OK folks, I was away all last week and what with the catch-up I've only had chance to dip me toe in at HH until today.
Forgive the progrock length of this post, but it's responding to quite a lot of the posts on this thread all atm once, which seems more sensible than doing a dozen little ones.
The idea that we shouldn't condemn people for eating meat cos it's their personal choice doesn't stand up. We judge lots of people on their personal choices. If I did to a cat or dog what a meat farmer does to a pig I'm sure lots of people would (rightly) vilify me for it.
Riddley's idea that there's some fundamental difference between 'those who eat meat but are basically trying to be kind and good people and those that enjoy killing animals and watching them suffer for its own sake' is an attempt at defending of wilful ignorance.
It doesn't take much thought or research to realise that animal farming is inherantly cruel to animals, and so those who are 'trying to be kind' whilst needlessly paying people to be cruel are as indefensible as those who enjoy the cruelty.
Daminxa's point about people caring for animals but not humans would only make sense if that were true of all - or at least a serious proportion of - people who don't eat meat. That is not the case.
(In my experience those who abstain from meat have an above average concern for human welfare).
Daminxa's point that 'farming of grain and veg destroys natural woodland and meadow habitats' is especially pertinant. A great proportion of arable farming is to produce fodder for animals. It takes around 14 kilos of wheat protein in cattle feed to make 1 kilo of protein in the beef. The rest is wasted (shat out to contaminate waterways).
Almost half the world's grain harvest is fed to animals. The driving force behing Amazon deforestation is the clearance of land to grow soya for cattle feed, and the ranching of those beef cattle.
The less animal products we eat, the less land is cultivated for our sustenance. This is actually my main reason for being vegan.
There are, of course, other factors in a food's level of damage. The more processed a foodstuff is, the further it has travelled, the methods of production used to grow it - these all play a part, and so simple veggie-ness certainly isn't harm-free. But it definitely goes a long way.
And here we come to another important point Daminxa touches on; it's not a zero-sum game. Any improvement in your behaviour as a citizen of the planet is a good thing. There is no way to live without damage, and in our society there's no way to live without doing some awfully unsustainable things. But that doesn't mean we should do nothing.
In the same way that just cos not all your food is home-grown organic doesn't mean there's no point buying organic or cutting down on food miles, so it is that just cos Daminxa wears leather and eats eggs and dairy doesn't - despite Dam's claim - mean it's no better than being a full-on carnivore. By using less animal products you're causing less land to be cultivated and less animals to suffer.
Thinking it's got to be an all-or-nothing trip is simply wrong. And it's incredibly disempowering, too. It leads to outbursts at peole who think otherwise ('So all meat eaters are total bastards?', 'Is every member of your family a vegan?'), which discourage others from making the changes in their lives that really do make a difference.
|
