Poll: Why do you (not) eat meat?

[NathLines]

I'm just too used to it and I don't find too much appeal in going "veggie". I don't like vegetables all that much. However, if they ever manage to start growing and massproduce meat, I'll definitely go for that instead.

I do find it sad that we can more or less befriend any animal on the planet, and yet we eat them.

 

[Soods]

Greetings humans.

Said like you're not one of us.

Don't be ridiculous, of course I am human. Why would an alien be on the Escapist's forums? Hahaha! I am so human that I do unlogical things every day!

 

[ctuncks]

Because I'm an Omnivore, our species has evolved (or being designed that way I have teeth for tear and chewing flesh and teeth for munching plant matter I use both of them regularly. My digestive system has also been designed to process both types of matter so I let it do so.

I don't eat meat because I see this when I see animals. :3

I've eaten Rabbit a few times before, though not recently, you see in my country they're a noxious pest which most would be happy to see wiped clean off the face of the country.

 

[Pat8u]

harmful to the environment?? Man kind has been doing this since the day the first human was born
also if they were top they would eat us

 

[AngloDoom]

I'm pretty hypocritical about the whole thing, really. I try my hardest to stick to my principles and I'll be the first to admit when I stray from them, simply because I like to be the one to point out my mistakes rather than others...

And yet...

I just can't justify eating meat. It goes against my morals, yet I do because it removes the fun from cooking for myself and some of the best flavours out there are, I believe, meat-based. Since going to university I haven't had the luxury of meat as often as most people, but when I do have it I really enjoy it.

I might very well become a veggie at some point...I just love experiencing new foods and so many dishes rely on meat!

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I love to eat large, bloody, medium rare, dripping fat, tasty meat.

We are omnivores, we need our greens and our meats. Sure I can substitute the things that I need in meat with something else, but its expensive and why would I pay more to eat something that tastes worse?

I'm not even going to ask.

 

[Phisi]

Meat tastes nice and tends to come from animals which we are currently aware are not sentiant. Also because not eating meat and keeping healthy requires a lot of work. Almost all of the vegetarians I know are very weak and unfit.

 

[s0p0g]

i love meat. juicy, spicey, fresh, cooked, grilled, roasted, full of antibiotics *easily* metabolisable proteins (yes, i know, some plants have proteins too, yaddayaddayadda ) and utilisable iron... made of pure awesome
aunty EDITH says: best meat comes from animals you bred yourself - you know they grew up healthily, and believe me, you can taste that =)

so vegetarians (at least to the moral ones), if it's about respecting life... why do you eat the food of my food?! no need to let them [insert animal here]s starve, that's just cruel
you meany mean-pants...

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Not sure what the word for five is but damn I fucked up

That would be "Quint". Thank you Mass Effect 2.

You know what the vegans are right. Farming, hunting, and fishing are evil. Let's convert all dairy, poultry, dairy, and fish farm to cleaner more efficient plant crops. But what do we do with all the animals? I know kill all of them and we'll eat as much as we can before it goes bad. What little goes bad we can use to fertilize the crops.

I am so smrt, s m r t, smrty smrt smrt.

 

[witheringsanity]

i'm sorry, i don't find anything unethical about eating meat of any kind, except for other humans. if eating cats was legal, i'm sure i'd eat them too. i just don't see anything wrong with it. plus it's totally natural in my book, as natural as breathing. i have no beef with vegetarians (see wut i did thar?), but i will never stop eating meat.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Because its good, good food. Food that I like the taste of (I like other food too though) and I'm a weight lifter and while you can certainly build muscle and strength using alternatives simply put its much easier to eat meat.

 

[VladG]

Humans are omnivores. While you can get enough proteins from other food sources nowadays, I don't see the reason to jump through hoops. I like meat, it provides essential nutrients, and I generally stick to lean meat (I just don't like fatty meat). I also feel no remorse for eating it.

 

[BelmontWolf]

I believe that im totaly justified to eat any meat i choose to as i have killed for my meals before wasnt an easy thing but when its done its done and new relationship between you and food is forged.
Also, there is a reason there are 3 types of diet herbivore carnivore and omnivore and we humans fall into omnivore we NEED meat and veg to function properly sure you can pop some pills these days to make up for lost nutrients but really if we didnt have the tech to make those you would either not be a vegetarian or you would become ill over time.
Im not against the choice i just dont understand why people dont realise this.

 

[Random berk]

I love how the poll describes the first post as 'enlightening'. It literally just says "Are you a veggie? Why not?" The answer? I hate the taste of most vegetables. I like meat. I do not think its wrong to eat meat any more than it is wrong for a bear to do so. I don't like the factory conditions that some animals are held in, and I despise the killing of more intelligent animals like apes, elephants or whales. But the animals you get in a supermerket are already dead. I didn't give the order to kill them. All you can do there is make sure they come from a reputable source.

 

[AgentNein]

Greetings humans. Today I would simply like to know, why do you eat meat? And if you do not eat meat, you can tell why not.

I do not eat meat because I believe it is harmful for the environment. And I hate the greasy taste it leaves in my mouth. Also: "Look at me! I'm so hipster for not eating meat!"

Now your turn!

first off, there is nothing enlightening about your post. so the fact you would have that as a option clearly labels you as a self-absorbed, arrogant PoS.

Secondly, it is in NO WAY harmful to the environment. Eating regular proportions of meat is actually the best thing for the environment.

This is my problem with most vegetarians. You praise yourselves for doing something you dont even understand. Eating meat, especially meat that was hunted from a local animal population, is not only very healthy but helps keep the environment in balance.

I dont mind it when people are vegetarians. I just hate it when they announce it to everyone as if they deserve some type of award or attempt to convert other assholes to their idiotic ideals. Please do some research before you spew more of those farts you love so much.

Speaking as a meat eater, I am amazed at how often other meat eaters get WAY too defensive about this junk when it's brought up. For every one preachy vegetarian/vegan, there are like a hundred omnivores, shields up freaking out about how no one should make them feel bad for eating meat. Chill. The poll was written tongue-in-cheek, plain as day.

Also if this was just about hunting animals you may have a point, but this is also about industrial factory farming, which I don't know if you've heard has a whole assortment of issues to the environment.

 

[Gardenia]

As humans, we are almost by definition, harmful to the environment. I eat meat because I am an omnivore, and like the taste of meat in my mouth. Some people could do with cutting back on the meat though, for health reasons as well as ecological ones.

 

[Yopaz]

Millions of years of evolution turned me omnivore, 10 years of nutrition specialists saying that vegetables are good, then bad, then good, then start recommending low carb diets, then high carb diets and all that bullshit has done nothing to convince me to go against what evolution pushed me towards.

We do in fact not have the ability to utilize all the nutrition which is stored inside vegetables. This is a digestive process which takes place in the appendix, an organ we have no use for because it's been reduced to almost nothing. The animals that eat plants are made to do so in one way or another. We are made to eat both, thus we can't get the same from only plants.

Brain development also require fat in quantities we don't get from plants.
Also bacon.

Well, you can get proper nourishment from just vegetables, but it is the equivalent of deciding clothes are artificial and environmentally unfriendly and then developing a high-tech polymer you can implant directly into your skin to prevent you from dying of exposure during the winter when you go naturist.

Or you can eat normally and be done with it.

So that's what I do. No regrets. I've killed my own food before, having grown in a farm-like environment, and I've grown my own food as well. Most vegans probably have a larger carbon footprint than I do.

Of course we can get the proper nourishment from vegetables. The nutrition we get from meat originally comes from plants, and a lot of that originally come from the sun and minerals in the earth. I am not one of those ignorant people who believe that proteins only come from meat. I am saying we don't have a digestive system that makes it possible to utilize the full potential of vegetables meaning a lot of what we eat come out with lots of excess nutrients. This is why rabbits eat their feces, this is why deers and cows got 4 different compartments in their stomaches, this is why a fox has a reduced appendix. This makes it hard to be able to get what we need on a vegetarian diet. A vegetarian diet should in theory be superior to a normal one because of the carbon footprint and when it comes to energy loss. It might still be superior to a normal diet, but it's a bit complicated to get all the required nutrients.
Considering such factors krill should be in fact be superior because aquatic animals feature less energy loss compared to growth, krill is a primary consumer so another way to obtain minimal energy loss, nut I don't think we would get what we need from that alone.

Or I might just be over thinking this a whole lot. In any case though I believe that a mixed diet should be preferable to maintain a healthy life style.

 

[The Heik]

meat isnt unhealthy on the same level of sweets/chocolate...we are able to eat it for a good reason (its got good stuff in it)

That is true, but the same good things can be garnered far more easily (and in greater quantities) from things like beans and legumes. Meat is generally harder for our gastro intestinal systems to process, so it takes more energy to get less nutrition from it. Remember that as omnivores we can eat practically any food type we come across, but the ability to eat meat is more an ability of necessity rather than of convenience. It's nature's way of a back-up plan. If we can't find our "ideal" food, then we can always go to plan B.

But that doesn't stop me from enjoying a good steak. Being a part of the industrialized world means that food is more readily available than in less developed countries, so I can choose to my heart's content.

 

[Shilefin]

To be honest, i think vegetarianism is ultimately a good thing. Not because 'poor animals being killed' but because of more practical reasons.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. --Albert Einstein

That's it in a nutshell. I am not a vegetarian, though. That's because i'm a fat lazy hypocrite.

Damn deers. What was I on about?