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Flesh Eaters?

Is it ethical to eat meat?

  • Total voters
    26
RightOfCenter

RightOfCenter

Dangerous Spinmaster
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This poll is a response to a comment in another post about PETA's actions with unhappy meals. I was wondering how you felt about eating meat. If you are against it, why?
 
PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals, right?
 
I feel it is no more unethical to eat an animal than a plant. However, the treatment of animals may or may not be ethical and it would be unethical to eat meat you know had been treated unethically...(chew on that)

I can't operate my life upon assumptions. If I didn't eat meat because some animals are being treated unethically, I wouldn't be able to buy clothing because some clothing is made by unethically employing young children. I wouldn't be able to drive a car because some of the parts may be come from unethical backgrounds, or the oil I use to fuel it may have been unethically contrived.

While I would say it is more likely meat comes from an unethical background, I can not live my life always considering where and how things came from.

Ignorance is bliss.

Just in case you didn't get enough - unethical unethical unethical
 
RightOfCenter said:
This poll is a response to a comment in another post about PETA's actions with unhappy meals. I was wondering how you felt about eating meat. If you are against it, why?
Click to expand...

You actually give two shits what some animal rights retards like PETA think?
 
jamesrage said:
You actually give two shits what some animal rights retards like PETA think?
Click to expand...

I just want to see how widely spread their beliefs are. DP might not be the most representative sample though...
 
All three species in the genus homo consume meat readily when given the chance. Our dental structure contains the sharp predator teeth necessary to rend flesh-- though this is more evident in chimpanzees than humans-- and the consumption of moderate amounts of unmodified animal meat provides benefits to our physical and cognitive functioning.

It is no less ethical for men to consume the flesh of animals than it is for wolves to do so. Indeed, this was the basis of our symbiotic relationship with packs of wild dogs, that allowed us to domesticate the dog before any other animal.
 
What Korimyr said. We have evolved to be omnivorous, it's just how things are.
 
I dont buy into any of PETA's ****, they euthanize a greater percentage of animals than the Pet Rescues they "save" them from.

They cant even find the animals homes any better than the places their supporters firebomb. They support terrorism in a post 9/11 USA. They are of the most contemptible groups who speak in the tone of moral righteousness.

OT: Just ordered a Cheesesteak w/ mayo, onions, and provolone. This being higher up on the food chain ROCKS.
 
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if man was not meant to eat meat he would not have meat eating teeth
he would have grazing teeth
people really just need to look to what nature has done to answer this
btu the nuts at PETA will never have a clue
and why do humans drink cows milk. No other animal does this, why should we?
Got Milk? I dont care

yeah, basically what The Rat said
 
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The way I see it is. If it can go in your stomac without killing you. It's probably good for ya. Atleast when it comes to food.
 
I voted no; for me, it would not be ethical.
However, I don't judge those who do, as I realize it is a cultural norm.
 
1069 said:
I voted no; for me, it would not be ethical.
However, I don't judge those who do, as I realize it is a cultural norm.
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How is eating meat a cultural norm?
 
RightOfCenter said:
But why don't you consider it ethical?
Click to expand...

Because I don't need the flesh of animals in order to live. But the animals themselves do.

How is eating meat a cultural norm?
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Because nearly everyone does it, and always has.

Like I said, I don't judge other people who do it, and it might not be unethical for them. They have their code of ethics, and I have mine.
 
Hatuey said:
Yeah but not because of culture. Survival.
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No. Not survival. I haven't eaten meat in over a decade, and I'm surviving fine.
And there's nothing particularly unique or special about me. Anyone could survive fine without meat. You don't need it.

That said, eat it if you want. If you see nothing wrong with it, then who cares what I think?
I live my beliefs, but I don't try to force them on others. They aren't necessarily applicable to others.
 
1069 said:
No. Not survival. I haven't eaten meat in over a decade, and I'm surviving fine.
And there's nothing particularly unique or special about me. Anyone could survive fine without meat. You don't need it.
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Yeah but 1069 you'll agree that 10,000 or even 200 years ago people didn't have all the choices we have today when it comes to food and nutrition. We have multivitamins, milshakes, meal suppliments, cube meals etc etc. People who came before us had to do with what they had. This to me represents the very essence of survival. You chose to become a vegetarian(or vegan?). I doubt you'd be able to make the same choice 100 years ago and still get the nutrition you need. I'm in no way trying to push my strong belief that anything that if it walks and you're hungry enough it's edible, however I'm just puzzled by how you can say eating meat is cultural and not about about survival.
 
You chose to become a vegetarian(or vegan?).
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I was vegan for a few years, but despite soy and calcium supplements, I had a lot of bone density loss; as a woman of Northern European ancestry, I'm at high risk for osteoporosis.
I chose to go back to dairy, although not eggs. So I'm a lactovegetarian.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the cruelty involved in producing milk in this country; however, I am willing to live with that low-level guilt in order to avert or forestall a future as a toothless hunchback.

Decisions like this are the reason I don't feel it's my place to judge others.
I will- and have, and do- put my own best interests ahead of the interests of others, including animals. I'm no martyr.
But I don't feel it's in my best interests to eat meat.
It isn't good for you; it overtaxes your heart, your digestive system, your renal system. It wears you out.
And I don't really like meat, and never have (I've always been a picky eater).
And I love and respect animals, and it makes me sad to eat- or even see- the flesh of dead ones.

If these considerations don't apply to others, though, then i guess there's no reason for them not to eat meat.
 
Human beings have been eating meat for a million years. It is too darn silly and entirely to expensive to come up with good alternative. Yet the answer with soy product may be to dangerous. Soy may not be the protein answer, it was once thought it was. There are a lot of questions and There is not yet a good answers on this business the dark side of soy.

The Whole Soy Story - Tropical Traditions
NEXUS: Dangers of Soy Products
Beware of the toxicity of soy products
http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/index.htm
 
dragonslayer said:
Human beings have been eating meat for a million years. It is too darn silly and entirely to expensive to come up with good alternative. Yet the answer with soy product may be to dangerous. Soy may not be the protein answer, it was once thought it was. There are a lot of questions and There is not yet a good answers on this business the dark side of soy.

The Whole Soy Story - Tropical Traditions
NEXUS: Dangers of Soy Products
Beware of the toxicity of soy products
http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/index.htm
Click to expand...



The "good alternative" is whole grain and legume combinations.
Simply put, if you eat like an indigenous peasant from some third-world backwater, you look good and live a long time.
Americans are absolutely killing themselves with protein, it's disgusting.
 
1069 said:
Americans are absolutely killing themselves with protein, it's disgusting.
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I agree with this part. Modern technology is actually turning evolution against us. Our taste buds evolved to make things like meat taste so good because we needed it so much when we were on the go in our past nomadic selves. Now technology has given us all the things we crave in far greater portions than our bodies actually need. It's no accident that those of us who eat tons of meat are healthy only when we spend a portion of the day performing strenuous cardiovascular exercises, sort of reenacting the hunting of prey or the flight from nasty four legged animals.

It's a double edged sword we've created for ourselves in the industrialized nations. For once most of us can actually put the threat of starvation behind us, but now we have to be very disciplined in our diets.

I tried vegetarianism myself but it didn't work. I needed some meat in my diet, and so I put it back in...in moderation.
 
Adrian said:
I agree with this part. Modern technology is actually turning evolution against us. Our taste buds evolved to make things like meat taste so good because we needed it so much when we were on the go in our past nomadic selves. Now technology has given us all the things we crave in far greater portions than our bodies actually need. It's no accident that those of us who eat tons of meat are healthy only when we spend a portion of the day performing strenuous cardiovascular exercises, sort of reenacting the hunting of prey or the flight from nasty four legged animals.

It's a double edged sword we've created for ourselves in the industrialized nations. For once most of us can actually put the threat of starvation behind us, but now we have to be very disciplined in our diets.

I tried vegetarianism myself but it didn't work. I needed some meat in my diet, and so I put it back in...in moderation.
Click to expand...

Every time I run I try to imagine myself being chased by a sabertooth tiger
 
1069 said:
Because I don't need the flesh of animals in order to live. But the animals themselves do.
Click to expand...

Of course we do not need to consume animal flesh in order to live.
But in order to live healthy lives we do need to consume meat.
Just remember Japanese. 2000 years ago they ate meat and were higher than 200 year ago, when there was almost no meat in their diet. Soon they started to eat meat again and grew for about 6 inches taller.

Eat meat, be healthy.
 
My answer to the poll is "sometimes".

There is nothing inherently unethical in eating meat, because humans are naturally omnivorous. However, it is unethical to subject animals to unnecessary suffering or treat them callously or with disrepect. That is one reason why I stopped eating meat around 9 years ago. The meat & dairy industry at large is inhumane. Factory farms in particular, are atrocious.

In the past few years I started eating fish again, mainly because I live in the NW, love to fish, love salmon, and it's good for me. If I were a hunter I would eat land animals too, but I'm not so I don't. Actually I might eat animals anyway from organic farms if I felt the need, but I never have any desire for it. Even the smell of meat disgusts me at this point. And yet I love the taste and smell of sardines! Which goes to show how tastes can change over the years based on habit.

I went from regular crap American diet to vegetarian, to vegan, back to vegetarian, then to veg + fish, which is where I now comfortably reside. As always, I am confident in the knowledge that my current diet is the best one. ;) In addition to the ethical reasons that I abstain from factory-farmed meat, there are plenty of health reasons to avoid it. Even though humans are omnivorous, we have a very long intestinal tract which is optimized for plant matter. Most of the degenerative diseases common to the US are caused by poor diet, mainly too much animal consumption and/or not enough vegetables and whole grains.

I could go on about diet, but that's not really the point of the poll. Suffice it to say that I celebrate humanity's position at the top of the food chain, and I love the sense of closeness to nature that can only be attained by going out into the wild and killing your prey. But I am equally disgusted by the atrocities of the factory farms, and so I reject them because they are beneath me.
 
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