4 ms·

> It always amuses me that when I tell this story, it's often met with disgust - even by meat-eaters! "But, how could you eat horse! They're so nice!". Yeah...

> It always amuses me that when I tell this story, it's often met with disgust - even by meat-eaters! "But, how could you eat horse! They're so nice!". Yeah... you eat beef, have you ever met a cow up close? They're also lovely creatures! I see this as double-standards - similar to how most meat-eaters also seem so disgusted by the idea of eating dogs in certain parts of Asia. Doesn't this more indicate that many people deep-down think that eating animals is wrong and have these thoughts overridden by cultural preferences and tribalism, and that instead of resolving the above double-standard by embracing eating every kind of animal they could resolve it by not eating eat any? Where do you draw the line? You can find places and times in history where people ate dolphin, whales, cat, gorilla, and elephants too I think.

bombcar 4y ago
More likely that we've been disconnected from the realities of the food chain; in general people didn't eat horses because they're more valuable as work animals vs meat. Farmers et al who deal with animals day in and day out don't seem to have much problem also eating them.
rapnie 4y ago
> Doesn't this more indicate that many people deep-down know that eating animals is wrong I am severely limiting my meat intake, both from environmental as well as animal welfare pov. But what you express is an entirely cultural opinion. Humans are by nature omnivore animals. They always ate meat. But we do it now on industrial scale, eating way too much. There's very few hunter-gatherers in their traditional habitat driving a spear to the wild animal's neck left.
- seanwilson 4y ago
  > I am severely limiting my meat intake, both from environmental as well as animal welfare pov. But what you express is an entirely cultural opinion. I think claims about environmental damage and animal welfare are objective, not opinion. > Humans are by nature omnivore animals. They always ate meat. But we do it now on industrial scale, eating way too much. This is just naturalistic fallacy. We do lots of things in our modern lifestyles the last 100 years we never used to and stopped doing things we used to commonly do before that. Humans don't require meat to thrive any more plus climate change is a new problem we have to adapt to.
somewhereoutth 4y ago
Really deep down, i.e. at the level of hunger and what looks tasty to your body, eating animals is very right. They are a fantastic source of nutrition. However, we also like to domesticate animals, as companions and helpers. Hence the conflict. We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat (grass mostly) to what we can eat. Simply, an exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population? Of course, strict vegetarianism and especially veganism is not much more than social signalling for a particular and narrow demographic - the cultural preferences and tribalism you allude to.
- hcarvalhoalves 4y ago
  > We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat (grass mostly) to what we can eat. Simply, an exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population? Which is not true at all, most meat is cow beef, pig and poultry fed with grains. Grains that we have to grow, and take land and water away from growing other things that could feed us directly. This would only be true if everyone ate grass-fed beef - which would be premium and 10x more expensive- and a lot more goat and similar that can be fed low quality grass.
- seanwilson 4y ago
  > animals are simply too efficient at converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat ... Simply, an exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population? "Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, with most of this used to raise livestock for dairy and meat. Livestock are fed from two sources – lands on which the animals graze and land on which feeding crops, such as soy and cereals, are grown. How much would our agricultural land use decline if the world adopted a plant-based diet? Research suggests that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops. ... In the charts here we see the energy and protein efficiency of different animal products. This tells us what percentage of the calories or grams of protein that we feed livestock are later available to consume as meat and dairy. As an example: beef has an energy efficiency of about 2%. This means that for every 100 kilocalories you feed a cow, you only get 2 kilocalories of beef back. In general we see that cows are the least efficient, followed by lamb, pigs then poultry." https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
t-3 4y ago
No, it indicates that people are completely unaware and disconnected from their food. Most people would also be disgusted by having to pluck a chicken, slaughter their meat themselves, or even just make a sausage. Hell, I've seen people disgusted at harvesting vegetables from the garden, eating berries off the bush, or fermenting anything (Oh no, dirt and bugs and bacteria!).

bombcar 4y ago

More likely that we've been disconnected from the realities of the food chain; in general people didn't eat horses because they're more valuable as work animals vs meat. Farmers et al who deal with animals day in and day out don't seem to have much problem also eating them.

rapnie 4y ago

> Doesn't this more indicate that many people deep-down know that eating animals is wrong I am severely limiting my meat intake, both from environmental as well as animal welfare pov. But what you express is an entirely cultural opinion. Humans are by nature omnivore animals. They always ate meat. But we do it now on industrial scale, eating way too much. There's very few hunter-gatherers in their traditional habitat driving a spear to the wild animal's neck left.

seanwilson 4y ago
> I am severely limiting my meat intake, both from environmental as well as animal welfare pov. But what you express is an entirely cultural opinion. I think claims about environmental damage and animal welfare are objective, not opinion. > Humans are by nature omnivore animals. They always ate meat. But we do it now on industrial scale, eating way too much. This is just naturalistic fallacy. We do lots of things in our modern lifestyles the last 100 years we never used to and stopped doing things we used to commonly do before that. Humans don't require meat to thrive any more plus climate change is a new problem we have to adapt to.

somewhereoutth 4y ago

Really deep down, i.e. at the level of hunger and what looks tasty to your body, eating animals is very right. They are a fantastic source of nutrition. However, we also like to domesticate animals, as companions and helpers. Hence the conflict. We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat (grass mostly) to what we can eat. Simply, an exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population? Of course, strict vegetarianism and especially veganism is not much more than social signalling for a particular and narrow demographic - the cultural preferences and tribalism you allude to.

hcarvalhoalves 4y ago
> We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat (grass mostly) to what we can eat. Simply, an exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population? Which is not true at all, most meat is cow beef, pig and poultry fed with grains. Grains that we have to grow, and take land and water away from growing other things that could feed us directly. This would only be true if everyone ate grass-fed beef - which would be premium and 10x more expensive- and a lot more goat and similar that can be fed low quality grass.
seanwilson 4y ago
> animals are simply too efficient at converting what we can grow everywhere but can't eat ... Simply, an exclusively plant based diet would require the elimination (by starvation?) of who knows, 90% of the world population? "Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, with most of this used to raise livestock for dairy and meat. Livestock are fed from two sources – lands on which the animals graze and land on which feeding crops, such as soy and cereals, are grown. How much would our agricultural land use decline if the world adopted a plant-based diet? Research suggests that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops. ... In the charts here we see the energy and protein efficiency of different animal products. This tells us what percentage of the calories or grams of protein that we feed livestock are later available to consume as meat and dairy. As an example: beef has an energy efficiency of about 2%. This means that for every 100 kilocalories you feed a cow, you only get 2 kilocalories of beef back. In general we see that cows are the least efficient, followed by lamb, pigs then poultry." https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

t-3 4y ago

No, it indicates that people are completely unaware and disconnected from their food. Most people would also be disgusted by having to pluck a chicken, slaughter their meat themselves, or even just make a sausage. Hell, I've seen people disgusted at harvesting vegetables from the garden, eating berries off the bush, or fermenting anything (Oh no, dirt and bugs and bacteria!).