I've never read the book in question so I can't comment on it specifically.  I grew up on a farm where we raised meat animals (chicken, turkey, duck, beef and lamb mainly).  I have also hunted for meat.  I don't necessarily agree with the way animals are treated on huge factory farms but I have no qualms about eating meat.  I prefer to get meat from local farmers when I can afford to since it tends to have better texture and flavor.  Once you've eaten free ranged chickens, for example, you realize that chicken actually has flavor.  I used to help butcher the birds in the fall.  Messy process but never something that led to me not wanting to eat the meat after.

All life forms eat other forms of life, its a fact of life that we can't get around.

Eating fewer animal products and more fruits and vegetables, though, may be good for our health and the health of our planet.

To me, the strongest moral point of vegetarianism is that it requires less land for food production and leaves more room for the other species that we share our planet with. Taking no more from the biosphere than we give to it, which involves a greater degree of vegeterianism and a simpler lifestyle, is what we owe to life.

This, I think, is also a spiritual stance. Eco-spirituality is an idea whose time has come. Erik Bjorgan, pastor of Deo Lutheran Church in Salmon Arm, recently became the federal Green Party candidate for Okanangan/Shuswap. I'm sure he'll spread the message of ecological responsibility as a spiritual and moral responsiblity.

raised as an omnivore it's tough.  i've never read the book, but i have read a great deal on factory farming and am fully aware of the fact that our "meat" consumption is the leading cause of climate change.  at the moment i have tried to eliminate as much "meat" as possible from out diets and like rowan, buy local/freerange as often as possible.  at the moment we have two 1 vegan day, 1 vegetarian day and one fish day per week, but am currently working on increasing it.

I'm all for eating more vegetarian and less carnivore, but not because of the supposed immorality of eating an animal.

Why do animals have more of a right to life than plants? Both are living beings. And where do you draw the line? Microbes? We consume life to live, that is our nature. If we do not consume life, we die. The key, IMHO, is to be mindful and respectful of the sacrifice of all the living things that allow us to live.

If God wanted me to be solely vegetarian, why did She put the wrong kind of teeth in my head?

i'm going to have to disagree with you witch.  there is a difference between plants and animals.  firstly, you can use the fruit of a plant without killing it (apples, cherries, etc).  as for annuals, they will die anyways come frost, and they leave plenty of seeds to sow for future crops.  you can also enjoy flowers without killing the plant and many benefit from this type of pruning.  i'm not against eating meat entirely either, but there is a difference, in my opinion.

Plants are not conscious.  It is wrong to use animals for food/clothes/etc because they are self-aware and much like we their fellow animals, they feel pain, terror, and have a keen interest in not suffering or being killed.

The same can not be said for plants.  Even if it could, and plants hypothetically had the capacity to suffer, you would still be doing more harm eating animal products.  It takes a *lot* more calories in plants to create animal products.  It's far more efficient to just eat the plants ourselves.

Because your deity, in it's obviously infinite wisdom, decided that you should have free will in matters of diet as well.  We are not physiologically carnivores.  So we need to choose between right and wrong.  Causing lifetimes of unimaginable suffering for your deity's other creations, or eating all the yummy plants that they were kind enough to create as well.  :)

I think that humans evolved to eat meat.  Even chimpanzees in the wild eat more meat than was previously thought - in fact, if I read Jane Goodall right, it is the preferred food for chimps and they are only limited by what they can obtain.  They eat eggs, hatchlings, young monkeys and baboons that they are able to catch, as well as insects and grubs to supplement their usual diet of fruit and leaves. 

Humans from prehistoric times have eaten meat.  I like meat.  I prefer it as it used to be when I was young, when the farmer would raise a few pigs through the summer and slaughter them in the fall - keeping a few for breeding purposes.  He would also have a flock of hens, for eggs and the occasional stew.  And he would raise his roosters and capons to roast.  Female dairy cows gave milk.   Bull calfs spent the summer out to pasture, and fed the family through the winter. 

I also enjoyed trout, salmon, and venison - an occasional feed of clams (we didn't live on the coast), Shad and gaspereaux when meat was running low in the spring.

Better than factory farms.  Now we don't have that choice.   So I've cut back on meat consumption - or maybe not - only so many animals could be raised on one farm by one family, and without modern means of refrigeration it was difficult to keep meat - so I am sure that there were times when we had very little and my mother could stretch the Sunday roast until Wednesday when it was just a bit of meat floating in a white sauce.  Thursday and Friday were catch-can, whatever days.  Saturday always baked beans with a bit of salt pork. 

So I'd say, I don't feel guilty eating the animals I share the earth with.  I expect at some time the worms will eat me, and eventually I'll feed vegetation that may be eaten by animals that may feed my grandchildren. 

I'd also say respect animals, preserve their habitant, do not hunt (or fish) them to extinction, avoid raising domestic animals in inhumane conditions, and if in order to do so we have to limit our population - that is probably far overdue as well.  That may be the moral and ethical issue.  Is overcrowding of humans mean less space for animal habitant, and more consumption of meat than our ecosystem can sustain?

Just my thoughts - I haven't studied it in depth.

Bonhomme

You wrote - "It is wrong to use animals for clothes"  The classic problem. Use a natural product or exploit the tarsands for oil that can then be turned into palstic to be turned into fake fur.

Which is worse? Which causes the most damage?

Why save all the animals in the ark (which didn't exist but that's another story) if we were not intended to eat them or use them?

IT

Russ

Define a natural product.  Every material is derived from "nature" at some point or another, and the tar sands are just another part of our natural world.  But sand can't feel pain and fear.  Sheep can.  Cows can.  This is why it's not justifiable to wear them.  Leviticus may not like it. but poly-cotton blends are warm and comfortable while also being breathable and durable.

It's 2010.  We don't have to keep exploiting non-human animals just because it's what we've always done, everyone is content not to think about it, and somehow seems more "natural" than cotton or one of the many other plant-derived fibres we can use for clothing.

Finally, I'd be interested in exploring your disbelief in the ark.  If it's based in atheism or agnosticism, how can you then go on to make the completely religion-based "dominion over the animals" argument?

 I wasn't aware that anyone had anthropomorphized animals in our discussion so far.

There have been plenty of observations, such as the well-documented capacity of animals to feel pain, fear, and so on.

I find it disappointing how instrumentalist people have to make other sentient beings to justify using and eating them.

The reduction of other beings to the status of property has been the basis of some of humanity's worst atrocities.

I am a vegetarian and there are a number of reasons that I could never go back to eating meat, but really it all boils down to one simple fact - I could never kill another living being. It's about taking care of this planet and all of the creatures that God created. That's also one of the reasons that I try to eat locally grown produce as much as possible. I do eat dairy products because you don't kill a cow to get its' milk or a chicken to get its' eggs, but I have attempted to cut gelatin out of my diet too.

I never try to force my vegetarianism on anyone - that's not my way, but I do wish that everyone would show true respect for the animals they eat. I also wish that there wasn't so much waste - if you are going to kill an animal for its' meat, then do as many First Nations do - use as much of the animal as you can (skins for clothing, bones for tools, etc.).

For the record, going vegetarian was pretty easy, but  I'm not sure I could ever go vegan  - that would be extremely hard.

 I AM nutritionally dependent on eating meat.  In the past, I have been anemic as well as deficient in vitamin B12.  Even with taking supplements, I find that I just don't feel well if I'm not eating enough meat.  There are also many people who have food allergies that can make it difficult to have a balanced diet without meat.  If one cannot eat milk, eggs, nuts, gluten and soy they would have problems getting a complete protein without meat.

Green vegetables are packed with iron, especially spinach, and one teaspoon of nutritional yeast has about a bazillion percent of your B12 requirement in it...

And complete proteins can be found all over the place.  There are beans other than soybeans (lentils are amazing and packed with iron, to boot), and whole grains have protein as well.  For the gluten intolerant, brown rice is usually a go-to.  So, if someone is actually that one-in-a-million who is intolerant of all the things you mention, they don't get a blank moral cheque and get to shrug off their *decision* to use animals and eat flesh.

The amount of nutrients in a particular food doesn't mean you actually absorb all of it.  I know how I feel with reducing the amount of meat I eat without even eliminating it entirely.

The example I gave isn't one-in-a-million.  Someone who is allergic or intolerant to one type of food tends to be intolerant or allergic to another. 

My point was just that people aren't absolved of the responsibility for their decision to use and consume animals just because it's more convenient to get a Big Mac than to have a spinach salad with some orange segments on it.

But Veganism isn't all debunking myths on forums, folks, check out the amazing recipes on www.veganyumyum.com and if you're super-stoked about abolitionist animal rights after all the back and forth today, check out the website of Gary Francione at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Thanks for the responses everyone!  The main argument of morality-towards-meat in the book was exactly what was brought up here: animals can suffer.  If we are able to create complex materials from petrochemicals, there's certainly nothing stopping us from trying to create complex nutritional substitutes for anything we get from meat.  Witch made the point that we have evolved as a meat-eater, we should use what nature gives us.  But as Bonhomme eloquently worded it, we are given 'free will in matters of diet as well'.  We've been given all the tools to choose to be either meat or vegetable (or both) eaters.  The question is, what SHOULD we be?

I can't say that I buy the whole 'suffering' argument, though.  somegalfromcan has a personal reason for her vegetarianism - her inability to take another's life.  But is this really about killing?  Suddenly, I feel like I plunged into an argument about the Death Penalty, or Euthanasia.  Is allowing someone (or something) to suffer morally wrong? 

I have no problem with eating meat. I probably ought to slip in a few vegatables and fruit (I really eat so little of that) but I can't imagine going vegetarian.

Most animals, including the ones we eat, are not self-aware.

Well erroneous emotional blackmail aside, you are making the mistake of seeing only carnivore or herbivore. It is true that we are not carnivores, physiologically. We are also not herbivores, physiologically. We have no ability to digest cellulose, which means we waste most of what plant material we eat, and we are unable to eat most plants.

The fact is that we are omnivores. We are designed to eat both plants and animals. So if you think it's wrong to eat animals, why were we made Omnivores?

And, for the record, the vast majority of animals I eat do NOT have "lifetimes of unimaginable suffering", or any other spurious and peurile epithets you want to make up to help you feel superior.

I find it disappointing that some people have to make up fallacies like "sentient beings" in order to manufacture a position that allows them to denigrate other people based on a chosen belief that vegetarianism is the only "true" moral choice.

Hmmmmmm..... where have we seen that before?

So what do you propose we do about wolves, and puma, and foxes and eagles.....

I mean if if it "wrong" for us to eat animals, isn't it wrong for them to eat each other, shouldn't we be putting a stop to all that morally corrupt predation of those innocent and sentient animals?

Also I should ask, what about things like oysters and clams? I eat quite a lot of them, being here on the coast. I wonder what they are thinking about, sentient beings that they are, just before I pop one in my mouth? How do they manage to survive their "unimaginable suffering" without pain receptors?

And how do we know a carrot doesn't feel pain, or isn't conscious? Just because we havn't found a way to communicate with carrots and other plants that we slaughter by the millions to feed ourselves, doesn't mean that they don't feel pain. I can imagine that a beet is at least as conscious as a clam.

Moral stances are fine, but you should be very, very careful when trying to apply your moral judgements on anybody but yourself.

I became a vegetarian at Easter.  It was not so much because of animal cruelty but because of the environmental reasons listed closer to the top of the thread (land and water use).  My carbon footprint as a North American urban dweller is pretty high.  Therefore I try and make whatever changes I can to lower that footprint.  I thought that I would find it difficult but actually didn't and don't really miss meat. 

Yesterday was my husband's birthday.  He loves my lasagne so I made it.  But instead of ground beef, I used ground soy and no one even noticed the difference until I told them after the meal!..cms

I agree with this.

Compared to othere countries, meat is cheap here in Oz. When I was a child it was not uncommon to have meat with all three meals.

Over the years I've reduced my meat intake to the extent of having two meat free days a week. 

This is partly due to health reasons (we have a high incidence of bowel cancer here) and also because it takes up a lot of land for grazing - compared to growing vegetables and grains.

As one who is drawn to taking the moral high ground myself - I'm reminded of a comment made to me by my Dad.

Whenever I would make a morality statement, he would enquire, "In what area?".

For instance most of us have given up smoking (who wants carbon in our lungs?)  - yet we still drive cars.

Why? Because it's EASIER for us to do!

I'm not sure how to respond to this statement, because I can't bring myself to think that you actually believe it...

Guilt is a terrible and powerful emotion, and I regret that you feel I was attempting to emotionally blackmail you by speaking plainly about the use of animals. 

Thank you for accepting and restating my point, however, that we have the freedom to eat both plants and flesh, just as we have the freedom to do good or evil, and that we are left with the burden of that decision.

Once again, I'm puzzled as to whether you sincerely believe this or not... My statement had nothing to do with making myself feel superior, and everything to do with pointing out that the meat fairy does not sprinkle cellophane-wrapped chicken breasts into your grocery store cooler from her magic wand.  The real story behind the practices of the animal industry are horrific.

 Oh, also, I have a super-appropriate image for this thread!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/4170866438/sizes/o/in/photostream/

I didn't actually make it, but it's pretty great, huh?  :)

Offensively amusing, Bonhomme.

Fixed.

You're right, I wasn't nearly clear enough.  That should about cover it.  :)

But I assume you were referring to the existence of so-called "happy" meat.  It's a complete cop-out and Gary Francione explains why in his bazillion-word essay:

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/happy-meatanimal-products-a-step-in-...

But here's a choice quote:

I only eat free range meat. Try containing a muskox or a wild boar.

OH THE HORROR!!!!!!!!!!

These poor potatoes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....

I think I am going to vomit. The needless suffering of all this fruit.

There was a woman and a dog.  The woman's neighbors would come up to the woman and ask her, "You are a revered neighbour and we respect you.  But why do you keep your dog?  He doesn't protect you, he doesn't hunt for you, all he does is spend all of his time with you."

The woman grunted.  "He is, above all, the only one who is loyal to me, from the time he was a pup all the way until we die."

The neighbours nodded, but secretely thought what a crazy woman the woman was.

One day the woman won a trip and her dog, of course, came with her.

The plane hit some turbulence and crashed apart on the mountains.

When the woman woke up, there was her dog, right beside her.  She could see the steam rising from her guts into the cold air.

He began to eat and the woman smiled, "At least one of us is not going to starve."
 

--with apologies to Orson Scott Card

How is this for an appeal to emotion?

cjms, I'd have known about the soy about 5 minutes after my first bite when I would have been violently sick.  I have a food sensativity to soy (my Dr. swears it's not an allergy but it sure feels like one) and I really hate it when people try to sneak soy into my food.  My Mother-in-law used that soy-cheese stuff in lasagna once and didn't tell me, she found out the hard way about my reaction to the stuff.

I actually wish I could tolerate soy as tofu is a heck of a lot cheaper than most meats.  I've cut down on meat in my diet not for any moral reasons but due to not being able to afford to eat meat more than 3 days out of 7.

.

I eat meat rarely, because it is inconvienient and expensive and because of the meat industry: the antibiotics, the steroids, the treatment, the STYROFOAM packaging, and the risk of ecoli and salmonella in prep. If I had been preparing meat all along then I would have the prep down pat, but as it is I'm somewhat inexperienced in meat prep and I get the lysol out after handling it. I like it best when someone else prepares it! A lovely big steak at Dad's, yum!

Tofu is fine by me most of the time. It's economical, organic (costs the same as regular), versitile, easy to use, and hubby and son eat it. Hubby is vegetarian.

I agree with others who say meat is on the menu for humans. Little doggies definately are not! Nor horses, cats, or wolf and other carnivores. I hear carnivores taste awful, plus with wolf, there's a respect issue. They're too much like dogs I guess, or is it that they eat us? Life just works that way though, life goes in, life goes out, and the world turns.

Arminius! Nice to see you outside Religion! This is, of cource, also a spiritual question.

I am not weighing in but now I have "carrot juice is murder" in my head

I thank you all for your input on this thread; it has certainly given me a lot to think about as a meat-loving omnivore.  I think that a (slight) reduction in my meat intake is in order.

Reminds me of one of my favourite jokes, Beshpin...

---

A salesman is lost in a rural area and stops at a farm to get directions. As he is talking to the farmer he notices a pig with a wooden leg. "How did the pig get a wooden leg?", he asks the farmer.

"Well", says the farmer, "that is a very special pig. One night not too long ago we had a fire start in the barn.

"Well, sir, that pig set up a great squealing that woke everyone, and by the time we got there he had herded all the other animals out of the barn and saved everyone of them."

"And that was when he hurt his leg?" asked the salesman.

"Oh no" says the farmer. "He was fine after that. Though a while later I was in the woods out back and a bear attacked me. Well, sir, that pig was near by and he came running and set on that bear and chased him off. Saved me for sure."

"So the bear injured his leg then," says the salesman.

"Oh no. He came away without a scratch from that. Though a few days later my tractor turned over in a ditch and I was knocked unconscious. Well, that pig dove into the ditch and pulled me out before I drowned."

"So he hurt his leg then?" asks the salesman.

"Oh no," says the farmer.

"So how did he get the wooden leg?" the salesman asks.

"Well", the farmer tells him, "When you have a pig like that, you don't want to eat him all at once."

Hahahaha - great one, Hilary!!

 Ah Besh and Witch showing there contempt for living things. Can't say I didn't see that coming. The weak FEEL stronger when they justify their ignorance for their own pleasure at the expense of the suffering of many. Spoken like true Dictators and hatemongers.

I predict Dementia is the cause of the consumption of meats specifically pork. 

when my son tries to catch an ant, it flees.

when a lion tries to catch its prey, it flees.

when i try to swat a fly, it flees.

when a dog is hurt (emotionally/physically) it whimpers.

when a cat is cornered it arches/hisses/scratches.

even a germ/parasite mutates in order to become resiliant from it's attacker (antibiotics for example)

most animals, human or otherwise, would die or kill for their young/love.

all beings (single celled or otherwise), seem to want to live/survive.

it seems "self-awareness" or some sort of "awarness" is present, non?  otherwise things would just "sit there" and "take it".

if we evolved from nothing to a single celled organism to a bunch of sttuff in between to an ape to a human what does that say? 

agree or disagree, just  a few things to further discuss.

I think we could argue all day about how much and how little we are like our animal friends - and how different they are, and how their suffering differs.  It's like trying to pinpoint the exact moment a foetus can feel pain.  I don't think it's the issue.

I think the issue is our moral role.  It is in our power as human beings to make choices that affect other species.  In some species, we have worked out mutually beneficial arrangements - aka, domestication.  I feel that it's our moral role to treat the taking of another life - of whatever species - with the presence-of-mind it deserves.

See, one of the things the book has pointed out to me is we need to KNOW.  Know where your food comes from, know how it is prepared, know what has been done to it.  Know that we can actually help regreen areas by farming - there are other options to clear-cutting and feedlots.  So if I continue to eat meat, I will think more about where it comes from, and what exactly it's made of.  Is it made by giving animals numbers and treating their deaths like they're our property?  Or is it made by caring about what goes into them, and knowing that the relationship we have with them is mutual?  I don't know if that puts me in the same ballpark as many vegetarians/vegans, but I know that killing an animal doesn't bother me, as long as it's done in a way that I can accept.

I am trying to imagine what would happen to domestic animals if we didn't slaughter them for food.  Oh, we would keep the breeding stock, and the female dairy cows (for milk), the hens (for eggs), both male and female sheep for wool, and horses for work, including entertainment like racing, steeplechase, riding, and horse hauling.  And we would continue to keep our pets.  But what about the pigs, the young bull calves, the young roosters?   Would we just turn them loose to enjoy their lives in nature - and have 99.99999% die as prey of other animals, of starvation, freezing in the winter, or accidents?    And if some did survive as feral animals, would they be permitted to roam free across our highways, our forests, our farm fields?  Would we be morally responsible to protect their habitant - and increase it to allow for population growth?  Would we ever cull the herds?  

And if we gave up eating fish - what happens to the fish now living in fish farms?  I understand that they should not mix with the wild stock because of diseases they might carry or genetic changes in the farm fish. 

Stop eating animals - I think it would have a detrimental effect on a lot of animals.

Or perhaps we could stop breeding animals so much that there are fewer animals for meat and eventually get back to more managable levels.  We cannot keep putting our heads in the sand on environmental issues around the world and pretend that we aren't killing our world...cms

 Oh man.  The "what would we do with all the animals if we stopped killing them?" question...  I've never actually seen this argument in the wild (forgive the pun-tastic pun).

Very simply, once we stop breeding animals for our use, there will be less of them.  This won't negatively affect animals, since they will not have existed in the first place to be abused by humans.

There are 56 billion animals killed for human use per year (fish not included in that stat), and animal agriculture is the number one source of greenhouse gas (yes, more than the factories and 18-wheelers).

So once people stop creating billions of additional lives so they can be exploited, I think animal populations should likely normalize and the planet will certainly be much happier for it.

There's is the further issue of habitat protection and all that other David Suzuki stuff, but the largest and most important step forward our race can take right now is eliminating the use of animals.

PS: Sorry I wasn't here yesterday, friends!  Work was crazy and the evening was no better.  I promise to be around more to fight the good fight.  :)

Wow...  So, to summarize:

1.) Meat is super cheap here and everyone eats it like it's going out of style!

2.) I personally have reduced my meat intake because for some completely unrelated reason, everyone here is getting bowel cancer...

3.) Don't judge me!

Which leads me to wonder... how do you think the country's cholesterol is doing?  :/

 I absolutely agree, InannaWhimsey.

The only way to prevent future plane crashes is to torture and kill more animals.  It all makes so much sense now...

LOL -  Ah, the hyperbole of youth!

You win. The moral high ground is yours.

(Interesting, in my youth we marched to end the war in Vietnam - nowadays it's animal rights. These days I'm just battling to stay alive myself). 

I don't mean to derail a serious discussion by talking about the Arrogant Worms. 

There are some excellent points being made on this thread.