Is becoming vegetarian really a solution?!
But what if most people actually did become vegetarian?
What will happen to all the animals who were going to be eaten? Are they going to be taken in as pets (fat chance...). No, they will be killed or starve to death because nobody will take care of them. No, domesticated animals cannot survive in the wild.
Considering the population of the world and the number of mouths to feed, and the nature of our earth, much of the land used to raise animals cannot be used economically to rise plants for vegetarians. So guess what? Forests will be cut down in order to grow more vegetables for us.
Besides, eating meat is an integrate part of nature. Animals eat other animals so there isn't much of a point in feeling sad about killing another species for food.
Answers: Many people say that they are against eating animals because they are like us, or because we can live off plants.
But what if most people actually did become vegetarian?
What will happen to all the animals who were going to be eaten? Are they going to be taken in as pets (fat chance...). No, they will be killed or starve to death because nobody will take care of them. No, domesticated animals cannot survive in the wild.
Considering the population of the world and the number of mouths to feed, and the nature of our earth, much of the land used to raise animals cannot be used economically to rise plants for vegetarians. So guess what? Forests will be cut down in order to grow more vegetables for us.
Besides, eating meat is an integrate part of nature. Animals eat other animals so there isn't much of a point in feeling sad about killing another species for food.
Actually you make a couple of incorrect assumptions.
If most people became vegetarian it would happen slowly, and the raising of animals would adjust as it happened. Animal husbandry responds to supply and demand - and so as less of a kind of meat is consumed, less is produced. The animals would not be born in the first place - so there would not be an issue of what to do with them.
The number of mouths to feed issue is wrong. Much of the land used for animals, although not all, could be used to farm for vegetables, once animals were off it. And guess what, it takes 40 times more space to raise a pound of animal protein vs. a pound of vegetable protein. So at least 3/4 of the land that is used to raise the animals will return to forest, and only the best will be used to raise plants. Read "diet for a small planet" some time.
There are a lot of reasons to be a vegetarian. This actually is the basis of my vegetarianism - to live more lightly on the earth.
Instead of asking us question you think you know the answer to, go and eat your steak, fish, duck, goose, bugs, squid or whatever it is you gouge on.
I believe that those who choose to eat meat in their diets will live in there crippled bodies. As those Vegetarians, vegans and raw foodist will live long and disease free.
Even if everyone became a vegetarian it wouldn't happen overnight. The food industry is like any other industry, if demand for one product decreases and demand for another one increases they change production to match. So they'll just produce fewer new animals as the market for them disappears. Don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen however.
I am a vegetarian and I think if people were not so selfish and thought of their stomachs all the time the world would be a nicer place.
For a start feeding on the flesh and blood of another creature with a heart and lungs which has feelings is dispicible. There wouldn't be so many animals such as cows and sheep if farmers weren't breeding them and maybe it would be normal to keep them as pets. Who are we to come up to them and end their lives? They have a life just like us and does anyone ever think if maybe THEY want to live? Vegetarians are much healthier anyway. I used to be the best runner along with some other veggies. Bye the way eating meat is not a part of nature. A lot of animals have to eat meat. They hunt for it. Its all they can eat whereas we humans have a billion other choices and we obviously can live without meat as there are many vegetarians. thanks. bye
I used to believe i was morally obliged to eat meat because the animals would never have been born otherwise. However, the scenario you describe is improbable. People would not all go veggie overnight: they would gradually do so, and each generation of farm animals would be slightly lower. In a world where the majority was vegetarian, people would be compassionate enough to care for "useless" animals because it would be a completely different kind of world.
Through permaculture, much more food would be available than it currently is with monocultural agriculture, provided we ate a wider variety of species of plant than we currently do. It has been estimated that there are 80000 edible plant species. There is also the issue of the oceans. Current methods of sewage disposal mean that the land constantly loses phosphate to the sea, and if we ate more sea vegetables, i.e. seaweed, we would get this back onto the land if we then disposed of our waste on the land. The whole world could be fed on an area of around 1% of current agricultural land using algae, which could be done at sea, or slightly more using hydroponics. Hence, in terms of food, the planet could support more than 100 times its current population and there is no population problem but one of consumption. This is an extreme case; it would be possible to feed people in a far more interesting way without cutting down forests. In any case, fruit and nuts grow on trees, and we would need protein from somewhere. The answer is to manage certain local ecosystems so that the majority of producer species are useful to humans and are used without depleting their populations severely.
Eating meat is indeed an integral part of nature, but we do not need to do it to be healthy. We also have conscience, unlike most other species, and we can choose not to cause suffering to most non-microscopic animals.
Myths, myths, and more myths. First, the change would never be so drastic. Gradually the demand for animal flesh would go down and demand for plant matter would go up. Less livestock would be bred (most are continuously bred through unnatural means anyways) causing the livestock population to decress. The number that would be left would be able to live on the land in moderate population and would not effect the plant harvests. The grain and plants that are used to feed such a large population of livestock would feed a whole family for a week.
Secondly, meat is not natural for humans. Carnivoires and omnivores eat other animals not herbivours. Biologically humans are not desigened to eat meat. Check out this website for comparisons.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/09...
The consumption of meat has only led to health problems including but not limited to heart disease, colon cancer, high cholesterol, tuberculosis, and pancreatic cancer.
Mark S has the answer I was going to do! Basically same thing as I was about to say but he did it better than I would've!
Sorry, the Amazon is being destroyed to make room for grazing cattle, not to grow more vegetarbles.
Everything about your argument is flawed.
Just do your thing and I'll do mine. You are wasting your time trying to change people's minds. You are just desperate for excuses to eat animals.
Why does everyone who asks this question (and yes, you're not original, it gets asked all the time) seem to forget the fact that cows, pigs, chickens, goats, lambs, and fish all existed in their natural state long before humans started caging them up and force-breeding them by the billions?
You act like factory farms are the way nature intended things to be; like it's been that way since the dawn of time. This is not the case. The way meat and dairy are produced in this country and abroad is an absolute affront to nature. If, by some miracle, people did stop eating meat, and all of the farms finally shut down, the animals would simply go back to the way they were before we began our holocaust on them.
There would probably be a nasty transition period, to be sure. Because of the unnatural way in which these animals have been bred and kept, many of them might not know where to go, and many of them would probably get sick and die. After a couple of generations, however, they should revert back to their natural habits and habitats.
Your comment about land usage shows how little you know about large-scale agribusiness. Currently, more land is used for livestock grazing than for any other purpose on the planet. Do you know what uses almost as much land? Growing food FOR livestock. If all of the farms currently growing soy and corn to feed livestock began producing food for human consumption, more people could be fed and less, not more land would be used up.
As for not feeling sad for one species eating another: if I see a lion take down an elk who has lived a full and rich life, I do not mourn the loss of the elk. That is the natural order of things. The way food animals are treated is one of the most inhumane and unnatural processes on our planet. Anyone who can witness these atrocities and not feel sad is seriously lacking in common human empathy and compassion.
It's a great solution for the suffering of animals!
I'm not meaning this in a rude way, but have you done any research into this? The way the animals are treated in these meat farms are absolutely horrific, but at the same time there are some meat companies that do their killings in a more humane way. I am a vegetarian and while I would like to see people stop being cruel to animals, i know it won't happen, so as long as they just make a conscious decision of which brands to buy i don't see it as a big deal. Also some people don't have much of a choice depending on the area you live in. In some places it's almost impossible to have a vegetarian diet based on economic backgrounds. It all just boils down to making smart decisions. Also about what we would do with the animals if we didn't kill them and eat them. These animals are not meant to produce at the rate we force them to. So if there was less demand for them, there would be less animals because we wouldn't force them to reproduce. Thanks for the interesting question!
"Considering the population of the world and the number of mouths to feed, and the nature of our earth, much of the land used to raise animals cannot be used economically to rise plants for vegetarians. So guess what? Forests will be cut down in order to grow more vegetables for us."
you're just making stuff up here. Feeding the animals that are then killed for meat takes up far more plants than just eating the plants directly. It has been calculated that for each person that becomes vegetarian, we would save several acres of planting space.
If you feel that eating meat is fine and treating animals the way they do before killing them is fine. Then why are you asking us? You clearly do not agree with our life choices so why not just go about your own life and leave us out of it?
Yes. If for no other reason than the questions you asked are easily answered. You seem to have thought about these questions, so I hope you will also think about my answers.
Do you think the world would actually become vegetarian overnight? Of course not. If it ever happens it will be a gradual proccess. As the demand for (or affordability or legality) of meat goes down, fewer animals will be bred to be killed and eaten. By the time vegetarianism is widespread, if not global, the number of animals actually being produced would be a fraction of what it is now, and the problem you mention would not exist, or if it did, would be far more manageable. There are a number of solutions for what could be done with those animals. There are already a number of farm sanctuaries that exist, and there is no reason why those animals could not go to a sort of sanctuary. Additionally, it doesn't follow that there would be no reason to keep these animals domesticated. Milk and eggs are vegetarian, and arguably cows and chickens could be kept as pets, if not to produce eggs and milk. As for pigs, many people keep them as pets already.
"Much of the land used to raise animals cannot be used economically to raise plants." This is simply a factual innaccuracy on your part. Do you have any evidence to back this up at all? We feed crops to the animals that are raised for food. In fact it is enormously inefficient to do this. I think for every 10-16 calories of grain you feed an animal, you get one calorie back as meat. Were the crops grown on this land used to feed humans, we could greatly increase the world food supply, and actually fewer forests would have to be cut down. Speaking of forests being cut down, haven't you heard of the amazon? Most of the deforestation there is due to creating grazing land for cattle.
If eating meat is a part of human nature, then why is a vegetarian diet healthier? A lot of people assume that we were "made" to eat meat, but science conclusively shows that meat consumption is tied to a whole host of diseases and disorders. This finding doesn't fit very well with the theory that we were "made to eat meat." Additionally the closest animal relatives to humans are mostly if not totally vegetarian.
"Animals eat other animals so there isn't much of a point in feeling sad about killing another species for food." Animals also sometimes eat people. Does it then follow that we should approve of killing people for food? Animals do a large number of things that we would not find it appropriate for people to do. Additionally, many animals don't eat other animals for food. Why not follow their example if you think we must base our behavior on what animals do?
"Finally, if one is against the torture of animals, isn't it better to make sure one buys animals that have been properly treated than to avoid eating meat all together?" This to me seems to be some seriously distorted logic. Lets imagine that you are morally opposed to children who are forced in to prostitution. Given that you desire to end this practice, should you only patronize child prostitues who are treated well? Or should you abstain from using them at all? Additionally, there is a lot of doubt as to how well animals are actually treated on "humane" farms. If you do some research you will find that things like "free-range" and "cage-free" actually don't mean much legally. Often they are just marketing tools to help make consumers feel better. Unless you actually go to a farm yourself, you cannot be sure of how the animals are treated there. Given this uncertainy (and the fact that the law in this area is weakly enforced) it seems that you should err on the side of caution and not eat meat.
"Wouldn't it be environmentally friendly to eat meat" I seriously do not know where you are getting this from. Is it based on your assumption that for some reason more land would have to be cleared to grow vegetarian food? If so, I have already explained why that is mistaken. Additionally, the meat industry is connected with nearly every kind of pollution there is. The waste generated from factory farms is many many times greater than from the human population. Additionally, the UN recently released a report which claimed that meat consumption releases more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation COMBINED.
"I also don't appreciate how some people just rant emotionally without offering rational counter arguments, but I was expecting it." I would expect it too, but likely for a different reason than you. These facts are out there. Anybody who is responsible should be well aware of them by the time they are 21, if not sooner. And it is not like these facts are even controversial or hidden. There is little to no doubt that they are true. While I try to stick to rational arguments and dislike rants, I do understand that it can be very frustrating to care about a moral issue only to be constantly confronted with people who have not taken the time to research it themselves and repeat commonly held misunderstandings. I don't mean to be harsh on you, but for many of these questions it is actually less a matter of finding some particular fact than it is being able to reason it out for yourself (the "animals eat other animals so there isn't much of a point in feeling sad about killing another species for food." claim is a perfect example.)
No not everybody who eats meat has health problems. But not everybody who smokes dies from lung cancer. Does it then follow that there is no connection between smoking and lung cancer? The claim about health is not that EVERYBODY who eats meat will develop health problems, only that there is a demonstrated connection between eating meat and certain health issues, just like there is a demonstrated connection between smoking and lung cancer.
"I don't feel morally obliged to become a vegetarian, but I do feel morally obliged to only eat animals who had been treated properly." Again, there is good reason to doubt that very many of even "free-range" animals are treated well and killed painlessly
Yes it will but first we must agree to discuss this with open mind, rightly pointed out by some of your answerers that it will happen slowly.
In ancient times it was a common practice to eat human flesh of their enemies killed by headhunters in some parts of Africa. Now that they have becoming civilized and hence stopped doing it, I ask a question to all, why not become more civilized and stop eating animals too.
Now for those who are concerned with increase in animal population, please understand that we do animal farming and use different methods to increase the production of animals. More over, how many of you eat dogs, cats, or snakes for that matter? Their population is under control naturally. See the irony that we generally kill and eat innocent vegetarian animals only and do not kill meat-eating animals.
The God (creator or nature or whatever you may call) wants us all to live in harmony with the things he created. However, we kill animals for our plates. The innocent animal is not given the right to live and lead their life, the way God wanted to. I can give scientific proof to validate my point that our digestive system and our teeth do not match with meat eating animals rather we are more like cows, horses and other vegetarian animals. One who does not kill(except for self defence) is certainly a better person then who kills.
Mr, Fictor Oricalchi------Where from a horse or a cow get their normal B12 from?
this article has the facts and is very well researched
http://www.webcom.com/ara/col/books/VEG/...
Vegetarianism is a medically recognized food fad. Everybody need vitamin B12 you can only get this by including animal produce in your diet
Even though it may seem more "ethical" to eat only vegetable matter, it actually does take more effort and makes a larger negative impact to subsist only on vegetables. since humans are omnivores it's important to keep your diet varied in order to get the most nutrients.