Comments by "" (@titteryenot4524) on "Scottish Comedian Reacts To Crazy Vegan Lady" video.
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I feel it’s important to put the non-meat eating case here, as while Leo has some fun with this lady, it’s an important issue for us all. For full disclosure, I eat fish and occasionally some meat, so I’m in no way coming at this as an ardent
vegetarian/vegan. I just felt it important to lay out, as objectively as possible, the case for vegetarianism. One of the major arguments that killing animals for food is wrong is that animals are actually incredibly sentient and remarkably intelligent. Animal welfare, therefore, should be a major concern of humans. While animals might not have achieved the same level of community or civilization that humanity has (and while yes, they are below humans in the food chain), this should not diminish their intelligence and their ability to feel. Animals not only feel pain but have memories, family connections, and connections to humans too. We see some animals (such as dogs or cats) as worthy of our protection, whereas other animals of equal intelligence, such as pigs, are killed for food. The reality is that humans have distanced themselves from their own food chain, and therefore from the suffering caused to animals through meat-eating. We see eating meat as a human tradition; however, we are no longer hunter-gatherers living off the odd animal that happens to cross our paths. The meat industry has been industrialized, and it uses masses of land, grain, and water to produce meat for our supermarket shelves. The problem is that with more meat-eaters, the land where beef can be reared or where chickens or pigs are kept is fast diminishing. The argument is that raising meat for slaughter is simply not sustainable because it’s inefficient. Beef is the worst culprit, and the amount of food and water that goes into its production could be used to produce a higher quantity of plant-food, which gives humans the same number of calories or nutrients. As the human population increases, this problem will only become more noticeable, as there is more competition for ever scarcer resources. Another environmental argument against meat-eating is the huge contribution livestock has towards CO2 emission. Methane gas is a byproduct of raising animals (particularly cattle), and eating red meat has a large carbon footprint that’s not always obvious to consumers. Cutting down on red meat lowers the demand for meat and can contribute towards a lower carbon footprint and fewer CO2 emissions. Are humans designed to eat meat? In part, we have evolved to eat cooked meat; however, we have also evolved to eat plants. Despite how conditioned we are to consuming meat, our bodies don’t need us to keep eating meat to survive. All observing Hindus and Sikhs, for example, avoid eating meat, and often all animal products altogether. In fact, we can find all of the essential nutrients (including proteins and B12) that we traditionally source from meat in many different plants and plant-based products. For instance, soy is a huge source of plant-based protein. If humans do have dominance over the animals and are top of the food chain, shouldn’t we make a moral decision to help our planet and help our animals? Rather than using our intelligence as a right to kill other creatures, the argument is that we can use our intelligence as a force for positive change and a move towards sustainability and improved animal welfare. Should humans take the moral high ground rather than justifying questionable existing moralities? Perhaps with the onset of lab-grown
meat we will be able to continue consuming meat guilt-free. The reality of eating animals is that many of the ethical and moral arguments that defend it are, in fact, rather weak in the face of the pro vegetarianism argument. While sustainable farming practices can eliminate the environmental arguments against meat-eating, you still have the cost factors to consider and the morality of killing animals. The tradition argument has no real logical basis either; after all, just because humans have been doing something for millennia doesn’t make it the right thing to do (you can justify slavery with this very same argument).
Ultimately though, the question of should I eat meat is currently a personal one. We each have our own belief systems, our own reason(s) to not eat meat or to eat meat. However, with an ever-crowded world and shrinking resources, environmental factors may prove to be an overpowering argument for plant-based diets in the future. The key for me in all this is education. People should be free to make up their own minds and not coerced one way or the other. 🐮
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