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> If people spent time with meat animals, there would be a lot more vegetarians. Having grown up on a ranch, yes I know cows are smart... chickens not so much.

> If people spent time with meat animals, there would be a lot more vegetarians. Having grown up on a ranch, yes I know cows are smart... chickens not so much. It does not change my views on eating beef at all. Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. One because it makes them taste better, another because we about our livestock. Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature. The cow does not know it's going to be slaughtered. It lives a nice happy life roaming the fields, on the last few days it goes to processing to eat a massive last great meal. It's the nicest form of us being eating our prey.

karterk 3y ago
> Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. Unfortunately the entire premise of your argument is based on a personal anecdote that's a gross generalization of vast number of cattle farms.
- spookie 3y ago
  Let's be fair and acknowledge the difference between a small local farm and the larger "industrial"-like ones. I grew up in a farm, I know others too, people are kind to their animals. Of course, the larger ones don't care. The same happens even when producing vegetables, no regards to nature in those cases either.
defrost 3y ago
> Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature. That's flat out false - there are many examples of free range beef, the entire clean skin northern australian market for one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBpOiEfYk6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBpOiEfYk6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-zWxDJOZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-zWxDJOZU
archon1410 3y ago
Every time there's an article posted somewhere stating the obvious (as the original post does), there's always someone in the comments referring to non-humans as if they are objects, insisting that of course it is okay to breed various animals into existence to exploit someone for life and then hang them by a hook when they're no longer useful, and slit their throats or shoot them or to dismember them alive (as is documented). "Of course cows are treated well!", nevermind their children being taken away from them and slaughtered in childhood—love for your children must just be a human thing. Nevermind that the majority of cows, hundreds of millions of them, exist in factory farms. No, you should continue to eat flesh because "we treat them well in ranches". Incredibly depraved behaviour that history will not look kindly upon. It should, and does, make anyone with a conscience nauseous and sick.
- EGreg 3y ago
  If cows were raised like they were throughout history - free range instead of in factory farms, and calves sharing closeness and the milk - would you have the same objection to them being slaughtered at some point later without much suffering?
  - archon1410 3y ago
    Perhaps such a system did exist somewhere in some bygone era—maybe in ancient India where milk was common but where cows or calves were never intentionally killed, and skin and carrion was sometimes taken from the corpse. I think most people would consider that non-objectionable—as did most ancient Jains, Buddhist, and Hindus, who believed in ahimsa. But such a system does not, and probably can not, exist at any significant scale in the modern era. And while instant death is sometimes preferable to a "natural death"—I doubt those interested in "harvesting" the corpse would ever have any incentive to care about whether the death was "without much suffering".
    - kaikai 3y ago
      > I doubt those interested in "harvesting" the corpse would ever have any incentive to care about whether the death was "without much suffering". I am. I work really hard to make sure my animals have the best death I can possibly give them. There’s horrific things happening in industrial meat production, no argument. That doesn’t mean that everyone who raises meat animals is uncaring.
    - theultdev 3y ago
      No it does exist, today. A large portion of cows do roam free in pastures in the US. They are only processed several days before where they are fed a large sum of grain in those crowded cages you see.
- kaikai 3y ago
  My feeling is not that killing is morally justified by their lack of intelligence, but that there is no purely ethical choice in food besides starving to death. Even veganism necessitates environmental destruction, exploited labor, and other externalities under industrial farming. Anyone that’s harvested a grain field knows that a vegetarian diet is not free from costing animal lives just because it doesn’t include animal protein. I give my animals the best life and the best death that I can. I hugely value getting significant calories from the sun to my mouth, without environmental destruction /global shipping/slavery/preservatives/etc.
kaikai 3y ago
I raise my own animals and eat them, and was also a vegetarian for a big chunk of my life. I have friends visit who have never been around livestock, never thought too hard about where their meat comes from, and don’t understand how I can kill animals that I also give scritches to and let nap in my lap. For me, midwifing and raising and caring for animals so they have good lives and quick deaths is the better choice. For many people, the weight of the death is too much. That’s why I say there would be more vegetarians, not because I think vegetarianism is morally superior (or inferior!).
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  >For me, midwifing and raising and caring for animals so they have good lives and quick deaths is the better choice Than not eating them at all?
  - kaikai 3y ago
    I do need to eat food, and all food comes from somewhere.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
      Sounds like you are justifying cannibalism
    - 000ooo000 3y ago
      Not all food comes from killed animals, though
      - kaikai 3y ago
        You are totally correct. I can choose to get my protein all kinds of ways, including from tofu made in a factory, out of soy grown on another continent, on ground that used to be rainforest and fertilized with nitrogen produced at the cost of huge carbon emissions, then shipped across an ocean. I can also choose to get it from an animal I helped birth, that eats blackberry bushes and grass in my pasture with their family until they’re grown, then gets led to some food on the ground and doesn’t even know what hit them. I can choose either, and I’m not going to argue on the internet that one is inherently morally superior to the other. ALL of the things we consume come with costs. Just because they’re hidden in the end product doesn’t make them nonexistent. I also know enough vegans and was a staunch enough vegetarian to know that neither of us is likely to change our minds or even really absorb new information here.
anonzzzies 3y ago
Happy lives… that’s not the case for most meat you buy in the $1 bonus packs in the supermarket. Those animals get tortured every day of their short and miserable lives. You have seen different but stimulating meat consumption while those factories exist is wrong imho as that will only grow as a result. But it is not fixable because there is no space to grow meat for all humans this way in a free range way, so better stop eating it at all (until it comes from labs or space or whatever). So visit one of the horror pig farms and see how the bacon tastes after that I would say. In my view only actual psychopaths can eat it after seeing that.
PeterStuer 3y ago
Chickens are very affectionate though. They love to be patted, will run through the field with you, and sit down when they want you to take them to the coop to be locked in for the night (there's many foxes and marters where we live, and no matter how much you try, eventually your free range chickens will be taken by them).
callalex 3y ago
> Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. The ones with horrible practices do not allow visitors or even cameras. While it is possible to source all your meat from happy places, statistically almost nobody does.
- theultdev 3y ago
  > statistically almost nobody does Do you have the source of the statistic of everyone eating beef from horrible places?
  - copirate 3y ago
    > We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.2% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms. https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estima...
ornornor 3y ago
> Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature. What’s wrong with not existing at all vs being exploited and eventually killed before your natural life is over? Statistically speaking, if you’re a cow or other animal we exploit, your chances are far greater to be born and exist in a factory farm. Is it really a life worth living at all?
- theultdev 3y ago
  Yes, life is precious. Consciousness is even more precious. The smarter the lifeform, the more precious it's life. This is the main idea that drives vegetarian and veganism is it not? To exist is the greatest gift of all. You're experiencing it right now. It would be a sad day to see such a smart, useful, beautiful creature be extinct from this Earth such as the cow.
gs17 3y ago
>Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. Unfortunately, that's the minority of cattle and AFAIK it's not really possible to replace all current meat production with the kind of treatment you're talking about, even if everyone was willing to stomach a big price increase.

karterk 3y ago

> Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. Unfortunately the entire premise of your argument is based on a personal anecdote that's a gross generalization of vast number of cattle farms.

spookie 3y ago
Let's be fair and acknowledge the difference between a small local farm and the larger "industrial"-like ones. I grew up in a farm, I know others too, people are kind to their animals. Of course, the larger ones don't care. The same happens even when producing vegetables, no regards to nature in those cases either.

defrost 3y ago

> Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature. That's flat out false - there are many examples of free range beef, the entire clean skin northern australian market for one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBpOiEfYk6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBpOiEfYk6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-zWxDJOZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-zWxDJOZU

archon1410 3y ago

Every time there's an article posted somewhere stating the obvious (as the original post does), there's always someone in the comments referring to non-humans as if they are objects, insisting that of course it is okay to breed various animals into existence to exploit someone for life and then hang them by a hook when they're no longer useful, and slit their throats or shoot them or to dismember them alive (as is documented). "Of course cows are treated well!", nevermind their children being taken away from them and slaughtered in childhood—love for your children must just be a human thing. Nevermind that the majority of cows, hundreds of millions of them, exist in factory farms. No, you should continue to eat flesh because "we treat them well in ranches". Incredibly depraved behaviour that history will not look kindly upon. It should, and does, make anyone with a conscience nauseous and sick.

EGreg 3y ago
If cows were raised like they were throughout history - free range instead of in factory farms, and calves sharing closeness and the milk - would you have the same objection to them being slaughtered at some point later without much suffering?
- archon1410 3y ago
  Perhaps such a system did exist somewhere in some bygone era—maybe in ancient India where milk was common but where cows or calves were never intentionally killed, and skin and carrion was sometimes taken from the corpse. I think most people would consider that non-objectionable—as did most ancient Jains, Buddhist, and Hindus, who believed in ahimsa. But such a system does not, and probably can not, exist at any significant scale in the modern era. And while instant death is sometimes preferable to a "natural death"—I doubt those interested in "harvesting" the corpse would ever have any incentive to care about whether the death was "without much suffering".
  - kaikai 3y ago
    > I doubt those interested in "harvesting" the corpse would ever have any incentive to care about whether the death was "without much suffering". I am. I work really hard to make sure my animals have the best death I can possibly give them. There’s horrific things happening in industrial meat production, no argument. That doesn’t mean that everyone who raises meat animals is uncaring.
  - theultdev 3y ago
    No it does exist, today. A large portion of cows do roam free in pastures in the US. They are only processed several days before where they are fed a large sum of grain in those crowded cages you see.
kaikai 3y ago
My feeling is not that killing is morally justified by their lack of intelligence, but that there is no purely ethical choice in food besides starving to death. Even veganism necessitates environmental destruction, exploited labor, and other externalities under industrial farming. Anyone that’s harvested a grain field knows that a vegetarian diet is not free from costing animal lives just because it doesn’t include animal protein. I give my animals the best life and the best death that I can. I hugely value getting significant calories from the sun to my mouth, without environmental destruction /global shipping/slavery/preservatives/etc.

kaikai 3y ago

I raise my own animals and eat them, and was also a vegetarian for a big chunk of my life. I have friends visit who have never been around livestock, never thought too hard about where their meat comes from, and don’t understand how I can kill animals that I also give scritches to and let nap in my lap. For me, midwifing and raising and caring for animals so they have good lives and quick deaths is the better choice. For many people, the weight of the death is too much. That’s why I say there would be more vegetarians, not because I think vegetarianism is morally superior (or inferior!).

000ooo000 3y ago
>For me, midwifing and raising and caring for animals so they have good lives and quick deaths is the better choice Than not eating them at all?
- kaikai 3y ago
  I do need to eat food, and all food comes from somewhere.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
    Sounds like you are justifying cannibalism
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    Not all food comes from killed animals, though
    - kaikai 3y ago
      You are totally correct. I can choose to get my protein all kinds of ways, including from tofu made in a factory, out of soy grown on another continent, on ground that used to be rainforest and fertilized with nitrogen produced at the cost of huge carbon emissions, then shipped across an ocean. I can also choose to get it from an animal I helped birth, that eats blackberry bushes and grass in my pasture with their family until they’re grown, then gets led to some food on the ground and doesn’t even know what hit them. I can choose either, and I’m not going to argue on the internet that one is inherently morally superior to the other. ALL of the things we consume come with costs. Just because they’re hidden in the end product doesn’t make them nonexistent. I also know enough vegans and was a staunch enough vegetarian to know that neither of us is likely to change our minds or even really absorb new information here.

anonzzzies 3y ago

Happy lives… that’s not the case for most meat you buy in the $1 bonus packs in the supermarket. Those animals get tortured every day of their short and miserable lives. You have seen different but stimulating meat consumption while those factories exist is wrong imho as that will only grow as a result. But it is not fixable because there is no space to grow meat for all humans this way in a free range way, so better stop eating it at all (until it comes from labs or space or whatever). So visit one of the horror pig farms and see how the bacon tastes after that I would say. In my view only actual psychopaths can eat it after seeing that.

PeterStuer 3y ago

Chickens are very affectionate though. They love to be patted, will run through the field with you, and sit down when they want you to take them to the coop to be locked in for the night (there's many foxes and marters where we live, and no matter how much you try, eventually your free range chickens will be taken by them).

callalex 3y ago

> Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. The ones with horrible practices do not allow visitors or even cameras. While it is possible to source all your meat from happy places, statistically almost nobody does.

theultdev 3y ago
> statistically almost nobody does Do you have the source of the statistic of everyone eating beef from horrible places?
- copirate 3y ago
  > We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.2% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms. https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estima...

ornornor 3y ago

> Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature. What’s wrong with not existing at all vs being exploited and eventually killed before your natural life is over? Statistically speaking, if you’re a cow or other animal we exploit, your chances are far greater to be born and exist in a factory farm. Is it really a life worth living at all?

theultdev 3y ago
Yes, life is precious. Consciousness is even more precious. The smarter the lifeform, the more precious it's life. This is the main idea that drives vegetarian and veganism is it not? To exist is the greatest gift of all. You're experiencing it right now. It would be a sad day to see such a smart, useful, beautiful creature be extinct from this Earth such as the cow.

gs17 3y ago

>Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. Unfortunately, that's the minority of cattle and AFAIK it's not really possible to replace all current meat production with the kind of treatment you're talking about, even if everyone was willing to stomach a big price increase.