17 ms·

For me that's a mix of ethical and environmental concerns. I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill animals. That's not the mos

by Iv 7y ago

For me that's a mix of ethical and environmental concerns. I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill animals. That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world, there are a lot of things to argue about, but in general, I agree that in an ideal world, we should not do that. The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners will transform their pastures or soy cultures into rain forest instead of another profitable exploitation, I'd rather have states force responsible production and norms. It is just not practical for me to go full-veg, where I live I would need to cook one hour a day for it, and I am a lousy cook, I have neither the inclination or the motivation for it. But I reduced my consumption more and more. It was surprising to see how my taste changed. I used to be a huge meat eater and now I find eating even a small steak a bit nauseating. I almost eat no beef anymore, little pork but mostly chicken and fish, and even these I eat little.

everythingswan 7y ago
What are the constraints based on where you live? I knew someone who grew up heavily on beef since she was from a small, rural country. Is it a similar reason? I'm interested in food insecurity and related things, which is why I ask.
- strict9 7y ago
  I grew up and lived in a rural area (southern appalachians in the US) and it was not easy. Small town restaurants often have zero options, living near a taco bell was about the best you can hope for. Not even morningstar farms veggie burgers in grocery stores. But that was 10 years ago, things are different now. Whenever I go home for Christmas I'm amazed at what's available.
  - xeromal 7y ago
    Howdie neighbor. I lived in North GA and experienced the same woes. There's still 10 fast food restaurants per 1 wholesome restaurant. I'll know we've made it when waffle house serves veggie sausage. haha.
- Iv 7y ago
  I live in countryside Japan where it does not cost a lot more to buy a bento than to cook one yourself. Before moving in, I used to think it should be easy to be vegetarian in a Buddhist country but it is not. Japan's culinary habit is that a good meal needs to have a lot of different ingredients in it. From a dietetics point of view, that's great but it often means that even in most salads, you'll have a few pieces of bacon or chicken, a shrimp or some grains of minced meat. That still makes for a very meat-light diet and I would switch to a no-meat-at-all in a heartbeat if those bentos and salads came in vegetarian versions, but that makes it almost impossible to totally avoid meat.
arcticfox 7y ago
> The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners will transform their pastures or soy cultures into rain forest instead of another profitable exploitation, I'd rather have states force responsible production and norms. If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain forest.
- SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
  > If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain forest. I'd rather not gamble away the rainforest to optimism about humans acting rational. It's already irrational: humans will optimize towards short term gains.
  - xiphias2 7y ago
    It's not just about short term vs long term gains for the farmers: it's about gain for them vs gain for the whole human population (the second involves just a small marginal gain for the farmers).
    - grawprog 7y ago
      You'd be surprised about the shortsighted things people do for small marginal gain. More of a light hearted example. I worked at a grocery store years ago, one summer the 4L ice cream buckets stopped having handles. A lot of people complained, they liked to use them for berry picking and other things. One day I asked the people we ordered the dairy stuff from why. Turns out, some accountant figured out they'd have a marginal gain of 1¢ per ice cream bucket if they removed the handles. In the end though, that year we ended up throwing a lot of them away, whereas the summer before we'd had trouble keeping them in stock. People really liked those bucket handles. I still wonder if the penny savings were worth the loss in sales from people that wanted buckets with handles more than ice cream.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
detcader 7y ago
I find the ethical-philosophical side of it interesting. In the philosophy of ethics, thought experiments can be helpful (or puzzling), like the trolley problem or the Categorical Imperative. So: Imagine if a wizard finished casting a very complicated and resource-intensive spell and the result is that every living cow, pig, chicken and turkey in the meat industry were replaced with a clone of a dog you've met. In the thousands of crowded compound pens, the millions of tiny cages, on the assembly lines facing captive bolt pistols like the one from No Country for Old Men-- there is now that dog. In that moment, what would be an example of something happening that is more unethical? Of course the answer would be different for each person; some people would have the point that we can't compare apples to oranges. For me I find it hard to imagine a war or a process of exploitation in 2019 that measures up.
- roenxi 7y ago
  But the ethical base-case is potentially that none of those cows, pigs, chickens or turkeys are ever born. Case by case we couldn't say, but statistically a lot of farm animals are going to be reliant on human logistics, organisation and protection to survive in the numbers that they do. So the question might reasonably be 'are the conditions these animals face worse than never existing?'.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    For a lot of them, the answer is most certainly yes, and if humans were in their positions, they'd say so too.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - detcader 7y ago
    Then I think the natural follow-up experiment would be to imagine if a dog you know was born for dogfighting, and that you can be sure it will never escape. Would we rather it just not be born? If not, we just need to argue that being bred to dogfight is preferable to, or on-par with, being bred to be trapped in a cage and eaten.
  - 7y ago
nicoburns 7y ago
> It is just not practical for me to go full-veg, where I live I would need to cook one hour a day for it, Why does eating meat mean you can cook less?
- ebiester 7y ago
  In some areas, the only option is to cook 100% of meals if one wants to be vegetarian. In others, it is still possible to go out to eat. Further, the prepackaged vegetarian options are only available in some options.
- zeveb 7y ago
  Meat is remarkably easy to cook: apply heat to meat, done. Vegetables take preparation, require more-complex treatment, need to be managed well (I have no problem eating a quick meal of just a steak or chicken breast; I really would hate eating a quick meal of only carrots or just onions). Meat's convenient in a way that vegetables aren't.
  - phonypc 7y ago
    This is the opposite of reality in my experience. Most vegetables can be quickly steamed, boiled, stir fried etc. Legumes or tubers take longer, but require little active participation. Meat on the other hand is greatly benefited by things like marination, mechanical tenderizing, monitoring temperature as it cooks. You can whip up a steak pretty quick, but probably not any faster than you could stir fry some veggies.
    - cferr 7y ago
      If we're talking steak in particular, it's going to be faster than any palatable vegetable based dish every time. Total cook time is about five minutes, and prep is less than a minute. Also in particular, stir frying isn't a great example of a vegetable preparation which is fast. Prep is usually at least twice the amount of time as the frying. Peanut butter celery sticks would be a better example I think.
Woberto 7y ago
Even without new vegetarian options at grocery stores, I've been okay with cooking once a week for 2 or 3 hours. Breakfast is an egg casserole/quiche with veggies and chorizo spices or hashbrown. Lunch and dinner might be a lentil "meat"loaf, bean chili, or Indian style meals which are typically vegan. Lots of easy recipe options here, but it does help that I don't mind repeating meals for a week.
rhn_mk1 7y ago
> That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours: https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels of suffering.", I would argue that it's hard to find anything comparable in magnitude to that tragedy if one allows that farmed animals are even a 1/100th fraction as conscious as humans. I would... probably not enjoy being proven wrong this time :S
- yters 7y ago
  Do the animals experience more suffering than if they lived in the wild? Is industrial slaughter more or less traumatic than death in the wild? Are there any benefits animals experience living in captivity vs living in the wild? Is there anything positive about more such animals getting to live in the first place due to demand for meat?
  - Half_pint 7y ago
    People rarely seem to ask these questions when it comes to dogfighting. Somehow we agree it's bad to breed dogs in captivity to suffer when it's a behavior we don't engage in... but when it requires personal change everyone is suddenly Descartes asking the deep questions.
  - rhn_mk1 7y ago
    Those are good questions, but about a different topic (except the last one). The choice here is not between raising animals for eating in factories as opposed to raising them in the wild. It's between raising them in factories versus not bringing them to life at all. Wild animal suffering is a different beast altogether. Your last question is on the point though. Do the animals raised for meat have lives worth living?
    - yters 7y ago
Vinnl 7y ago
> But I reduced my consumption more and more. It was surprising to see how my taste changed. I experienced the same, which was really odd. I guess you can learn to like (or dislike) a taste. The other thing I noticed that concerns about suffering started to weigh far stronger for me once the environmental concerns made me stop eating meat. I think that I subconsciously ignored or trivialised a lot of the information I got about what was and is actually happening in that sector.
- aoeusnth1 7y ago
  Same, I switched for environmental reasons and only then stopped poo-poohing the animal suffering. There's arguably motivated reasoning on both sides - when I was a meat eater, I was motivated not to care, and now that I'm not, I am motivated to justify my lifestyle.
- MisterBastahrd 7y ago
  I once went on a low carb diet and stuck to it steadfast for about 6 months. One of my favorite candies is Reece's Peanut Butter cups. When I came off the diet, I decided to have one. It tasted exactly the same as you would expect those ultra-low-cost off-brand peanut butter cups that they sell in budget grab bags. Took me weeks to be able to taste the difference.
- Iv 7y ago
  The animal suffering aspect kind of was the start for me. I quickly recognized the counter-arguments were very poor. The only two lines of arguments that one may defend are "Animals don't suffer" or "It is natural for humans to exploit animals". I don't hold any of these opinions and therefore I could not defend meat production ethically.
sixstringtheory 7y ago
Regardless of your food selection, I’d encourage you to try bulk cooking if you haven’t before. Cook 4-5 days worth of food on Sunday, takes about 2 hours. You can eat dinner afterwards and package up a plate for every weeknight. When you get home from work during the week, turn on oven, put meal in immediately, take a shower or browse HN for 20 minutes, and you’re g2g. If you start to feel more handy with a frying pan you can store each part of your meal separately in the fridge and reheat a full dish in 5-10 minutes. Microwaves and toaster ovens will also shorten the wait time. Side note: in my time in kitchens, I learned that the art of storing/reheating food is just as important as from-scratch preparation. I understand parent is not motivated to learn it, but I encourage them to rethink it, and I leave this message for everyone else. Personally, cooking has been an incredibly fulfilling and freeing life skill to acquire.
- Iv 7y ago
  I know how to do it. I don't like it and I have better use of 2 hours of my precious sunday time.

by Iv 7y ago

everythingswan 7y ago

What are the constraints based on where you live? I knew someone who grew up heavily on beef since she was from a small, rural country. Is it a similar reason? I'm interested in food insecurity and related things, which is why I ask.

strict9 7y ago
I grew up and lived in a rural area (southern appalachians in the US) and it was not easy. Small town restaurants often have zero options, living near a taco bell was about the best you can hope for. Not even morningstar farms veggie burgers in grocery stores. But that was 10 years ago, things are different now. Whenever I go home for Christmas I'm amazed at what's available.
- xeromal 7y ago
  Howdie neighbor. I lived in North GA and experienced the same woes. There's still 10 fast food restaurants per 1 wholesome restaurant. I'll know we've made it when waffle house serves veggie sausage. haha.
Iv 7y ago
I live in countryside Japan where it does not cost a lot more to buy a bento than to cook one yourself. Before moving in, I used to think it should be easy to be vegetarian in a Buddhist country but it is not. Japan's culinary habit is that a good meal needs to have a lot of different ingredients in it. From a dietetics point of view, that's great but it often means that even in most salads, you'll have a few pieces of bacon or chicken, a shrimp or some grains of minced meat. That still makes for a very meat-light diet and I would switch to a no-meat-at-all in a heartbeat if those bentos and salads came in vegetarian versions, but that makes it almost impossible to totally avoid meat.

arcticfox 7y ago

> The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners will transform their pastures or soy cultures into rain forest instead of another profitable exploitation, I'd rather have states force responsible production and norms. If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain forest.

SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
> If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain forest. I'd rather not gamble away the rainforest to optimism about humans acting rational. It's already irrational: humans will optimize towards short term gains.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  It's not just about short term vs long term gains for the farmers: it's about gain for them vs gain for the whole human population (the second involves just a small marginal gain for the farmers).
  - grawprog 7y ago
    You'd be surprised about the shortsighted things people do for small marginal gain. More of a light hearted example. I worked at a grocery store years ago, one summer the 4L ice cream buckets stopped having handles. A lot of people complained, they liked to use them for berry picking and other things. One day I asked the people we ordered the dairy stuff from why. Turns out, some accountant figured out they'd have a marginal gain of 1¢ per ice cream bucket if they removed the handles. In the end though, that year we ended up throwing a lot of them away, whereas the summer before we'd had trouble keeping them in stock. People really liked those bucket handles. I still wonder if the penny savings were worth the loss in sales from people that wanted buckets with handles more than ice cream.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

detcader 7y ago

I find the ethical-philosophical side of it interesting. In the philosophy of ethics, thought experiments can be helpful (or puzzling), like the trolley problem or the Categorical Imperative. So: Imagine if a wizard finished casting a very complicated and resource-intensive spell and the result is that every living cow, pig, chicken and turkey in the meat industry were replaced with a clone of a dog you've met. In the thousands of crowded compound pens, the millions of tiny cages, on the assembly lines facing captive bolt pistols like the one from No Country for Old Men-- there is now that dog. In that moment, what would be an example of something happening that is more unethical? Of course the answer would be different for each person; some people would have the point that we can't compare apples to oranges. For me I find it hard to imagine a war or a process of exploitation in 2019 that measures up.

roenxi 7y ago
But the ethical base-case is potentially that none of those cows, pigs, chickens or turkeys are ever born. Case by case we couldn't say, but statistically a lot of farm animals are going to be reliant on human logistics, organisation and protection to survive in the numbers that they do. So the question might reasonably be 'are the conditions these animals face worse than never existing?'.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  For a lot of them, the answer is most certainly yes, and if humans were in their positions, they'd say so too.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- detcader 7y ago
  Then I think the natural follow-up experiment would be to imagine if a dog you know was born for dogfighting, and that you can be sure it will never escape. Would we rather it just not be born? If not, we just need to argue that being bred to dogfight is preferable to, or on-par with, being bred to be trapped in a cage and eaten.
- 7y ago

nicoburns 7y ago

> It is just not practical for me to go full-veg, where I live I would need to cook one hour a day for it, Why does eating meat mean you can cook less?

ebiester 7y ago
In some areas, the only option is to cook 100% of meals if one wants to be vegetarian. In others, it is still possible to go out to eat. Further, the prepackaged vegetarian options are only available in some options.
zeveb 7y ago
Meat is remarkably easy to cook: apply heat to meat, done. Vegetables take preparation, require more-complex treatment, need to be managed well (I have no problem eating a quick meal of just a steak or chicken breast; I really would hate eating a quick meal of only carrots or just onions). Meat's convenient in a way that vegetables aren't.
- phonypc 7y ago
  This is the opposite of reality in my experience. Most vegetables can be quickly steamed, boiled, stir fried etc. Legumes or tubers take longer, but require little active participation. Meat on the other hand is greatly benefited by things like marination, mechanical tenderizing, monitoring temperature as it cooks. You can whip up a steak pretty quick, but probably not any faster than you could stir fry some veggies.
  - cferr 7y ago
    If we're talking steak in particular, it's going to be faster than any palatable vegetable based dish every time. Total cook time is about five minutes, and prep is less than a minute. Also in particular, stir frying isn't a great example of a vegetable preparation which is fast. Prep is usually at least twice the amount of time as the frying. Peanut butter celery sticks would be a better example I think.

Woberto 7y ago

Even without new vegetarian options at grocery stores, I've been okay with cooking once a week for 2 or 3 hours. Breakfast is an egg casserole/quiche with veggies and chorizo spices or hashbrown. Lunch and dinner might be a lentil "meat"loaf, bean chili, or Indian style meals which are typically vegan. Lots of easy recipe options here, but it does help that I don't mind repeating meals for a week.

rhn_mk1 7y ago

> That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours: https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels of suffering.", I would argue that it's hard to find anything comparable in magnitude to that tragedy if one allows that farmed animals are even a 1/100th fraction as conscious as humans. I would... probably not enjoy being proven wrong this time :S

yters 7y ago
Do the animals experience more suffering than if they lived in the wild? Is industrial slaughter more or less traumatic than death in the wild? Are there any benefits animals experience living in captivity vs living in the wild? Is there anything positive about more such animals getting to live in the first place due to demand for meat?
- Half_pint 7y ago
  People rarely seem to ask these questions when it comes to dogfighting. Somehow we agree it's bad to breed dogs in captivity to suffer when it's a behavior we don't engage in... but when it requires personal change everyone is suddenly Descartes asking the deep questions.
- rhn_mk1 7y ago
  Those are good questions, but about a different topic (except the last one). The choice here is not between raising animals for eating in factories as opposed to raising them in the wild. It's between raising them in factories versus not bringing them to life at all. Wild animal suffering is a different beast altogether. Your last question is on the point though. Do the animals raised for meat have lives worth living?
  - yters 7y ago

Vinnl 7y ago

> But I reduced my consumption more and more. It was surprising to see how my taste changed. I experienced the same, which was really odd. I guess you can learn to like (or dislike) a taste. The other thing I noticed that concerns about suffering started to weigh far stronger for me once the environmental concerns made me stop eating meat. I think that I subconsciously ignored or trivialised a lot of the information I got about what was and is actually happening in that sector.

aoeusnth1 7y ago
Same, I switched for environmental reasons and only then stopped poo-poohing the animal suffering. There's arguably motivated reasoning on both sides - when I was a meat eater, I was motivated not to care, and now that I'm not, I am motivated to justify my lifestyle.
MisterBastahrd 7y ago
I once went on a low carb diet and stuck to it steadfast for about 6 months. One of my favorite candies is Reece's Peanut Butter cups. When I came off the diet, I decided to have one. It tasted exactly the same as you would expect those ultra-low-cost off-brand peanut butter cups that they sell in budget grab bags. Took me weeks to be able to taste the difference.
Iv 7y ago
The animal suffering aspect kind of was the start for me. I quickly recognized the counter-arguments were very poor. The only two lines of arguments that one may defend are "Animals don't suffer" or "It is natural for humans to exploit animals". I don't hold any of these opinions and therefore I could not defend meat production ethically.

sixstringtheory 7y ago

Regardless of your food selection, I’d encourage you to try bulk cooking if you haven’t before. Cook 4-5 days worth of food on Sunday, takes about 2 hours. You can eat dinner afterwards and package up a plate for every weeknight. When you get home from work during the week, turn on oven, put meal in immediately, take a shower or browse HN for 20 minutes, and you’re g2g. If you start to feel more handy with a frying pan you can store each part of your meal separately in the fridge and reheat a full dish in 5-10 minutes. Microwaves and toaster ovens will also shorten the wait time. Side note: in my time in kitchens, I learned that the art of storing/reheating food is just as important as from-scratch preparation. I understand parent is not motivated to learn it, but I encourage them to rethink it, and I leave this message for everyone else. Personally, cooking has been an incredibly fulfilling and freeing life skill to acquire.

Iv 7y ago
I know how to do it. I don't like it and I have better use of 2 hours of my precious sunday time.