I am amazed that anyone can justify the cruelty and hardheartedness of animal farming and slaughter in the name of pseudo-intellectual freedom. This appears to me to be nothing more than pandering to the palate in the name of sophistication.

Perhaps if one can accommodate within one’s own mind the cultural and religious barbarity of a holiday centered around the slitting of a goats throat, Eid al-Adha http://islam.about.com/library/weekly/aa030700a.htm , and at the same time ponder the inner subtle relationship between Radha and Krsna, then in the world of such mental freefall there are no real beliefs or boundaries between peace and war, sanity or madness.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1213/p01s04-ussc.html

“The reason for all the fuss is the artificial fattening process used to produce the duck or goose liver: To get the desired richness, the birds are force-fed starting at 12 weeks, by metal tubes pushed down their throats. After two to four weeks of feeding, when their livers are up to 10 times the normal size, they're slaughtered.”

Bon appetite.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Haha Homer there is more to say later but I dare you to talk like that to the Scottish about their Easter Feasts with the rotating dead lambs, they will have you running for the hills. There is a time to impose your own mental schemas and to patronize entire communities as non-compassionate gluttons feeding off slaughter-parties - and there is a time to understand culture.

If you drop the bleeding heart perspective of "hurting animals is wrong" for a moment, why not think about the self-overcoming involved in finding meaning, maybe even beauty in the abject, the decaying, the grotesque. This instead of this flower power bias for beauty that makes so many just look at a dead lamb with such disgust and go ew ew gross - and then go escape in stories about jewels and lotusses and all-attractive dancing flute Gods as though the only Truth worth pursuing were Beauty.

Homer, it is you who usually says that God is everywhere, and that you are not attached to the limiting dogma. How do you know that God is not there in the meat, in the meat eater, in the meat eating or in the cruelty?

The very fact that I do believe that God is living within the animals is what makes me feel compassion for the billions of animals that are raised so that we may feast upon their bodies. I live in Australia and I see, everyday, the trucks loaded with sheep that are crushed together for transport to the Middle East so they may be slaughtered by so-called holy men; I see the land being destroyed due to grazing animals fenced in and fed hormones; I see the sickness of my fellow humans because of their animal based diets.

I am opposed on the grounds of the destruction to the planet, the cruelity to the animals and because of the numbing effect on those involved in the whole animal farming/slaughter/eating cycle.

I would no more support the slaughter of ten-week old human infants than I would the slaughter of ten-week old calves or any animal, for that matter.

Why exclude humans from a balanced diet? What distinguishes us from the animals? A college degree and the ability to juggle words? Or is it the fear that we may be on the next menu?

I am appalled at the waste of our water resources, the misuse of valuable grain crops, effluent contamination of the water table, desertification of the Earth.

If this is dogma then what is the alternative? Shall we let the rivers of blood flow in the name of freedom? What about the freedom of the defenseless animals?

How is this Peace On Earth?

It is raining today.
Animals die by the thousands -
All I can do is practise for them.
Humans die by the thousands -
All I can do is practice for them.
We ourselves may die at any moment -
When the mirror is broken: no more reflections.

Shards are tiny mirrors
I see myself thousands of times
Dying animals cry in pain
I see myself a million times
Fools think their thoughts are reality
I see my self unlimitedly

Attached to the existence of self
I create the universe to reflect my greatness.
Judging others I give rise to pride.
True compassion is asking the butcher to kill me instead,
But writing posts is far more convenient.
Only when I am willing to die for the animals
Do I have the right to judge the butcher,
But as long as I make judgments,
My compassion is limited to words.

Judgment of the Judges
The candle to the Sun
Words are the Way
In a world of Deafness

True compassion is showing the butcher how to grow a garden.

Words are the Way,
But the Way to where?
The Great Way is not difficult,
Just create no good and evil.

Gone short of words,
I go out into the rain,
No more poems from me today,
Thats my contribution to Peace on Earth.

Peace on Earth
Good Will to Lamb

Have a look at first post.

Homer,
I'm not trying to pick a fight, but your equivocation of the slaughter of beasts with the murder of young children is appalling; it reminds me of a religious chat show I watched on television several years ago (hosted by a Jewish presenter), wherein some mindless Iskconite woman compared the killing of animals in Britain's slaughterhouses with Auschwitz.
I find it very hard (if not, impossible) to believe that you would feel the same way about the carnivorous people around you, not to speak of your larger family, if they were subsisting on a diet which included "human infants"; it is thoughtless statements like these that turn many intelligent people away from even considering vegetarianism.

Intelligent people, I would think, could face the obvious conclusion that we are an animal that bleeds just like the billions of animals that bleed.

Living in the cerebral world of euphemisms and shallow niceties removes one from the reality of the parallel between human slaughter and animal slaughter.

Please explain why humans should not be on the menu.

It is precisely this blood culture that leads humans to slaughter humans. The Jews are not the only group to suffer mass extermination and imprisonment.

http://judaism.about.com/od/kosherdietarylaws/f/stunning.htm

“I should add that recent films, study of the issue and a study of health rules for the human being are urging me to consider a far more vegetarian way of life. I already overwhelmingly eat fowl rather than beef. Rabbi Klein notes that perhaps all of these regulations for kashrut were intended to promote a vegetarian lifestyle. He suggests that perhaps God permitted us to eat meat as a concession to our humanity, but that vegetarianism is really God's first choice.”

Fascinating how the two genetically identical groups, the Jews and the Palestinians, practice Kosher slaughter and Halaal slaughter, and what do we witness in their homeland? Bombs and endless killing.

Both use God as their excuse for all the bloodshed. Both blame the other, when they are two sides of the same coin.

Written by a Christian on another board I'm on. If it adds to the discussion, fine, if not, ?


I eat meat. I like meat. Fish, chicken, pork, beef, venison, buffalo, alligator, ostrich, duck, dove..... if its tasty I eat it.

All of the animals I eat exist for the sole purpose of my eating them (with the exception of making a nifty jacket or leather seat cover for my car). So, by consuming them I am giving purpose to their lives. No need to thank me.

That PETA crap is just that..... crap. I for one am HAPPY we have eliminated the natural predators from our environment. Its all fun and games in the back yard with the kids until a lion comes by and eats one. That generally puts a damper on barbecues and such.

The stupid PETA folks say its inhumane to kill animals but they are total hypocrites. Lets say they get their way and we stop eating animals. How many cows do you think there would be? NONE. So, rather than millions of cows getting to live nice comfortable lives before gaining a quick death they wouldnt get to live at all. These PETA freaks would deny all the cows the very chance at existence, yet they say the meat eaters are the cruel ones!

I used to hunt deer. It was boring. Here in GA its generally done sitting in a tree stand in the freezing cold waiting for hours upon hours for a deer to walk by. Sure, when you do get a shot blowing that sucker away is gratifying but not enough so to justify the freezing boredom. Besides, nobody liked to hunt with me. I would always get bored and shoot the squirrels that were invariably playing in the trees nearby. (what a .308 will do to a squirrel from close range is quite amazing really). When everyone else hears the shots, they come to see what you have bagged. When they see its squirrels..... well, lets just say they are not happy about it. Oh well, i LOVE to kill squirrels. Those rats with fuzzy tails are the most disgusting creatures on this earth.

Never forget: If God had not intended man to eat animals he would not have made them out of tasty meat.

Why is it that killing an animal and eating it is "bad" but ripping a plant out of the ground, roasting it alive and then eating it is ok? Plants have feelings too you know.

Yes, Brother Joseph, thank you for this. These arguments apply to many other human deeds. If those 'sand niggers' over there in Iraq would only worship the real God and realize that they must give us our oil that happens to be in their country then we would not need to blow them up.

If we can do a thing then God, Himself, has given us the power to.

We too, are made up of tasty meat and there are people who choose to dine on human flesh. Why does this simple fact seem to drive an otherwise rational person to run away, covering their ears and screaming that it is a mad proposition?

I would love to hear someone, anyone, explain how, if it OK to slaughter, roast and dine on an animal that is unable to escape the axe, it is any different to do the same to humans?

Because the Bible tells me so?

If intelligence is the criteria then we could pass humane (interesting, human (e)) laws to restrict the consumption of humans to humans that have an IQ of 25 and speak another language other than 'American' and they must worship a false God, as long as they have been slaughtered nicely.

Easy.

I am not trying to fight with anyone but I would love to understand why this is so confronting to you.

I happen to live across from a fellow that buys and sells cattle. When he sells off the calves as vealers the crying and wailing of the mother cows goes on for days and days. I hear in their cries the moaning and suffering of a mother grieving for it's baby.

Why is this grief any different to the grief you or I would feel if some superior master race fenced us in and took our children for the oven?

Can’t happen? Pol Pot soldiers often ate the livers of those uppity citizens they massacred for the betterment of society.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north294.html

“"SAVE MY BUTT: FRY THE KIDS"
This is the heart of my critic's ethics. It is the ethics of the cannibal.
The cannibal has adopted an ethical position that places his own children at risk, and the children of every man who lives among the cannibals. "Tit for tat" rules in the world of cannibalism. What I do this week, my enemy may do next week. If I may lawfully eat his children, he may lawfully eat mine.
Of course, cannibals might tell an anthropologist that they do it for nutrition's sake. But it is more than this. It is a religious practice. It is a religion of child sacrifice, what the Israelites were told not to do: pass their children through a sacrificial fire (Deuteronomy 18:10). The prophet Jeremiah told Judah that judgment was coming because the people had violated this law (Jeremiah 32:35).
Moses told the people that at some time in the future, if they broke God's laws, once-delicate women would eat their own children (Deuteronomy 28:57). This grisly prophecy was fulfilled centuries later during a siege of Israel (II Kings 6:28-30).
Because of the influence of the Bible, the West for centuries opposed cannibalism, abortion, and military violence against civilians. People understood that the lives of the innocent are supposed to be spared, even during wartime. There were repeated violations of this principle, but there was always repugnance and official apologies after the fact. Society returned to the ethics of non-violence regarding the innocent.
Warriors kill warriors. They do not deliberately kill or torture non-combatants.
But the twentieth century saw the end of this tradition. That century became the bloodiest in man's recorded history. What enemy combatants did not do to civilian populations, messianic leaders did to their own populations. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were only the more famous examples.”

Ezek. 5:10 Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.

While many intelligent people see the parallel between (and not the sameness of!) human slaughter and animal slaughter, most of them don't see that parallel between plant slaughter and animal slaughter. What makes you think that the apple doesn't feel pain when you bite it? Just because there is no blood and screaming? I must kill if I don't want to starve to death. Only plants any cyanobacteria eat dead things.

Would you prefer eating artificially grown tissues, tablets and capsules instead of the living gifts of the nature? Living in houses entirely made of concrete, metal and plastics?

As there is a difference between plants and animals that you can perfectly see (that's why you don't eat the animals), there is a difference between the different animals themselves, and there is a difference between animals and humans (that's why most k@rmis don't eat humans). Eating humans and animals is not the same thing.

Please don't take this as an apology for the environmental destruction modern meat industry brought on Earth, and don't take this as my approval of meat eating. I ceased to eat animals many years ago, and don't plan to return to it - although I was the only one in my family who could actually kill the chicken we wanted to eat. Now I kill only plants and bacteria for food; but I would have never kill a human just to eat it, wven while being a meat eater. If there will be some catastrophe on the place I live, which causes the collapse of agriculture - which, after centuries of advancement of cultivation methods and transport, supplies me all my corns, vegetables and (organically produced) milk -, I might return to killing animals for myself and my family instead of starving to death. I might even eat dead humans too! But I will never kill humans just to eat them.

Eating an apple does not kill the tree, nor is the apple an autonomous entity.

When we eat the apple the seeds are distributed along with a package of fertilizer offering the seed to sprout and to grow into another apple tree to continue the cycle.

Compare that to the slaughter of a factory bred and raised animal.

We do have our quota provided by nature. Remember the example of the man that happens upon a rabbit? What is the first impulse? Jump on it and tear it's throat out, drink the blood, eat the entrails and then devour the muscles? No. We are different to the tiger as the cow is different to the polar bear.

Kindly enlighten me as to what, exactly, that difference is.

Let us then consider the case of wheat grains, which are, so to speak, the children of the wheat plant. It is a fertilized egg which advances into a new plant. We grind them up, have it undergone the effects of heating, then eat them.

We can equally think about the carotte, the potato, the yoghurt (containing great quantities of living lactobacilli) etc. Or the woods cut down to provide us heat and shelter. Uprooting, grinding, destruction and killing.



You don't see the difference between killing the wheat grains and the animals? Then you might eat the rabbits just as easily!
I call the difference "the ability to feel suffering". While all things suffer while being consumed (except those chemically sedated animals...), the level of advancement in the nervous system can greatly enhance or reduce the amount of suffering felt thereby.

I mean what is the difference between the suffering of animal being slaughtered and the suffering a human goes through by being slaughtered; the difference between the feeling of grief, suffering, pain and terror of an animal compared to the feelings a human has when faced with imminent slaughter.

What is the difference and how do you know?

What I do see is that the animals anticipate their murder (or is murder too confronting a word when not used in the human context?) and they react with fear – I have seen it with my own eyes. I hear the wailing of the mother cows when their babies (or is babies too confronting when used in a non-human context?) are taken to the murdering house.

What is the difference between racism and the arbitrary decision that animals are for our consumption? The Nazi’s don’t consider the Jews to be human and many Jews seem to believe that the Palestinians are lesser than themselves.

The example of the wheat confirms my position = our quota = no suffering. I see the animals suffer and I have yet to observe a carrot scream and writhe in pain, as I have witnessed when animals are murdered.

I think this focus on animal suffering over other suffering comes from feeling empathy toward cute little things that look like us. Same reason why people are ready to volunteer for sick children and be child psychologists, but not too many interested in anything "ugly," like working with elderly. It is these forgotten unpopular and "ugly" causes that I think really need the attention, more so than yet another plea for darling belugas.

There has been so many posts about this topic that I have participated in a lot before, so I don't intend to be redundant, but I do have question.

There are so many corrupt industries, I think meat industry is of them, but only one of them. Why do many vegetarians act like what they are doing is such an ethical grandstand? I don't really see people who support other causes necessarily acting in this way. This is why some people get annoyed with vegetarians. Opposing the meat inustry is just one arbitrary choice among the myriads of corrupt industries out there. It is not any better or worse than opposing the pharmaceutical or garment or coffee industry or banana industry or all these other industries that directly contribute to suffering. So why behave as though it is otherwise.

And to be frank, choosing empathy over animal suffering, instead of human suffering, strikes me as questionable. You can say, what is the difference between human and animal suffering, do I think I am better than animals?!? That is a nice argument on paper but if you are in a burning house and an old lady is crying out but you go for saving the dog first instead, that is a bit strange, isn't it? Especially in the context of the huge amount of attention animals gets from so many people.

This attention tends to be led by sex symbol female actresses. Who are the faces for these causes over the years? Brigitte Bardot, Pamela Anderson, and now Charlize Theron. Maybe that is part of the widespread appeal for this cause. And I guess it is not that shocking that attractive people would want to further allign themselves with cute causes. How can some lonely delirious old man by a garbage can compare to a doe-eyed deer caught in the headlights? Besides, causes involving humans in pain with the potential to talk back and complicate things are so much less convenient than shifting your attention to furry animals.

I think there is something neurotic in taking such pride in your food choices. And dismissing those with a different view as just making excuses for "pandering to their palate" or "gluttony." There is something so puritanical and victorian about that it makes my skin crawl.

Eva, if everyone had your outlook they would all hide behind contrary doubletalk.

I can, and do, make a difference by choosing to eat what I believe are ethical foods. I also choose carefully what other products I buy and consume including what my clothing is made from (I like hemp) and I rarely use pharmaceuticals.

It is so simple. If we can act with compassion then why should we not do so?

P.s. Last time I looked in a mirror I did not notice any resemblance of my reflection and a cow. Maybe others would disagree?

It is so easy to dismiss certain stuff as contrary doubletalk... whatever that means. About the resemblance thing, I was going on from Chanahari's point and saying that we notice the suffering of a horse because we relate to it more through appearances, as compared to the suffering of other species.

You wrote:
"If you drop the bleeding heart perspective of "hurting animals is wrong" for a moment, why not think about the self-overcoming involved in finding meaning, maybe even beauty in the abject, the decaying, the grotesque. This instead of this flower power bias for beauty that makes so many just look at a dead lamb with such disgust and go ew ew gross - and then go escape in stories about jewels and lotusses and all-attractive dancing flute Gods as though the only Truth worth pursuing were Beauty."

Doubletalk.

haha to me that is a serious comment (truly) though i can understand why to some people these kinds of points make me look like the bullsh*t queen.

People get annoyed with vegetarians because they do not wish to think about what is in their Big Mac and how it was produced.

ha! see the last paragraph of post #26.

This is all one big defense for my supposed love of going to eat at McDonald's. Don't spoil the experience let me enjoy the Happy Meal in blissful ignorance! (right). Everybody knows how that food is produced with animal suffering but is not as faint-hearted or 'compassionate' as you are and just carries on. Just like you also know how most of the things around you are produced with human suffering but just carry on.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your posts, but I am still waiting for someone to focus on the ecological point of view in this issue. We usually take it as granted that strictly vegetarian diet is the best for our environment, but is it really so black/white?

Buddhists eat meat. They are also the religion most explicitly fixated on compassion. Most of them make vows on compassion every day. Are they just hypocrites or gluttons? How can you make such a big deal about compassion but eat meat?

There is so much suffering going on that we don't even notice. Subtle and gross. Gross is not necessarily more important than subtle. We pick and choose which suffering to focus on, based on what we relate to, and make a case about it. It is impossible to avoid harming all creatures on all fronts. Even choosing to avoid meat harms the plant or grain that you are going to eat instead. It even harms humans. Anti-hunt campaigns have destroyed traditional cultures and driven communities to unemployment, alcholism and suicide. Of course this does not mean that we should be apathetic and go around harming creatures but harm is not as face value as it may seem. What about how we choose to hierarchize harm. Choosing what is more or less worthy of being harmed. Assuming that something as ineffable as suffering can be measured through hard science, like degree of nervous system development.

You can say none of this would happen with those cultures if there were no demand for meat in the first place. Some traditions maintain that humans consuming meat is part of the order of the ecosystem. Creatures have to somehow die. It isn't feasible or natural to ignore animals and have them just kill eachother as an alternative to this. What is more compassionate about a tiger mawling a shrieking deer to death? How do you know what is the dharma of an animal? Is it to live forever? Is it to die at the hand of another two-legged animal? Another four-legged animal? Of Old Age?

Some of these cultures who maintain the above are more knowledgeable about the ecosystem and have been kinder to it than any euroamerican vegetarians pontificating on their savagery. Seeing these ideas as an excuse for gluttony of no ecological or religious significance is naive. There will always be demand for meat and there is no good reason to stop that, unless you want to crusade that every person should experience their relationship with nature, animals and death in the same way that you do, and draw the same conclusions.

Theravada Buddhist monks eat only 1 meal a day: lunch. They eat whatever anyone randomly decides to give them. Sometimes that is meat. Refusing to eat meat does not directly relieve any suffering. You may be refusing to eat meat because you think that your refusal eventually contributes to halting all demand for meat. To think that all demand for meat is necessarily gluttonous or cruel to animals or Violence Against Nature is packed with narrow assumptions. I am sure there are people out there who consider the Buddhist monks non-compassionate or fallen for taking meat. I don't think these people really know what they are talking about but would rather remain smug in their false sense of compassion.

I believe a good reason to avoid certain foods, like meat, onions and garlic, is because it may develop discipline of the senses, and it may help in meditation. Same for sexual misconduct, gambling and intoxication. Meditation some say is the only real way to stop suffering. This is good enough reason to avoid meat forever. I can't think of any other valid reason. Barely no one gives this reason. Most people give these health and ethical reasons. Those reasons are a house of cards.

There is a story I remembered reading Eva's post:

Once two monks met in the mountains, one of them was a vegetarian, the other was not. It was time to eat so the vegetarian monk took some bread and started to it it, the other one took a piece of meat. Seeing this the vegetarian monk became furious, saying "How come you eat meat?! Don't you know how much suffering the poor cow had while being slaughtered? Are you not feeling ashamed of yourself? Look, I eat only vegetables because I am compassionate!" The other monk who had some mystical abilites, just smiled and said, "Okay, let us see the origin of my food and then your food." First he made the image of the cow manifest out of which his food was made. Then he manifested all those thousands of tiny insects, bugs, rabbits and other little animals that were killed when the land was harvested in order to make the bread the other monk was eating. "You see, to make my lunch one cow was killed, to make your lunch thousands of little animals had to be destroyed." According to the story the vegetarian monk felt humiliated and dropped his arrogant idea of supremacy.

"Bugs and rabbits do not matter, only cows", one could say, but this is just as limited and idiotic as saying "Cows do not matter, only humans."

Just a small sample:

http://www.vegetarismus.ch/info/eoeko.htm


“Because one's diet is something very personal, reflection over the consquences it might have is very unpopular. Nevertheless, this article tries to outline the ecological and economical consequences a diet based on animal products can have to those people who are conscious and know of their responsibility towards their environment. All topics mentioned in this article do have serious economical consequences. A lasting and environmentally compatible economic system is not possible without taking into consideration these facts. One can only hope and desire that in the future not only environmentalists and people who want to prevent cruelty against animals will try to deal with the problems of the consumption of meat, but also economists and politicians. For pioneers for a free-economy[30], like e.g. Werner Zimmermann, this was natural; they committed themselves to a vegetarian way of life as well as to changes in our economic system. Contrary to changing our economic system, which might prove to be very difficult, everyone can start making changes in his diet.”

http://www.newint.org/issue215/prime.htm

“Meat production exacts its toll in ecological damage. The ranching of cattle in the worlds’s rainforests is especially destructive. Each beefburger costs 55 square feet of rainforest to produce - that is half a tonne in weight of birds, trees and saplings. This contributes to global warming - as does the 60 million metric tonnes of methane, produced from the guts of the world’s 1.5 billion cows. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas.
Meanwhile, factory farming produces vast amounts of highly polluting animal sewage. Cattle and pig sewage is 20-40 times more potent than the human variety - and cattle produce nine gallons of the stuff per day. But in spite of this, raw sewage from farm animals is spread over fields to eventually find its way into streams, rivers and water supplies.10 “

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../27/MN13651.DTL

“But Leon said researchers were surprised when meat production showed up second only to vehicles in terms of environmental destruction. ``We knew meat production would have some kind of impact, but we didn't expect it to be so significant.''
In terms of water pollution, said Leon, beef is 17 times more damaging than all that goes into making pasta. This is because of water pollution from manure, as well as the amount of electrical energy, fuel, fertilizer and pesticides needed to raise cattle fodder.
``The contamination to the nation's waterways from manure run- off is extremely serious,'' he said. ``Twenty tons of livestock manure are produced for every household in the country. We have strict laws governing the disposal of human waste, but the regulations are lax, or often nonexistent, for animal waste.''
Beef production is also 20 times more damaging to wildlife habitat than pasta production, said Leon, because it uses far more land. “

Humans make me sick.I feel sick just thinking of their smelly breath, stinky feet, and eating habits.

Makes you wonder how they manage to breed!

Thank you Homer for your answer which explained the ecological disaster meatindustry is causing , but what about fish and eggs? Most often in these discussions we refer to gigantic enterprises and corporations, but what about the "old way" of small scale foodproduction? A man fishing type of thing.

I bet there's something fishy about that, too.

Fish bleed Zanardi, therefore they deserve equal status with humankind.
Of fish and children

Insects bleed, too.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtool...ugs/general.htm

Q: Do insects have blood and do they bleed when they are hurt?
A: Insects have blood, but it's not like our blood. Our blood is red because it has hemoglobin, which is used to carry oxygen to where it is needed in the body. Insects get oxygen from a complex system of air tubes that connect to the outside through openings called spiracles. So instead of carrying oxygen, their blood carries nutrients from one part of the body to another. They do bleed when they are hurt, and their blood can clot so they can recover from minor wounds.

Just another tiny sample of available material:

http://www.factoryfarming.com/eggs.htm
”With a growing supply of broiler chickens keeping slaughterhouses busy, egg producers have had to find new ways to dispose of spent hens. One entrepreneur has developed the 'Jet-Pro' system to turn spent hens into animal feed. As described in Feedstuffs, "Company trucks would enter layer operations, pick up the birds, and grind them up, on site, in a portable grinder... it (the ground up hens) would go to Jet-Pro's new extruder-texturizer, the 'Pellet Pro.'"
In one notorious case of extraordinary cruelty at Ward Egg Ranch in February 2003 in San Diego County, California, more than 15,000 spent laying hens were tossed alive into a wood-chipping machine to dispose of them. Despite tremendous outcry from a horrified public, the district attorney declined to prosecute the owners of the egg farm, calling the use of a wood-chipper to kill hens a "common industry practice."

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/farming/shell.htm
“Farming hens for their eggs is a huge waste of resources. It takes 3 kilos of grain (in the form of chicken feed) to produce one kilo of eggs. This is because the conversion of crops by farm animals into food for humans is grossly inefficient. And it is not only food (grain) that is wasted. Each battery egg takes approximately 180 litres of water to produce. This is a shocking statistic considering the volumes of water human beings use in developing countries: in India, for example, the poorest people use an average of only 10 litres of water each per day (O'Brien, 1998).
Studies of farm animal housing have shown that egg farms have one of the highest farm emission rates of ammonia gas, a serious environmental pollutant linked to acid rain. “

http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/...il_fishing.html

"In many places, heavy fishing pressure and environmental problems have forced governments to limit or halt fishing until fish populations can recover. Overfishing transforms marine ecosystems and also costs people jobs and income §."


http://www.factoryfarming.com/fish.htm

“For millennia, fish have been taken from the world's oceans, lakes, and rivers and killed by humans for food. In recent decades, consumer demand for seafood has increased in the U.S., while new technologies have improved our ability to find and catch fish. Over the latter half of the 20th century, wild catches have increased by approximately 500% to nearly 100 million tons per year.

As a result, wild fish populations have been decimated. In addition to fish who are caught by factory trawling vessels, other — economically useless — sea life are caught and killed in the nets. Called 'by-catch,' these animals — including non-target fish, sea turtles, sea lions, and even dolphins — are thrown back into the water dead or dying. The U.S. government estimates more than 100, 000 marine mammals are killed every year by the U.S. commercial fishing industry, and worldwide, it is thought that approximately one third of wild-caught fish are considered 'by-catch.'”


For the guy out fishing for fun:

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/fish/faq.html

“In Minnesota, mercury is the contaminant in fish that causes the most concern. Air pollution is the major source of mercury that contaminates the fish in Minnesota’s lakes and rivers (see Sources of Mercury Pollution and the Methylmercury Contamination of Fish in Minnesota Attention: Non-MDH link). About 70 percent of the mercury in the air is the result of emissions from coal combustion, mining, incineration of mercury-containing products and other human sources. Over time, fish can accumulate relatively high mercury concentrations. That’s why it’s important to make wise choices about the fish you eat and how often you eat it.
Fish in Lake Superior and major Rivers such as the Mississippi River contain PCBs. These synthetic oils had many uses and are found in electrical transformers, cutting oils, and carbonless paper. Although they were banned in 1976, they do not decompose easily and remain in the water and lake sediments for years. PCB levels in Minnesota waters are slowly decreasing.
Residues of toxaphene in lake trout from Lake Superior suggest a potential environmental health problem with this insecticide. Toxaphene, actually a mixture of over 670 chemicals, was banned in 1990, but continues to be a problem in certain areas. The Minnesota Department of Health continues to monitor reports, and will issue consumption advice based on toxaphene, if necessary.
Dioxins are inadvertently produced through a number of human activities as well as by natural processes. Results to date from an ongoing US EPA study of contaminants in fish from lakes across the US indicate that dioxins are found in every fish tested. The levels of dioxins in the fish tested from Minnesota as part of this study are low overall and low in comparison to other areas of the country. Dioxins accumulate in animal fat and are therefore also present in meat and dairy products. At this time MDH does not provide advice to limit fish consumption based on dioxins in fish. Lakes and rivers where fish have been tested for dioxins and where the levels of dioxins that were measured appear higher than typically found in Minnesota are marked in the site-specific consumption advice tables. “

http://www.darp.noaa.gov/southwest/montrose/pdf/mon-faq1.pdf.

“As far as anyone knows right now, you probably cannot get sick from eating just a few of
the local contaminated fish. Experts in this field think the real risk is from regularly
eating the local contaminated fish over a long period of time. Results of animal studies
and accidental poisonings of people indicate DDTs and PCBs may cause increased risk of
cancer and developmental problems in babies and children.”

I don't imagine anyone is not already aware of the bombardment of information out there that eating meat is bad for you or bad for the environment that is endlessly available in seconds on Google. You can find the same information about why milk is bad for you, or why practically eating anything is bad for you or good for you or wearing or chewing or buying every other thing is bad for the environment, by credible sources, all well-researched and sensible. Name me one non-corrupt industry that is not destroying the environment in some way or do you imagine this is only about meat. Is it necessary to reprouce that here, or am I the only one familiar with this readily available avalanche of literature.

I don't think this is the 50's where people need to be "educated" and have no idea about corrupt food industries, pesticide instustries, and more sick industries of all kinds, far from only meat industries, that plunder the individual body and the body of nature in vicious thrusts, one just as violent and vile as the next. I don't think this addresses other points only ignores them to instead re-inforce this blind militantism and sense of moral righteousness that to some people communicates, contrary to the desired effect, more a false sense of morality than it does "moral education."

Most of the posts in this and other forums tend to be representations of what's "out there" already. I like to be original in my posts but, then, people find them very difficult to relate to. I suspect this may be less due to their originality and more to do with the discernment of arrogance within the posts. I am not yet fully aware of the intense levels of arrogance I am prone to even though I am well aware that I have been a vegan for 35 years or so.

talasiga i always love ur posts and fear of being called arrogant or pseudo intellectual should not stop your talasiga posts. no matter what.

Sub sole nihil novi est

There is nothing new under the Sun.

I am vegan for about half my life due to my religious backround and for me that means no meat, no dairy and even no oil.

I don't think this makes me more ethical or compassionate I am probably less ethical than many meat-eaters. A cow was once an apple an apple was once a human a chicken was once a soy bean. "If you give up meat but still take a bloodthirsty delight in crunching into a peach then you haven't gained anything."

A big concern over food strikes me as a similar materialist mentality to those with big concern over the body. The best attitude i have seen is to eat what is offered to you, no aversion no attachment no fuss over what you put and don't put into your precious body. I think this is the big driving force behind the vegetarian craze otherwise there are so many other even more corrupt industries to focus on that produce human suffering but so much less people care. Why?

The false sense of morality that I talk about above is this idea that one choice of resistance against corrupt industry makes you any more compassionate than any other choice you could make against corrupt industry. Why does it seem there is such concern and commotion over industry that engenders animal suffering and less over industry and conditions than engender human suffering? This may sound like an obvious question but it is the natural reaction of most people from some other poorer countries who come here and see North Americans acting this way.

I would say food is such a popular one because of our futile obsession with preserving this material human body or that material animal body. And the assumption that this is a worthwhile pursuit to devote so much energy to. It is related to inability to face decay, death, and an unbecoming attachment to Youth that is uglier than any dead rotting corpse could ever be.

I think one problem is people who want to talk about this who post sensationalist pictures of blood to appeal to the gross-factor.

It would be so refreshing to hear actual counter arguments instead of personal innuendos about pride and arrogance.

If you like to eat meat then just come out and say so.

Otherwise I cannot fathom why you waste valuable time concerning yourselves with my passions and prejudices.

Your dislike of graphic photographs is shared by myself, however the truth they speak cannot be denied.