coryallen2

omfg anothe peta?


IT'S A SLAUGHTER HOUSE...WHERE THEY KILL ANIMALS FOR FOOD. WHO CARES IF THEY GET ABUSED...THEY ARE GOING TO DIE.

boo boo

Meat does use up a lot of resources, that's not much of an argument. But if everyone was a vegetarian, there would be a higher demand for such foods and overall we'd be using around the same amount of resources we've been using to feed livestock. So I don't think that's a very good argument at all.

Eating grass really would be the only alternative, and I don't even think the most obsessed vegans would be very fond of that idea.

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Guybrush

Hmm, I'm not sure if you really understand the resources argument. Maybe it takes a little explaining in general. Consider this :

When an animal eats food, not all of that food is gonna help build up that animal. The animal needs to fuel biochemical processes, needs to keep warm, needs energy to move around - most of the food is gonna be used in maintenance costs and so on. So, to illustrate.

Let's say we have a simple food web like this : fish > seal > polar bear

Let's stay clear of numbers for a little longer and just say that in order for a seal to become adult, it has to eat a ****load of fish over an extended period of time. A lot of the resources the seal gets from eating the fish are spent on other things, like producing cubs, swimming, staying warm, etc. Now, a polar bear has to eat lots of seals again to become an adult and while it is extremely efficient with energy storage, it's situation is the same as that of the seal - it's gonna spend a lot of it on other things than just growing muscles and fat.

These numbers are silly, but just imagine this : a 100 kg seal has eaten 10000 kilos of fish to become that large. A polar bear has to eat 1000 kilos of seal to become 100 kg polar bear.

In other words, it takes 100 000 kilos of fish to make 100 kilos of polar bear. Each kilo of polar bear that you eat was, down the line if you cut out the seals, fed up on 1000 kilos fish. Now to the point, what if you cut out the polar bear and the seal and just eat the fish? It's a lower level in the food chain and it takes much less resources. It takes 1 kilo of fish to give you 1 kilo of fish to eat.


The point is exactly the same and even more so for cows eating grass. It takes a lot of grass to make a 100 kilos cow. At least 10 000 kilos. Instead of using 10 square kilometres for growing grass for cow consumption, you could perhaps use 1 square kilometre to grow corn and end up with the same amount of food.

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FireInCairo

I'm on top of the food chain.
I will kill and eat whatever I like.

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boo boo

But again. If everyone stopped eating meet. You would see an increase in production of fruits and vegetables like you said, but we'll be using up more resources as a result. Without meat you'd be lacking a lot of vitamins you would have to get by consuming a lot more of certain kinds of foods, especially when it comes to protein. So the demands for such food items would increase, therefore using up more resources, you'd also see the supplement industry go through the roof and that would also use up resources.

My main point is, as long as we exist on this planet, we're gonna be using up it's resources.

^ That.

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FireInCairo

I think that is the first thing you've ever agreed with me on Boo Boo.

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Guybrush

Hum, every chain in the food web "wastes" energy and that reduction is highly significant. If you want to trivialize that, alright, in biology it's fairly basic stuff and I also have a course in resource management. If you wanna be ignorant for the sake of ignorance, I doubt I can change your mind.

However, you're right that without meat, it will be harder to get all the amino acids that we need, but of course you could still eat meat. You could supplement a diet consisting mostly of vegetables with the occasional meat and you could be an aware consumer, taking care to eat beans and such to get the nutrients you need.

Buying a steak at a store is really a privilege, not a right. If you wanna excercise some natural right to kill and eat, I suggest you go out there, kill something and cook it.

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boo boo

Well I hate beans so there.

And the idea of everyone eating beans is not very pleasant.

Again I've said it before. You're not gonna achieve anything by telling people to stop eating meat and that they don't have any rights in the matter. If you want to put a dent on factory farming. Do something to help the growth of organic farms, encourage more people to eat organic and for more people to kill their own food. Factory farming won't just go away, but if the production of organic goods increase, become less expensive and more available to the public, over a slow period of time factory farming could die out.

Organic farms can't meet the demands that factory farming does, that makes it harder to get people to support it, it would mean less consumption of meat, mainly because it would be more expensive, which is what you want, more people would resort to killing their own food to save money. Meat consumption will go down but it will still be there for those that want it, everyone wins and nobodys rights regarding what they can or can't eat are being dictated.

Either way if you care about the issue that much, there's a lot better things you can do than to try and convince people not to eat meat, which is a severe waste of time and the only thing you'll suceed in doing is making people think you're a morally imperialistic snob.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

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Guybrush

If you read my posts and not just the last two, you'll see that I probably eat just as much meat as you do.

Anyone who bothers to read should see that I'm not taking the moral highground here.

I think the tragedy is that most likely, one person is not gonna do his or hers for the environment if their neighbours don't. Because of that, most people by far won't and it takes collective effort to make a difference. The most feasible way to get there is to get a green government which means that in a democratic country, a majority of people have to vote for someone pushing that kind of politics. In other words, they have to agree that they should make sacrifices for a common good. I think most people prefer more meat today than having to give up some of it so that we have meat next week, so I think of it as unlikely though not impossible.

I can understand why single individuals don't wanna give up meat, I'm one of them. But that doesn't mean we have to be ignorant in regards to the tragedy of our own predicament. Maybe when the day comes and the opportunity arises, some of those who don't want to make an individual effort will still agree to do a collective one.

However, if people are ignorant in regards to all this, you can't even expect them to try and partake in collective effort. Thus, I think some education is needed.

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boo boo

Then by all means try and encourage more people to go organic, educate them about it and try to do something that helps the causes of organic farmers. Support politicians that are going to do something about it.

If that's all you're doing that's fine, but you're not achieving anything by trying to make people feel guilty for eating meat, especially when you eat it yourself. That's not gonna fly with people, you can't change peoples minds, I know what kind of horrible conditions animals are put through, it doesn't make me want to go vegan, and the only thing vegans constantly telling me to go vegan does is make me hate vegans.

It's like telling pot smokers to quit pot. So please, don't go about it that way. It only hurts your cause.

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