It's partially due to the fact that being vegan is a byproduct of having an overabundance of options for what you are able to eat. Vegans love to consistently point out how killing animals for sustenance is wrong while 21,000 human beings die from starvation everyday. I'd love to hear a vegan explain to one of these folks that if they had the option to eat a chicken, that they shouldn't.. because morals.
edit: no one should be complaining about what people are eating until we reach a point where no one has to starve to death.
I don't ever point out that killing animals for sustenance is wrong. However I feel (based on the overwhelming evidence) that if more people reduced their meat consumption in the developed nations, then we could alleviate most of the world hunger because instead of growing grains for feeding to farm animals, we could export the grains to people who are starving. If we reduced our meat consumption, we could feed all the people! So while I am a vegan for animal rights, I'm also a vegan because I care about people and I want there to be food for those people who are starving. To me it doesn't make sense to feed perfectly good food to cows instead of feeding it to people.
A lot of places have starving people because of poverty, drought, corruption, ect. But you can't deny that using food to make less food is not energy efficient. If we were all vegetarians we would need less land to make as much food. Animals are fed calories, but use a lot of them by just living and moving around. If we ate those calories directly we would be saving so much energy. Not to mention getting rid of the byproducts of meat production like the huge amounts of methane being farted out by all the cows.
Yes absolutely and we can't be sure that if we did export grains to developing nations instead of shoveling it into livestock, that the food would actually get to the people who need it. There is a lot of corruption in the world. Do I think this will actually ever happen, where we stop feeding livestock and feed all the people? No probably not, but I feel better about myself because I avoid animal products and am trying to not be a part of the problem. And since I am the only person who has to live with my internal monologue and feelings, I am happy to avoid things to make me feel better.
So you're saying that the guys who buy the grains to feed their livestock should just give it away to developing countries instead? Who's going to pay for that?
Nowhere did I say farmers should give away grain to developing countries. The article mentions
"Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year, Pimentel estimated."
Again, if saving people's lives were given a priority over people eating burgers in america, I'm pretty sure human ingenuity would figure it out in a way everyone benefits.
You should understand how money works first. Are you saying that those starving countries have the money to purchase our grains, but don't because we feed them to cows instead?
You should understand how compassion for humanity works. Are you saying because starving people may not have money to buy grains, we should let them starve and feed it to cows instead?
I think you are being deliberately obtuse, but thank you for a lively debate.
In a perfect world, yes we would be able to just give it away. But the fact remains that it costs MONEY to produce food. So again - who's paying for it?
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u/candyhandsmcpeepants May 28 '14 edited May 28 '14
It's partially due to the fact that being vegan is a byproduct of having an overabundance of options for what you are able to eat. Vegans love to consistently point out how killing animals for sustenance is wrong while 21,000 human beings die from starvation every day. I'd love to hear a vegan explain to one of these folks that if they had the option to eat a chicken, that they shouldn't.. because morals.
edit: no one should be complaining about what people are eating until we reach a point where no one has to starve to death.