Vegan no more

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Juniper

I've given this some thought. What I finally came up with was that: 1.) there is no possible way to live without hurting other animal species. and 2.) every living thing has to die eventually anyhow, so it might as well nourish another.

The late Peter Capstick put it more briefly: Everything dies and is eaten. As a professional hunter and safari outfitter, he saw more of that up close than many.

All life springs from death and dissolution -- into the furtherance of life. Veganism is for citified people who, well, are at odds with ecology in general.

(Shudder) Not for me, thank you. I much prefer chowing down on a vegetarian recipe than listening to the half-educated drivel that seems so much of veggie-and-beyond-veggie philosophy.

Some may be more comfortable devouring something that is highly unlikely to actually notice you devouring it, but I've never seen that that would make moral odds in light of the above.

[Rhianne]

I'm sorry but I can't agree with much of that. It sounds like you're ready to eat your pets and family when they're gone. I'm not sure I can liken accidental killings to deliberate slaughter either, we certainly don't do that in the human world.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Rhianne

I'm sorry but I can't agree with much of that. It sounds like you're ready to eat your pets and family when they're gone. I'm not sure I can liken accidental killings to deliberate slaughter either, we certainly don't do that in the human world.

Sorry, but I'm that amoral. I'd never hurt Diz, and I'm pretty sure I'd never kill a family member. But if it came down to my survival, I'm I'd eat them when they're gone.

I'm all for ethical farming - I do what I can to support it. Animals raised for slaughter should live lives as natural as possible, and be transported and killed as humanely (if that's not a misnomer) as possible. Which means I completely support hunting where the animal is eaten, and disagree with intensive farming.

Oh and yes I've eaten horse too, when I was on an exchange programme in France. Chewy, is my only contribution. But then everything was peculiar and strange, and I was only 15. I fell completely for the countryside (especially for the Puy de Dome - extinct volcano), the village itself, medieaval and high on a hill, and the utter FRENCH-ness of it - the boulangerie, the abandoned vinyards on the way out of town, the boules and fountain at the centre, the mists and mellowness (okay, it was Autumn)

[Undertoad]

It sounds like you're ready to eat your pets and family when they're gone.

It's a slippery slope! One minute you're killing voles in a field, the next minute you're eating your wife and family and there's not a DAMN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

[Juniper]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It's a slippery slope! One minute you're killing voles in a field, the next minute you're eating your wife and family and there's not a DAMN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

ROFL Undertoad -- this sounds a lot like something my Glenn Beck-watching husband would say.

I'm sorry but I can't agree with much of that. It sounds like you're ready to eat your pets and family when they're gone. I'm not sure I can liken accidental killings to deliberate slaughter either, we certainly don't do that in the human world.

Nope, I personally would draw the line at anything that died on its own. But that's not to say it's morally wrong to eat deceased pets, just 'cause we wouldn't do it. If you grew up on a farm, you might become fond of your cows, pigs, chickens, goats. You might go out and pet them each morning, talk to them while you filled their feed troughs. But then when the time came, yes, you'd slaughter them and eat them. On a farm there can be a fine line between pets and livestock. You don't love them quite the same as you do a dog or cat, which makes it too emotionally heart-rending to dispatch them. (Of course sometimes it happens . . . and that "meat animal" ends up living a long happy life.) *I* could not do it. I mentioned the chickens in my previous post - they're about 4 years old and don't lay anymore, but I'm not going to eat them because I'm too "chicken" (ha ha) to kill one and dress it. I'm not a farm girl, but I know people who are, and I understand it. I don't love the chickens or anything - we never named them (couldn't tell them apart anyway) so if I gave them away to someone who was going to eat them, I wouldn't really care.

As far as the accidental killings - well, say you *know* that there are hundreds of mice, voles, etc. that live in your field, but you have to harvest the crops anyway. Is that really accidental?

There's only so much you can do. My husband's uncle once ran over a baby deer in his field while haying. Cut its leg off. Very sad. Of course being the kindhearted man he was, he took the deer, dressed its wound, put it in his shed and nursed it. That deer lived for two years in his shed as a pet. Was it happy, though? Probably not, really. Would have been far more humane to put down the deer and have baby deer for dinner.

I guess that's a digression -- but speaking of deer, we have umptyzillion of them around here of course. Too many. I dislike the idea of deer hunting, would never do it myself, but it absolutely *has* to be done because they are always overpopulated and will suffer if they are not thinned out. Would that happen if people didn't live in their spaces? Probably not -- but only because there would be plenty of natural predators for them instead, so therefore we have to become the predators.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Sorry, but I'm that amoral. I'd never hurt Diz, and I'm pretty sure I'd never kill a family member. But if it came down to my survival, I'm I'd eat them when they're gone.

Me too. I'm always kind of mystified by the taboo of cannibalism (aside from the questionable health of it, long-term.) I would not kill another person to eat them, of course. But if I were dying of starvation, and there were dead pets or people available, I would absolutely eat them. I would think my family would want me to use their body so that I didn't die myself. I would certainly hope they would do the same to me, rather than bury me and starve shortly after.

[Lamplighter]

Unfortunately, no one knows anything else about the Donner family despite the efforts of the descendants to change their brand.

[classicman]

<deleted inappropriate comment>

I'd eat another person to stay alive - much like the soccer team whose plane crashed in the mountains...

[footfootfoot]

I've eaten plenty of voles and almost never eat any family members.
What is all the hoopla?

[Aliantha]

I personally don't think human beings should feel guilty about their place on the food chain. Every animal strives to reach the highest point on said chain that they can, including sharks and big cats, who don't mind eating a bit of long pork every now and then of course.

We are not physiologically designed to be vegetarians. For starters our gut and our teeth don't particularly like it. We need more protien in our diet than a person in their normal course of life can achieve by eating just vegetarian options. Of course, thanks to advances in food production, we can suppliment a vegetarian diet so that we can be healthy, but at what expense?

There are pros and cons to all diet choices and when it comes down to it, individual health is the least of them as far as the rest of the world goes, but we cater for each other because that's the way our society works.

No one judges the lion when he eats an antelope because he's just doing what comes naturally. Why judge a human for doing what comes naturally?

[footfootfoot]

I noticed how you neatly sidestepped the question of Voles vs offspring in your gastronomic analysis.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I noticed how you neatly sidestepped the question of Voles vs offspring in your gastronomic analysis.

That's cause I don't eat voles or my offspring. I do sometimes eat my husband though. Does that count?

[classicman]

We'd have to ask him, now wouldn't we.

[Juniper]

Only if you swallow.

Ooh, did I say that?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I do sometimes eat my husband though. Does that count?

Depends. Do you chew him up?

I have a female friend that I eat occasionally. I don't chew her up though. Well, maybe a nibble here and there...