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Could we agree once for all that we are predators in a food pyramid and that this naturally implies that we kill to eat. Now, as a sentient species, we might tr
by wiz21c 9y ago
Could we agree once for all that we are predators in a food pyramid and that this naturally implies that we kill to eat. Now, as a sentient species, we might try to kill in a more acceptable way (for the victim), but that won't change much to the result : we kill.
- cageface 9y agoHumans are omnivores with a physiology primarily geared towards eating & digesting plants. We can eat animals but we absolutely don't need to to live a long, healthy life. So it's really a matter of how much you value your own pleasure & taste over another creature's suffering.
- leadingthenet 9y agoThere’s still a significant difference between eating meat less often and abstaining from meat and other animal products completely, isn’t there?
- cageface 9y agoYeah sure. The suffering you cause is proportional to how much meat you eat. If quitting it entirely is too big a step for you then try scaling it back. Even a single meat-free day a week is a good place to start. You may find you don't miss it as much as you think you will.
- Valmar 9y ago> The suffering you cause is proportional to how much meat you eat. Oh really? Sounds like ideology more than fact. Are you really insinuating that plants don't feel pain? Because they certainly do. Look up Cleve Backster's research on plants.
- cageface 9y agoIt takes 7-10 kg of plants to produce one kg of meat, so you're causing that much more suffering even if you are willing to claim that plants suffer as much as we do from pain.
- Valmar 9y agoThen we just need to feed the animals their natural diets instead of the abnormal, unnatural diet of grains and soyabeans that most factory-farmed animals are currently fattened on. Solution doesn't seem that difficult to me.
- cageface 9y agoIf we do that then we can all eat meat about once a week. And anyway the ratio of plants eaten to meat produced would be about the same so no gain there.
- moby_click 9y agoI don't think, Backster's "research" on plants is convincing: http://skepdic.com/plants.html http://skepdic.com/plants.html
- red75prime 9y agoAll kinds of creatures will suffer and die even without us eating them. The fields, which were used to grow food for cattle, will became populated with wildlife. The choice is between suffering for predators survival or for our pleasure. Note that predators don't always listen to humane treatment of animals proposals, so the amount of suffering could increase. But it will not be our fault, so it's OK, right?
- cageface 9y agoThe very brief suffering of an animal in the wild at the hands of a predator is nothing compared to the entire lifetime of unrelenting cruelty, suffering and unnatural confinement we offer them. There just really is no comparison at all. If you think there is then go educate yourself about what really goes on in factory farms. This is a good place to start: https://vimeo.com/209647801 https://vimeo.com/209647801
- Valmar 9y agoThis is why it is far more ethical to eat animals who have been raised in conditions that allow them to thrive happily and wholesomely. Factory farms are more-or-less a result of corporate capitalism and the greed for money.
- cageface 9y agoAgreed but about 99% of the meat we eat in the US comes from factory farms. So unless you only ever eat meat that you are sure comes from humanely treated animals, which pretty much means never ever eating in restaurants, you won't be eating much meat. Producing meat in this way also can't come close to supporting even current global demands for meat so it's not really a solution. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nil-zacharias/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1018840.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nil-zacharias/its-time-to-end...
- Valmar 9y agoI'm certain a system could be devised to allow enough pasture-raised cattle, chickens and pigs to be raised in happy, healthy conditions until slaughtered for food. It would take more resources, but it would be worth it. It might also support the plant ecosystems more, because soyabean and grain monocultures won't be needed. However, the current Capitalist system's greed will ensure that this doesn't happen, because of the junk/fast food industry and their advertizing. Without junk/fast food's demands, the amount of meat required to sate the global population may actually shrink, because with proper education, food addiction may vanish, meaning we'll only need to eat what we actually need for nutrition and not for addiction's sake.
- Valmar 9y agoAnd neither do we absolutely need to eat plants to live a long, healthy life. Case in point? The traditional Eskimo diet that consisted majorly of fats, offal and meat. They lived long healthy lives only shortened due to the extreme coldness of their environment.
- cageface 9y agoThis is actually a myth. Eskimos have a relatively high rate of cardiovascular disease and not particularly long lifespans: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25064579 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25064579 https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omega-3s-and-the-eskimo-fish-tale/ https://nutritionfacts.org/video/omega-3s-and-the-eskimo-fis... The risk of the dying from the top 10 causes of death in the US is reduced, in many cases dramatically, by eating a plant based diet. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf Vegans have longer lifespans than non-vegans: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/vegan-meat-life-expectancy-eggs-dairy-research-a7168036.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...
- wiz21c 9y agoHow is killing an animal different than killing a plant ?
- Scarblac 9y agoWe are also sentient enough to consciously decide what to kill, and maybe restrict ourselves to plants.
- woadwarrior01 9y agoI’m not the least bit religious at this point in my life, but it reminds of a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, which I came across as a kid: “jivo jivasya jivanam” which roughly translates to - life thrives on other life forms.
- chicob 9y agoAlthough that is true, we do value the character of independence of a conscious existence. That argument would never hold regarding the killing of humans for food. When trying to properly answer the question "Is is acceptable to kill a human being for food, (caeteris paribus)", it is impossible, in the process, to avoid the recognition of the right to self-determination, and I find it difficult not to anchor that right to the perception of self, and to an independent sense of existence. So it's not just that we will have to kill in order to eat, eventually: it's that sometimes that involves the destruction of a being that can, in some particular way, experience its own existence, which would make that killing ethically unacceptable. If we value our own right to existence, how transmissible is that right? To what extent are non-human mammals, and vertebrates in general, etc, entitled to it? Maybe humane killing is still wrong, for some animals. Personally, I could not avoid considering the implications of the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in adjusting my behaviour, and not only in terms of my diet.
- nurettin 9y agoHuman is a terrible source of food, just like any omnivore or carnivore is. This is because carnivores are unable to excrete most of the heavy metals they acquire over the years. As such, they become toxic to ingest. Even people who only eat seafood are susceptible to Mercury poisoning for this very reason. And dare I say this is the reason societies evolved in a way to avoid cannibalism of aged people.
- Brybry 9y agoThe whole point of the article was about humane slaughter methods for fish. It wasn't about if it's right or wrong to kill fish; it was about studies suggesting that fish feel pain at a level that is more than just reflex and so, where possible, we should slaughter fish more humanely than suffocation.
- enugu 9y agoKilling animals isnt new, but what has changed recently is that we have built large scale factories which greatly increase suffering. So, the least that we can do is to ensure that suffering(like dunking birds in hot water) is reduced.
- Hendrikto 9y agoNo we can’t, because it is wrong.