonder "why is it bad to eat a dog, but perfectly fine to eat a cow or chicken or pig?"
you really can keep any of them as pets, and they're all sweet as can be. to me, all animals are equal.

 

[forestyne]

You know what's a weirder stigma, when you think about it. Human milk, meant for humans, that's gross. Cow milk, meant for cows, that's yummy! Like, I'm not vegan, but I'll admit it's totally weird we won't even touch breast milk if it comes from a human woman. But life is hypocritical and weird.

Yeah, we're the only species of animal that drinks the milk made specifically for another. Like wtf. You wouldn't keep a woman pregnant for her breast milk but you'd keep a cow pregnant for her breast milk? Double standard. We don't even take care of our children as well as cows do. We wouldn't rip a child from a woman and then impregnate her again but we'd rip a child from a cow and then impregnate her again?

I'm starting to think dolphins are superior to us, we should just be ruled by dolphins. And Canadians.

 

[idcjazmin]

Yeah, we're the only species of animal that drinks the milk made specifically for another. Like wtf. You wouldn't keep a woman pregnant for her breast milk but you'd keep a cow pregnant for her breast milk? Double standard. We don't even take care of our children as well as cows do. We wouldn't rip a child from a woman and then impregnate her again but we'd rip a child from a cow and then impregnate her again?

I'm starting to think dolphins are superior to us, we should just be ruled by dolphins. And Canadians.

did u know lactose tolerance is actually a mutation that we developed over time bc of drinking cow's milk lol
we actually were all lactose intolerant at one point, like how if a cat drinks cow's milk it'll get sick

 

[made08]

did u know lactose tolerance is actually a mutation that we developed over time bc of drinking cow's milk lol
we actually were all lactose intolerant at one point, like how if a cat drinks cow's milk it'll get sick

YES OMG isn't it something like, you're not really supposed to need milk after you stop breastfeeding, and by that point your body should become lactose intolerant naturally. But we've developed lactose tolerance because we just keep drinking milk

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one thing i find baffling is that when i, or other vegan and vegetarians, bring up the fact that the animals being eaten are pumped full of hormones and steroids and all sorts of chemicals to make them grow bigger, and people who eat meat end up consuming that, they just don't care?? that's actually part of the reason i stopped eating meat.
i'm literally always hearing "eating meat is good for you", and i'm just thinking "how is eating drugs and chemicals GOOD for you?"
i honestly find it pretty disgusting that people don't care where their food comes from, and how it's raised :|

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yup. culture and religion make a huge impact on foods, especially meat! i know in india the cow is considered sacred and they don't eat it. and in china they have "dog eating festivals"
i'm constantly seeing petitions against the dog eating festivals, but i always just wonder "why is it bad to eat a dog, but perfectly fine to eat a cow or chicken or pig?"
you really can keep any of them as pets, and they're all sweet as can be. to me, all animals are equal.

Totally agree, I can take a b12 vitamin and get all the benefits I would have gotten from eating meat without getting the hormones and carcinogens. And I agree with your other point, to me a cow is the same as a dog. I find it really odd when people are selective about which animals they want to defend.

 

[Corrie]

Yeah and it sucks that that kind of thinking basically is supply and demand. If you eat the beef the slaughter house produces, they'll just produce more anyways so you're always contributing to it. It's pretty messed up if you think about it, but either way humans are going to eat meat and slaughterhouses will keep functioning no matter what. Some might even feel better about not eating meat and only eating fish but there's a huge problem with overfishing. It's just up to the person to decide what they do with that information (and I feel like it needs to be talked about more often). For me, since I am a meat eater, I deal with this by cooking only vegetables when I cook for myself and occasionally not eating meat for periods of time, which is actually good for me since beef especially makes me bloat so I don't like eating it often. My room mate and I even do our own micro farming at home. We grow bokchoy and all sorts of veggies. I'm not guilty about eating meat but I do recognise that there are ways we can cut down on consumption if we really wanted to, like users have mentioned before with substitutes for protein and the fact that we don't even need to drink milk.

I personally find it dumb and unfair when people view fish below livestock. How does that make sense? I mean, eat what you want but it literally makes zero sense. People go on about how horrible killing an animal is but somehow fish are excluded?

 

[forestyne]

did u know lactose tolerance is actually a mutation that we developed over time bc of drinking cow's milk lol
we actually were all lactose intolerant at one point, like how if a cat drinks cow's milk it'll get sick

i'll get another warning if I just post an image by itself even though it had context so ya, i think we should build animal temples and bring them estranged politicians' heads as sacrifice like the ancient greek used to do with goats. maybe then god (aka Danny Devito) will save us all.

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I personally find it dumb and unfair when people view fish below livestock. How does that make sense? I mean, eat what you want but it literally makes zero sense. People go on about how horrible killing an animal is but somehow fish are excluded?

Oh my God, I hate when people say that lobsters/crustaceans screaming is "just the air escaping". They have a nervous system, feelings and brains too.

 

[Corrie]

one thing i find baffling is that when i, or other vegan and vegetarians, bring up the fact that the animals being eaten are pumped full of hormones and steroids and all sorts of chemicals to make them grow bigger, and people who eat meat end up consuming that, they just don't care?? that's actually part of the reason i stopped eating meat.
i'm literally always hearing "eating meat is good for you", and i'm just thinking "how is eating drugs and chemicals GOOD for you?"
i honestly find it pretty disgusting that people don't care where their food comes from, and how it's raised :|

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yup. culture and religion make a huge impact on foods, especially meat! i know in india the cow is considered sacred and they don't eat it. and in china they have "dog eating festivals"
i'm constantly seeing petitions against the dog eating festivals, but i always just wonder "why is it bad to eat a dog, but perfectly fine to eat a cow or chicken or pig?"
you really can keep any of them as pets, and they're all sweet as can be. to me, all animals are equal.

Simply cause of this reason, I will forever avoid KFC. That's why the chicken pieces are so large. The stuffed the chickens are injected with. Makes me puke thinking about it. But you know what? That probably is in the stuff at the grocery store too and that to me is an outrage.

It feels like you can't eat anything without some sort of weird **** in it these days and companies do it to save costs, risking our lives. That alone makes me mad.

 

[helloxcutiee]

Yes, I love meat. I sometimes have thoughts about going vegetarian but then I start thinking about chicken enchiladas.

 

[Twisterheart]

This is just a theory, but I think people are fine eating certain types of animals but not others because of personal experience with said animal. Most people don't own a pet cow, but a lot of people do own dogs and cats. So I guess when they hear of people eating dogs, they think of their own dog being killed and eaten and they can't imagine how anyone could do that. But since they don't have that kind of bond with a cow, they don't really think twice.

 

[made08]

This is just a theory, but I think people are fine eating certain types of animals but not others because of personal experience with said animal. Most people don't own a pet cow, but a lot of people do own dogs and cats. So I guess when they hear of people eating dogs, they think of their own dog being killed and eaten and they can't imagine how anyone could do that. But since they don't have that kind of bond with a cow, they don't really think twice.

I think you're absolutely right. But cows and pigs are such great and friendly animals. I think that if people had more experiences with these types of animals, they wouldn't be so quick to eat them. What do you guys think?

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i'll get another warning if I just post an image by itself even though it had context so ya, i think we should build animal temples and bring them estranged politicians' heads as sacrifice like the ancient greek used to do with goats. maybe then god (aka Danny Devito) will save us all.

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Oh my God, I hate when people say that lobsters/crustaceans screaming is "just the air escaping". They have a nervous system, feelings and brains too.

There definitely is some sort of disconnect there. People never seem to get as riled up about seafood. I wonder why that is?

Also praise our Lord and savior Danny devito

 

[Twisterheart]

I think so too, or at least I know I would. I'm very sensetive to animals around me, so I would never be able to kill and eat an animal I personally knew, let alone my own pet. The disconnect between me and the animal along with the fact I'm not killing it myself, or watching it happen is the only reason I can eat meat. If I had to do it myself, or watch someone do it let alone to my own pet or an animal I actually knew, I wouldn't be able to do it. Obviously some people wouldn't care and could do it anyways, but that's just how I would feel.

 

[amanda1983]

I think so too, or at least I know I would. I'm very sensetive to animals around me, so I would never be able to kill and eat an animal I personally knew, let alone my own pet. The disconnect between me and the animal along with the fact I'm not killing it myself, or watching it happen is the only reason I can eat meat. If I had to do it myself, or watch someone do it let alone to my own pet or an animal I actually knew, I wouldn't be able to do it. Obviously some people wouldn't care and could do it anyways, but that's just how I would feel.

I don't think there are many people who would readily kill and eat their pet for food, that's rather an extreme thing to do. In an emergency in a remote location with literally no other food source where survival depends upon it, I can see it. But short of that, something would have to be *wrong* with a person who personally cares for an animal as their pet and then turns around and thinks about eating it. @.@

I'm not talking about situations on farms where people sometimes "adopt" animals that will later be food, nor where an animal is dying of natural causes and then the remains are consumed as a mark of respect for the animal and the earth (many aboriginal cultures have customs like this).

My partner went hunting growing up in the bush in order to help control the pest species that were (and are) decimating the natural wildlife. He's killed rabbits before, and cooked + eaten them. He doesn't look at my nephew's 2 pet bunnies as food, and wouldn't dream of even joking that they should be eaten when they die. He has a clear distinction between "wild" and "domestic" and this is a common thing for meat-eaters to have, in my experience at any rate.

 

[Twisterheart]

I don't think there are many people who would readily kill and eat their pet for food, that's rather an extreme thing to do. In an emergency in a remote location with literally no other food source where survival depends upon it, I can see it. But short of that, something would have to be *wrong* with a person who personally cares for an animal as their pet and then turns around and thinks about eating it. @.@

I'm not talking about situations on farms where people sometimes "adopt" animals that will later be food, nor where an animal is dying of natural causes and then the remains are consumed as a mark of respect for the animal and the earth (many aboriginal cultures have customs like this).

My partner went hunting growing up in the bush in order to help control the pest species that were (and are) decimating the natural wildlife. He's killed rabbits before, and cooked + eaten them. He doesn't look at my nephew's 2 pet bunnies as food, and wouldn't dream of even joking that they should be eaten when they die. He has a clear distinction between "wild" and "domestic" and this is a common thing for meat-eaters to have, in my experience at any rate.

I was writing that with farmers in mind, not just your average pet owner. ^^" Yeah, I agree your average pet owner wouldn't do such a thing, but many farmers or people who own farm animals can kill them without a second thought. When my grandpa was growing up, they lived on a farm so they had to kill their animals for food and they just all became desensitized to it, because they didn't think of them as pets but as future food. And I had some friends who would get pigs, chickens, geese, etc and raise them up just to eat them and it didn't bother them. Obviously not all farmers are like this, but I know some are.

 

[amanda1983]

I was writing that with farmers in mind, not just your average pet owner. ^^" Yeah, I agree your average pet owner wouldn't do such a thing, but many farmers or people who own farm animals can kill them without a second thought. When my grandpa was growing up, they lived on a farm so they had to kill their animals for food and they just all became desensitized to it, because they didn't think of them as pets but as future food. And I had some friends who would get pigs, chickens, geese, etc and raise them up just to eat them and it didn't bother them. Obviously not all farmers are like this, but I know some are.

Ah I see, sorry for misunderstanding you!

I personally don't have a problem with farming practices like that, so long as they are sustainable and the animals are cared for appropriately, ideally "free range". I think there's a big difference between having a pet - which is gotten for that specific purpose, regardless of how and where from - and caring for animals (even keeping them as a kind of pet) that will later be slaughtered. I know dozens of adults who grew up on farms or other rural locations and it seems to be the norm for people to be fond of the animals, even affectionate, before the animals are killed for food. I vastly prefer that mentality to callousness.

Ethically, there are lots of things to consider of course, but I do think we need to be mindful of people's experiences on topics like this. Not saying you weren't, just wanting to be clear about my own intention.

My father grew up in a world that was still recovering from the depression after World War II. In outer western suburbia in Melbourne in the 50s and 60s, most families supplemented their store-bought groceries and home gardens with local fishing + hunting. In my dad's case, they simply starved if they didn't catch enough fish in the river. He and his brother became very good at catching enough fish for dinner, since the alternative was going hungry. As did almost all the neighbourhood kids.

They weren't wasteful, by any means. They caught what they needed to survive. When at the family farm, they did their share of the hard work to get food into the kitchen. They were by no means wasteful, and only took what they needed. I have no problem whatsoever with that.

Now, if my dad suddenly told me he wanted to go hunting or recreational fishing for "sport" then I would have a major issue. He would be sat down for a multimedia presentation on Why Hunting Animals For Fun is Wrong and Not Acceptable in 2017. It's never come up, and I doubt it ever will. He got no pleasure from his actions to survive as a child and young man.

As a result of his upbringing, he took my issues with meat quite personally. As an adult looking back, I can absolutely see how upsetting it was for him to see his child willfully throwing away good food and complaining about being hungry. He didn't handle himself well, at all (I was held down whilst blended meat with milk or water was forced down my throat numerous times, for example, which was done as they were so concerned I wasn't getting enough nutrients). But he did the best he could at the time, just as his parents did before him.

In 1987 in Melbourne, there were literally NO vegetarian meat replacement products available for my parents to give me (not that I could stand them even once they were sold since my issues are texture based). I didn't hear the word "vegetarian" until I was around 9.


We live and learn. As time - and technological developments - move on, we have opportunities to grow and make new choices. That doesn't mean the choices people made before are automatically *wrong*, they just might not be necessary anymore.



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I'm sorry for the essay :/

 

[Licorice]

I started eating meat again late last year after being meat free for 8 years. No regrets.

 

[Corrie]

I think so too, or at least I know I would. I'm very sensetive to animals around me, so I would never be able to kill and eat an animal I personally knew, let alone my own pet. The disconnect between me and the animal along with the fact I'm not killing it myself, or watching it happen is the only reason I can eat meat. If I had to do it myself, or watch someone do it let alone to my own pet or an animal I actually knew, I wouldn't be able to do it. Obviously some people wouldn't care and could do it anyways, but that's just how I would feel.

This is basically me. I could NEVER look at an animal and kill it, let alone eat it too. I get instantly connected to animals so if I see it, I automatically think of it as my friend. But if I don't see it happen and can't recognize the animal through the meat at the store, it doesn't freak me out as much.

 

[SilkSpectre]

I eat plenty of meat but def no veal (tastes good but is soooo wrong) or fish. Research has been done and there's some debate that even fish feel pain so it's not like fishing is harmless. It's also bad for the ocean. Overfishing of the ocean is a big deal and causes corrupt people to label dolphins as pests and justify killing them and taking part in the dolphin entertainment trade. Despite my heritage, I really do not like the taste of seafood anyway ick!

 

[mogyay]

i've been vegetarian for 13 years, i really do plan on becoming vegan at one point soon but there are a couple things holding me back atm

 

[Corrie]

I eat plenty of meat but def no veal (tastes good but is soooo wrong) or fish. Research has been done and there's some debate that even fish feel pain so it's not like fishing is harmless. It's also bad for the ocean. Overfishing of the ocean is a big deal and causes corrupt people to label dolphins as pests and justify killing them and taking part in the dolphin entertainment trade. Despite my heritage, I really do not like the taste of seafood anyway ick!

Thank you. Eating fish is the same thing as eating cows. They are both animals and deserve to be treated as equals.

 

[forestyne]

Remember, while you look at these cows sitting like doggos, that cows deserve to be treated with the same respect and dignity as any other animal or creature on our planet because they have feelings too.

Thank you for your time.​