There is one thing that is misconstrued and I'll state it again because I don't think I stated it clearly. Sorry about that RattixEmpire. And I'll also apologize for my bad English; English is also not my first language.

It's not so much the problem with eating other animals or using animal derived products but rather how the animals were treated before becoming or making products that we use. [ie meat, cheese, etc.]
Even animals themselves eat each other or use products that other animals produce even if it's unnecessary for their survival. Ants use the honeydew that aphids produce just like we use the milk cows make. Most birds can eat seeds and vegetables, but many choose to eat small animals or insects in addition to the plants. That's nature; you can't go against these innate actions. They're eating animals and using animal products, so why can't humans do the same? Is there a problem with humans doing the same thing as other animals? Humans are classified as animals, after all.
But the problem is how we get our meat or animal products. Many times the animals are kept in inhumane conditions that are just indescribable. That's the problem. I admit that's the problem, that's why I get my milk, cheese, eggs, etc. from local farms where I know the conditions the animals are in, where I know what the owners are doing to the animals, and where I know the animals are safe, cared for, and loved. Is there something wrong with that? What is wrong with taking milk from a cow that is well cared for and happy? It's a symbiotic relationship. The cow is happy, the human is happy.

And after an animal is killed for meat, not all parts of it are wasted. The bones of the cow are used in the process to make sugar. The blood of the cow is used to make hemopure [which saves many, many lives]. One cow can be used in an indefinite amount of ways. Think of it this way: There are a thousand animals about to die, but you can save them using one animal. What would you do? Let the thousand die and save the one or let the one die and save the thousand? Your choice. Without stuff like hemopure, I don't know how many people would have died. Animals that have been killed for food aren't always used to make just food products.

It's not about ethics; it's about how using other animals is practical. If you want to argue using ethics, I'm happy to oblige.

The difference is, that animals like lions would die without eating other animals. most humans would not.
I totally understand if people who have to eat what they have eat meat. but i cannot think of it as right if it is only because it is so delicious. at leats not in the amounts that are eaten in rich countries.

So the point of this thread is to spread the appeal of veganism? I've seen a lot of disgusting footage of how animals that are bred for food are kept and treated. From the moment they're born they're treated like what they were bred for - food. It's terrible and revolting but those procedures don't account for ALL THE ANIMALS EATEN IN THE WORLD. I believe there are much more humane ways to do things, so I do my part in protest by avoiding chains that have a record of such cruelty. But I can't become a vegan. Because I feel animals are animals, they have no moral consciousness they have no interests besides survival and procreation. We also need to think of how our own bodies operate, how the economy operates, how the population on a global scale functions. Centuries of eating animals has moved on to a range of business that touches every civilization on Earth, there are more cows, sheep, fish, pigs, and chickens than there are humans on this Earth. If we all abandoned using meat as a food source, where do all the animals we keep for the purpose of eating go? Where does the money come from to feed them? How do we keep from being overrun by them? Even if it was possible for us to all live as healthy vegans (our body structures would be far less capable with the plunge in protein) we lose centuries of livelihood, and we're left to care for billions of livestock that outnumber us and would inevitably continue to grow. But that's imagining each individual suddenly dropping everything and choosing a lifestyle similar to yours. I commend you for thinking of the animals but who are you really benefitting by taking these measures? The meat you didn't consume is already dead, there's no saving it now, do we waste it? The pig you didn't eat is still killed, so on an individual level veganism doesn't do much good besides protest. I withhold my money from merciless chains, you withhold your business from factories and slaughterhouses. But we make very little difference in the grand scheme of things unless large portions of people begin to follow suit. So what my view is that veganism may appear to be the most good natured of lifestyle choices, but in the end it neither greatly benefits the individual, society, or the animal.

Passing it on the net in a free website doesn't make it less profitable, there is always a way to get money if you got people who believe the things you want them to believe.

Needless to say, my message was clear "regardless of what you eat, we are screw" but i didn't say it to make people do whatever they feel like doing, but rather for them not to be overconscientious of concepts such as "making a better land for the future generations".

And you are also missing the point, as i said cultivation is the main reason for deforestation, you are not helping anybody by eating only vegetables. (and echo friendly farms can't stock enough food for the world)

Sadly changing the word is not that easy. Even so i spend as little water as i can (except for drinking), i eat little to none, i don't kill bugs, my gas expense come to as little as 10box every 2 months, i don't use Air conditioning machines, since they use way to much energy, and all that Just because i don't want to feel guilty, because is hard to think me as part of the problem. Pathetic ain't it?

At least i can say that regardless of what you could ever tell me i have nothing to feel ashamed of.



But maybe i'm going a little bit too far with all this, i think this is my last post here regardless of what come next, even so i think melon point of view is much more mature than mine and is a better representation of what a lot of people think.


Note:




Bears can eat grass yet they kill animals 'cos is a faster and better way of getting nutrients. When the Salmon migration starts they would only eat the tastier parts of the salmon and throw the rest away since they got more that what they can eat...

yeah is all necessity for animals, right?

Last edited by BlackOrion at 9:41 am, Apr 9 2012

Don't be too bothered by perhaps not being the best at English, neither am I and it is my first language.

Ants do eat the honeydew that aphids create, however the honey dew is the waste product of the aphids diet and the ants protect the aphids from their long standing enemy, the lady bug. Birds eat bugs that are in front of them simply to get by and they don't do it for taste. Humans can't do the same because our population has blown out of proportion and if we continue the way we are going, then it isn't just developing countries that are going to have hunger issues.

Humans stopped eating meat to get by a very long time ago and in our society today, it is no longer necessary to the average persons diet. I completely understand the hemopure thing, however, who are we to say that our lives are more important than another animals life.

In such cases as Hemopure, eating meat or using an animal product is necessary for their survival, but that doesn't mean it is necessary for the entire world, these are exceptions.


caozhl
Actually, by eating only vegetables I am taking an active stance against something and if enough people do it then the demands for meat will decrease.

Regardless of animals not having a consciousness, they still feel it when we torture, rape, murder and raise them in horrific conditions, you did say you have seen some videos.

How come is is acceptable to do something simply because it is economically beneficial for the country, opium would make a killing for countries selling it. And before you say meat doesn't kill people, actually it does, both directly and indirectly. The fat and cholesterol in meat products and dairy is almost single handedly responsible for every singe heart condition known to man and in every single study done, dairy has shown strong links with prostate cancer. As to indirectly killing people, if the space used to rear animals was made into crops, and those crops allong with the cropps currently being fed to the animals we raise for slaughter were given to developing countries, hundreds of children wouldn't be dying a minute from malnutrition.

Perhaps those videos don't account for every single animals being killed in the world, but businesses will use the most economic way to create their produce, and no one can fight that. Countries that do have guide lines for how to slaughter animals don't properly monitor the businesses in charge of the slaughter of these animals and there are plenty of loop holes. Unless the country is asking for it, democratic governments wont risk their popularity and power to make ethical choices and even then they do their best not to have to make that decision.


Last edited by RattixEmpire at 10:47 am, Apr 9 2012

________________
We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, out doubt is our passion and our passion is our task, the rest is the madness of art. Henry james

The ant-aphid relationship is like the farm animal-human relationship. Humans feed, protect, and nurture farm animals such as cows, chicken, and sheep for the products they produce [milk, eggs, wool]. If someone is vegan for your perspective, that means that a human cannot shelter an animal for the sake of the products they produce. These farm animals produce their products even without human interference anyway, so it doesn't matter if we take it or not. I agree that birds also get by what is in front of them, but don't humans do the same? If someone were to shop in a supermarket and they see that meat is on sale and the price of vegetables just rose, then they would choose what can be easier for their wallet: the meat. As for birds, if they see an insect that is in front of them and a seed that is far away from them, they'll go for the insect. It's the same concept. The bird and the human don't have to choose the insect or the seed, but they choose it because it's more convenient. So you're saying that what the bird is doing is wrong?

Yes meat is quite essential to the human diet. Meat contains zinc, B12, CoQ10, all of the essential amino acids. Vegetables don't have all of these nutrients. For instance, they may contain some of the essential amino acids, but not all. Like I said, you can take supplements, but they're not as good as eating the natural stuff. Many of these nutrients are necessary for humans to live.

I am not saying human lives are superior to other animals. What I am saying is that one animal can benefit the lives of many other animals. It doesn't have to be humans.

And I'm sorry, you still haven't answered my question on why is is not right to take animal products from animals that are safe, happy and well cared for. The cow doesn't mind humans taking her milk, so why should humans restrain themselves from drinking cow milk as long as the cow is happy and well cared for? I don't see a problem with that and I don't understand why you see a problem with it.

Humans don't protect or nurture the animals we get milk, eggs or wool from, often they don't care, there are of course exceptions, however this is the norm.

Dairy cows are raped with a metal rod to get pregnant, once they have the calf it is taken from them, if it is male, it is killed, if it is female it lives the same life as its mother. The machines that milk the cows give them infections in their udders which is very painful and leads to puss getting into the milk. yum.

Sheep are shaved for their wool so closely that they get painful sunburns, when they aren't shaved they get maggots living in their wool and eating them alive. Lambs shaved too early may die of exposure, and yes this does happen.

In the egg industry only female chicks are needed, male chicks are just killed since it is a different type of chicken used in the chicken meat industry.

I will say silk as well, silkworms are either gassed to death or boiled alive, generally in acid. If they live out their entire lives and emerge from the cocoon a single strand of silk can not be taken from the cocoon, which is more economic and easier to use.

________________
We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, out doubt is our passion and our passion is our task, the rest is the madness of art. Henry james

TL;DR: Don't eat meat because I said so.


Just stopping a couple people from eating meat isn't going to change anything about the slaughtering of animals and all that jazz.
Also, the more you try to push these kinds of things onto people, the more likely they'll resist.


Yes, hermits unite. Oh wait a minute....

i wonder if u will see a cow complaint about being the dinner of many? did they really do that or is just our selfish idea that we have to protect them cus we think they suffer?....

edit: i also try to eat organic meat when i can but is only cus it benefit me, for healty reasons...i really can't save the animal world...

Plants are evil, eat them all.

You all keep saying "well animals eat animals, and humans are animals, so..." well then start acting like animals >_>

My first question -
Would you tell an animal not to eat other animals?

What's your point with the mother's milk?
Don't most of us feed on it when we're born?
And what about animals? They do the same. Even the carnivores.

Don't give me that "but they can't help it" or "humans are smarter and have a choice" crap.
By doing so, you're basically looking down on animals and regarding them as lower beings.
But we, people, are also animals.
Every animal has the right to eat us, as do we. We have every right to eat them.
Why deny each other?

I don't like the tone of your thread so I'll be honest and say that I don't care about your opinion and I don't agree with you. I will never stop eating the flesh of the fallen, even though I have high regards for them.
But it's a matter of familiarity for me.
I wouldn't eat my own family, but I wouldn't mind eating somebody else's.

Live and let kill.
We are all animals.
And as a person, I choose to eat whatever I want.

Oh, and

Sure, why not?
I mean, it's not acceptable in our society, but if I were, say, abandoned on some remote island and was offered a kid-stew, I wouldn't say no.

________________
Hrodulf and Bjornolfr, you will not be forgotten.

And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

Lol I love it when people try and convert others into being vegetarian/vegan.
Sorry. It's never, ever going to happen to me. Wouldn't give up meat out of my own choice, and you've got to be shitting me if you think I'm gonna go vegan too.


Like NightSwan said, I would actually if I was on a remote island and really desperate.
I even said this to my friend when we were talking about being abandoned on a remote island:
"If you and me were alone on an island and I was desperately hungry, chances are, you're going to die, and I'm going to eat you."
That is of course, if she doesn't get me first... >.>

In addition, I actually have gone vegan before. I usually do it the week before Easter for the fasting thing. We're meant to do the full 40 days but I can barely manage a week. It's not as simple as an overnight thing. That's a really naive thing to say. I really struggle every year, and I hate checking whether food has any dairy products in it. Most annoying shit ever. I just want to eat the food.

For someone like me who's eaten brains, livers, kidneys, tongues, hearts, intestines, eyes etc of various animals, you wont be able to convert me.
You will never convert me, and neither will any other damn vegan who can't keep their own eating habits and ethics to themselves.

Like I said before, this is the problem. I agree this is the problem and that humans should not treat fellow animals the same way.

However, I do not understand why becoming vegan or avoiding animal products and/or meat completely would solve this problem. Boycotting farms that do this is a better option. You don't have to stop eating eggs to avoid eggs that were from farms that abuse chickens. You can just get eggs from farms that don't do this. Same thing with other farm animals.

Rather than encouraging people to become vegan, why don't you encourage people to boycott farms that abuse animals?

And advocating this to a manga community wouldn't help either. Your points are good, but you'd be better off telling this to your local government office.

I know i said i wasn't going to post here any more but:

All animals act in different ways, humans are animals ergo Acting like a Human is Acting like some kind of animal.

From a extremely advance culture point of view we behave like monkeys, making a language, creating tools, hunting.

Big hair-less monkeys.


Once again, Melon have a much more mature point of view, pay no attention to me.


edit:


ROFL, damn you Scyfon i spilled my milk.

Last edited by BlackOrion at 2:03 pm, Apr 9 2012

Exactly.
It is a lifestyle.
A lifestyle you chose.
So why are you trying to shove it down people's throats?


...
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLWUT?
So you weren't breastfed? Well that explains quite a lot.

________________

Everyday I'm tumblin'