As a vegetarian, what are your thoughts on this matter?!
My question is.....In your eyes, what is the most selectable below option for meat eaters?
Eating cattle provided by the meat industry or eating wild animals taken from an ethical (as possible) hunt?
Please allow me to explain.
I will provide a quote fro Jen D on a recent post. "Did you know that it takes ELEVEN pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef? So if you eat meat, you're eating more plants anyway. If we quit cycling the world's food supply through cattle, we could easily end world hunger".
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...
I am aware of the issues with the meat industry, but WAS NOT aware of this fact on a grand scale. They are eating our food. I just ran out of room and must add info...please continue reading.
Answers: This is NOT a flame, trollery, or disrespect of any kind. Please forgive me if I offend you, as I am not familiar with the vegan lifestyle.
My question is.....In your eyes, what is the most selectable below option for meat eaters?
Eating cattle provided by the meat industry or eating wild animals taken from an ethical (as possible) hunt?
Please allow me to explain.
I will provide a quote fro Jen D on a recent post. "Did you know that it takes ELEVEN pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef? So if you eat meat, you're eating more plants anyway. If we quit cycling the world's food supply through cattle, we could easily end world hunger".
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...
I am aware of the issues with the meat industry, but WAS NOT aware of this fact on a grand scale. They are eating our food. I just ran out of room and must add info...please continue reading.
It's really hard to say for me. I am from a family of trappers and hunters. My family goes to Pennsylvanian where the deer are over populated and the farmers just kill them for eating the crops. Most still eat some meat but in general eat wild game. Before I became veggie I eat only wild game, but not often.
I do think that these animals are way better off then the factory farmed animals.....(who are also drinking SO much water....and being pumped with so much toxic hormones and antibiotics that their feces is so polluted it is contaminating major water resources.
But as better off as they may be, we would have a problem if everyone went out and started killing animals. (Most people couldn't I know). What people need to do, is stop eating so much. You don't need it everyday...you need a it a few times a week.
Good question, I have thought about it allot because my uncles gang up on me all the time lol and try to bring me back to the dark side :)
we need more "good" meat eaters :) good luck
i've been a vegetairian for 12 years now, and i think that as much as meat looks yuck to me, the benefits from it nutricianally outweigh any veg diet by a long shot. it's probably worth it in the end...
Well, since the meat industry is logging our rainforests, polluting our soils and atmosphere, and filling our water with chemicals, i'd say a fair fight is edible meat. It wasn't all that long ago that people didn't eat meat unless they had harvested, butchered, and cured it themselves.
Personally i believe if you are going for a health approach then hunted wild game is the best. I believe humans need at least some meat and without check deer would overpopulate. Wild animals are not fed antibiotics and growth hormones like industrial beef and in my opinion taste better. Nothing like fresh wild turkey. In addition they will eat their food supply whether you eat them or not.
A more ethical hunt would obviously be better. Just like if a country uses the death penalty it is better if they do it with lethal injection than stoning or lashes, though neither should be used one is obviously better.
Greetings!
I would not eat either.
However, from a theoretical point of view, eating a deer who was allowed to live out their life in the wild, before being shot by a knowledgeable hunter (and not a bow hunter) would certainly be preferable to consuming a pig who had been injected with hormones and antibiotics, fed pesticides, and lived its entire life in a cage stacked eight feet off of the ground. Unable to move, their hooves grow around the wire, Very few pigs are not crippled at the time of slaughter.
Thanks for being open-minded. It's a rare quality.
Vegetarians have different reasons for being vegetarian and there are all types so you can't generalize a vegetarian or their reasons. But as for me I feed my children who don't want to be vegetarians meat, but sparingly and I would say through hunting the animals that would starve and die anyway if they aren't hunted and killed would be the most selectable.
An option you haven't listed is grass-finished/pastured meat, which is raised in more humane conditions. For example, grass-finished (grass-fed) cows are raised primarily on pasture eating grass instead of crammed into a crowded feedlot eating government-subsidized corn and soy and being pumped full of antibiotics. Avoiding feedlot-raised/corn-fed beef, pork, and chicken is both probably more humane, healthier (less fatty), and does not waste so many resources.
But Jen is quite right in that a huge consumption of meat (as in the US) has been draining on the environment because primarily of all the fossil fuels used in raising and transporting that beef and the land cleared not only for pasture but for raising the soybeans and corn in their feed.
I'll provide an excellent article from the NYT on the subject that was quite good: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekin...
Since I'm not a vegetarian (although I was one for 11 years), I can't agree with the assertion that it is necessary to forego meat entirely, but it is probably ideal to have a much more moderated use of meat production (which certainly includes occasioanl humane hunting, which has long been a traditional part of population control of animals such as deer).
i like both meat and vegetables.
Hey bud, how's it going?
First thing to touch on is that there is no shortage of food in the world. The food is just not in the right places. If the rich countries didn't hoard grains and throw so much food in the garbage, there would be more than enough to feed all of the humans on Earth. The meat industry is NOT responsible for any world hunger. That would be propaganda.
To answer your question, the hunted animal would be the preferred choice of the 2 options provided. A free life in the wild as opposed to a sad "life" being factory farmed is obviously better for the animal.
Some here are very passionate about their beliefs and do look down upon meat eaters, but most are respectful as long as they are respected in return. But, don't be too surprised if you get some "passionate" responses.
I vote neither. Unless hunted meat is the ONLY meat someone eats, hunting is only for sport and killing things shouldn't be a hobby.
Also, starvation isn't due to there not being enough food. There's enough food, it's a distribution issue. That said, there's still many other things wrong with second hand "nutrition" (and i use that term loosely) through animal products; environmentally and healthwise.
Im not a veggie, but an omni with a conscience )
Id put hunting up there first & foremost & if you couldnt hunt & still wanted to eat meat, the best option would be to source meats that are produced on a small & local scale as these animals have a far higher quality of life & welfare that those that are intensively bred for supermarket & fast foods & dont eat so much of it. We eat meat twice a week & that is it.
Dear wujoosay, you’re almost there.
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. “Humanity’s true MORAL TEST, its FUNDAMENTAL TEST (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect humankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
We claim to be moral beings who do not act merely to satisfy hedonistic impulses. We would not want to live in a society where people were free to satisfy all their cravings freely, where the strongest could cause suffering for the weaker if they wanted to do so. Our fathers ever prejudiced with cannibalism existed in prehistory and modern era. Likewise, how can we justify satisfying all our cravings for animal flesh and products, when animals must suffer in order to provide them? We just one level below cannibalism.
Among the factors that make it difficult to arouse public concern about animals, perhaps the hardest to overcome is the assumption that "human beings come first" and that any problem about animals cannot be comparable, as a serious moral or political issue, to the problems about humans. A number of things can be said about this assumption. First, it is in itself an indication of speciesism. How can anyone who has not made a thorough study of the topic possibly know that the problem is less serious than problems of human suffering? One can claim to know this only if on assumes that animals really do not matter, and that however much they suffer, their suffering is less important than the suffering of humans. But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our species. What would we think of someone who said that "whites come first" and that therefore poverty in Africa does not pose as serious a problem as poverty in Europe? Most “reasonable” people want to prevent racial inequality, poverty, speciesism, war, animal in sports, slaughterhouses and hunt.
Eat it in very minimal quanities as you realize how sacred it is and the resources involved. I suggest you say a prayer for justice worldwide. Please do not be offended at that. You clearly understand the value of life as you discussed your hunting principles.
Take only what you need and remember there are others in this world that do not have the option-what they need is not available for the taking.
I do not agree with that it is necessary for your health to eat meat of any sort. But I truly believe if all of the meat eaters would agree to be minimalists for the sake of others, we would see a dramatic reduction in pollution, world hunger and an increase in health.
To clarify, I mean 2-3 ounces about 3 times a week.
The point is that you are taking lives (that is not yours to take) only so that you can have the pleasure (if you consider it pleasurable) of eating flesh.
If those two are my ONLY choices, then hunting is the better choice, assuming it is as quick as you described. (I have a hunter friend who described how he wounded two deer and had to chase them for hours to finish them off, so I don't know how realistic it is; or maybe he was just a bad shot).
However I don't think it is right (from an ecological perspective) for hunters to take the best, fattest, largest deer. It will genetically affect the population. I'm sure you already know this but many hunters do not.
The most ethical - would be from a hunt.
I just got the "Mother Earth News" magazine for Feb/Mar and they have an article on the ethics behind the meat that is being sold within the markets today.
To put it bluntly - the meat that is sold today in stores is not the same meat sold even 50 years ago in the market place.
No longer do they graze as they did before on the family farm - but they are now being shot full of drugs, fed a diet that they is not the norm for them (finding out that it was 'ok' to give cattle BUBBLEGUM to help fatten them up in NY was an eye opener to be sure) - just a host of things that are totally different - even from the time that *I* was growing up.
Like I wrote - you really might find the article within the magazine to be really interesting - full of facts that you (and many people) really had no knowledge of at all.
but i like meat man :) its good stuff