Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
A message to all vegetarians: please do not turn this into a struggle between right and wrong. Live and let live! Be a vegan or vegetarian, but don't try to take away what we need. Humans are adapted to eating meat. Just look at your teeth. Plant eating animals have several stomachs. You don't fault a lion for killing a gazelle, why blame humans for doing what nature intended them to do? For me a life without meat would be so miserable, I cannot even imagine it. When did human culture start to develop? When they started eating meat. Plant eating animals spend their whole day in search for food and eating (since it takes a lot more food to get the same nourishment from plants). So when early hominids started to eat meat they had free time. They started thinking, their brains developed.
Killing animals for food is not inhumane, it is necessary for our health and survival. Important is that animals are being raised in the right conditions and treated well.
|
With you (in part -- lots of errors in your argument) until your second to the last sentence. Eating meat is most profoundly NOT necessary for human health or survival. It is possible for complete vegans to live a perfectly healthy and long life. I know, I have a LOT of vegan friends and they are doing quite well.
I personally tried (very hard, I might add) to go vegetarian (as a preliminary step towards being vegan), and for me personally, it was just way too much work. I am a fast food junkie, and when I tried to stop, my eating habits were already so incredibly bad that I ended up with more health problems than I can count.
Humans stopped needing to spend the entire day gathering food when they developed agriculture. That's actually when human "culture" began to develop and more time was available. Agriculture preceded the domestication of food animals by several thousand years.
I am not a vegetarian. I would like to be, I'm just no good at it. However, I have seen enough slaughter houses to know that current modern animal "farming" processes are NOT humane. For those reasons there are certain types of meat that I refuse to eat (no lamb, and no veal). However, I don't even look askance at someone who orders veal ... I just don't make a habit out of eating with that person in the future if it can possibly be avoided (I mean, why go out with people who depress you?).
When I go out with my vegan friends, I do it understanding that we're not going anywhere I will really enjoy my meal. However, I will enjoy their company, and that's why I'm going out with them .... not for the food. If push comes to shove, I will order a bottle of wine and drink enough that I know longer care that I am jonesing for a cheeseburger.
Becoming a vegetarian or a vegan is a commitment, and I admire the people who are able to make that commitment. Just like I admire the people who make (and keep) the commitment to marriage, also something I just can't do (it's just not in my nature).