TestECull said:
The only valid reason I see for one not eating meat is simply not liking the flavor. 'Tis the reason I don't eat veggies, I simply don't like them. I've got nothing against people who opt for a plant-only diet on these grounds.
However, I don't agree with people who do it for health or moral reasons. A perfectly balanced, perfectly healthy diet includes the stuff, so there's no ground to stand on there, and it's not 'immoral' to eat a burger. If you're really that worried about animals killed to make food you'll stay as far away from mass produced crops as you can, as the animals that get sucked into farm equipment die horrible, painful deaths by the thousands and they don't even get the honor of being used for something afterward. The only crops you'll eat, if this is truly why you're against eating meat, is crops you grow yourself or can conclusively prove are grown without using heavy machinery.
Oh yeah... OH YEAH, I just had a mental orgasm over the news I can bring this board as you reminded me of something.
I worked in a sugar mill, Tully sugar, in North Queensland to be exact. This sugar mill is the 'first stage' of sugar production, so we get to see what comes in off the farms daily. The sugar bins would constantly be filled with all sorts of animals. I have personally seen thousands of rats, numerous large lizards, a few snakes... I even saw a whole wallaby being brought in with the sugar. These are animals that get caught up in the harvester and often are some have been still alive, hours later, because the wounds they sustained where life threatening but slow and painful so.
Still You know what we do with these animals?
NOTHING!
These animals are fed through the mill along side with the sugar, first going through a shredder that reduces them to fragments smaller then your pinky nail and then through a series of mill wheels that squeeze every drop of liquid from them as well as the sugar. What comes out the back end, can't be distinguished from the waste fiber (known as begass if your curious). This means the majority of the animal went through the rest of the sugar making process.
Now, realize sugar is used in nearly everything and consider your 'I don't kill' mentality, not knowing how much animal protean you have swallowed from simply putting a spoon full of sugar into your coffee.
If your argument is going to be 'I don't eat meat because it kills animals' then you will have to stop eating sugar as well. I am sure other crop farmers out there can ruin the rest of your day explaining what they personally see on produce farms. I know from first hand experience that the very production of crops kills thousands of animals each harvesting season and tens of thousands during growing, for the purpose of eliminating something that will eat said crops.
PS: Oh, if you are really curious about the amount of animal protean that ends up in sugar the answer is still zero, we are VERY good at removing just the sugar crystals from all the mud, blood and filth that gets milled along side it.
PPS: Banana's also come from the area I am in so allow me to ruin these for you personally. While they are hand harvested, one few crops that still are, they are dumped with thousands of chemicals designed to kill off a wide range of 'pests' that include many native species to Australia. Farmers will regularly kill bats, an animal we do not eat, in the thousands simply because they eat the crops and reduce yields. Any other animal that also might endanger your valuable vegetable supply lines, meaning any animals that eat the same thing as we do, are quickly exterminated to produce the levels of food we require to survive.
So even if you remove the whole argument that plants are not alive or argue that degrees of life matter... think about that for a moment. These are thousands of animals that are being slaughtered so you can enjoy your banana's.
And if you argue that pests are not of high enough life form to worry about... then I would be more then able to argue that cows are not high enough levels of life to worry about as you have opened this door. As I consider all life, regardless of development, to be sacred I can not honestly take that argument on a personal grounds but it would be a glaring hole that can be exploited and I will be more then willing to point that out.
PPPS: How high do you value the life of a wallaby (little kangaroo) because crop farmers kill those off every chance they get.
PPPPS:
Also, have you ever killed a bug or rat or some other 'pest?'
How would you be able to justify killing something for no actual gain to yourself while taking the stance that killing something else for consumption, a purpose, is wrong?
Oh, and I don't kill anything if I can help it... I go out of my way not to stand on ants for Christ sake. So if you want to play the 'morality card' I am sure mine is higher but as you see, I do not use it to base my whole arguments on.