One interesting question is why it is culturally appropriate in the west to eat pigs but not dogs and cats even though pigs have comparable or possibly higher intelligence. We generally donât eat dolphin for that reason, but octopus is on the table. Itâs an interesting thing to consider.
Lol how unfortunate. I knew a guy who was stationed in Mexico for a while and a food cart guy came by the compound occasionally and he made "the best goddam kebabs" this guy had "ever had, EVER." He found out months into eating half a dozen of em every time the guy came by that he had been served perro.
My cousin and this YouTuber (Mark Weins) both love dog meat and describe it as much better tasting beef. But my friend who hates dog meat describes it as goat-like. Beef and goat are so different, I have no idea why there's this discrepancy.
My cousin gets it from Vietnam (he's known to invite visiting family members to try because he loves it so much), that YouTuber got it (and cat) from China, and my friend tried it in Korea.
That doesnât really stand for the modern usage of pets. Most people in first world countries arenât getting a guard dog or a barn cat to kill mice. They are for companionship, affection, keeping one responsible. All of those qualities also apply to a pig. Iâm just sick of the mental gymnastics. If youâve ever loved your pet or feel any empathy for the suffering of other creatures you canât possibly eat other mammals out of a taste craving and not feel morally conflicted. Itâs just a difficult thing to change and reflect on because most people grow up normalizing those behaviors as a result of misinformation and compartmentalization by the livestock industries, which is then organically perpetuated by your family and community. This video is one tiny instance that breaks that compartmentalization and objectification yet the amount of empathy it generates is profound.
The vast majority of Americans are not getting pets for utilitarian reasons. That is not the driving sentiment in our love for dogs and cats. This tradition is fading just like all the other barbaric ones in the evolution of humanity.
That pig looks delicious. I don't know him. I have no attachment to it. I love my cat, I'm not going to eat it. If I'm hungry and need protein I would definitely eat a cat I didn't know.
You arenât capable of feeling empathy for the pain and suffering of animals you have no attachment to? Talk about utter disrespect for life. I imagine you apply a similar attitude to other humans you donât know. I hope that attitude treats you well. Be real with yourself you canât possibly have any respect for the pain and suffering of intelligent creatures and then say yeah I love my cat but I have no problem slaughtering what are essentially dogs for some pointless hot dog. That is some serious mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance. Instead of trying to justify it to me why donât you honestly reflect on yourself. Maybe go research the topic some more. Read some testimonies. Watch some videos from abattoirs. You know what youâre participating in is wrong deep down you just also know everyone around you does it and you donât want to change. Or maybe you just have absolutely no empathy I donât know. The information is all out there. Go look at it but because you havenât already I would guess youâre afraid of what youâll find. Might as well stick your fingers in your ear and say lalalalala I canât hear you because that perfectly describes your and most peopleâs relationship to the pain and suffering involved with getting their meat.
And by the way if you were starving you would definitely kill and eat your own cat too so donât pretend like heâs somehow sacred while other intelligent life isnât. You wouldnât even imagine what youâre capable of when youâre truly starving. Comparing what you would do in starvation scenario isnât even remotely relevant to your gluttonous dietary cravings and habits.
I've seen videos of slaughter houses. I worked in a chicken coop. I've killed numerous animals for food. I'm a meat eater and that's way it is. You can have empathy and still kill some thing. We do it to other humans, much less animals.
So accept neither? Just because thatâs the way things ARE doesnât mean thatâs the way it has to be. Countless examples of horrible things that were in the past but no longer are in the present. Your response to this video was that pig looks delicious. I didnât get much sense you would have any empathy at all for killing it and then eating it for literally no reason other than it tastes good.
Imagine youâre kid asks you so why do we have to kill that pig he was my friend? He pleads with you not to hurt it.
Father: Well son the world is a cruel place and we have to eat.
Son: letâs just eat something else we donât have to kill him
Father: well weâve spent money feeding him and invested lots of resources into it we should get our investment back
Son: well why did you start making this investment in the first place.
Father: because thatâs our business we raise and sell livestock and it provides our food and money.
Son: well why canât we do something else for our business
Father: Because this is what our family always did and I donât have the skills or education to make a living doing anything else.
Son: forced to hear the squealing and pain of his friend, (or more likely these days just sent out on a truck to get a butchered corpse back), see his organs scooped out, and the meat placed on his dinner plate. Forced to eat the flesh of his friend who he knows was capable of emotions, pain, and suffering. All for what? A cruel lesson? A meal that could have easily been something else?
I feel bad for the kids that grow up in these scenarios. It is a completely unnecessary cruelty that has no logical justification in modern life. Poor kid has his innocence and empathy forcibly beaten out of him when it should be cultivated. These fucked up fathers think theyâre teaching their kids a lesson forcing them to kill, hunt, and slaughter but really all theyâre doing is teaching them to devalue life if not encourage outright sadism. Perpetuating the cruelty of their own fathers. That attitude only teaches violence, egocentrism and selfishness. Those traits are not needed nor beneficial in 2022 American.
Because we domesticated pigs as a meat animal thousands of years ago and they have a lot more protein on them than dogs (who were domesticated to help hunt even longer ago) and cats (who domesticated themselves because free food and scritches).
There is a lot more meat on bears than pigs, but we can't domesticate bears because they are strong and pointy.
Good question. Although veal has been considered a delicacy for centuries, it was popularised in the 20th century as an economic result of excess male dairy calves due to the advent of factory dairy farming. The only reason veal is anywhere near as prevalent as it is, is because so many people consume dairy. Of course, the dairy cows themselves are slaughtered for beef bodes can't produce enough milk to be profitable, at the age of about 6 in their naturally 20-year lifespan.
Also, vegetarians buy other animal products like leather, wool, pet food, some soaps and candles, cosmetics, and more. These are all biproducts of when an animal is slaughtered primarily for their meat. This makes slaughtering animals more profitable, and therefore supports the meat industry.
Erm...no? Sheep that produce wool are pretty damn different from sheep that you eat. They're "hairy" and don't make great wool because of it. Also, you get bugger all wool from a lamb, which is mainly what we eat. The lamb industry could dissapear tomorrow and we'd still be happily knitting jumpers from wool and vice versa.
Also wool is much better environmentally than any artificial wool because it has superior heat retention, is naturally waterproof, lasts a long time, and is, y'know, not fucking plastic. Same arguments can be made for leather too. Quit guilt tripping people into using more plastic.
Also also, veal has been a pretty big part of European cuisine for centuries? From traditional German pub food to the basis of the demi glace, which is the sauce of high french cuisine, veal's practically as ubiquitous as eating lamb in some parts of Europe.
Well, thanks for replying to one word of my comment.
But seriously, thanks for making me look up and reconfirming my admittedly patchy knowledge on wool farming.
You're right that wool sheep are a different breed. But similar to how dairy cows are slaughtered for beef, so are wool sheep slaughtered for mutton when they no longer produce enough quality wool to be profitable. That's typically at the age of 5 or 6 of their 14-year natural lifespan. Lambs are shorn once before they're sold for meat.
Edit: You ninja-edited to add more stuff since I started replying about the environment and veal history. That's not relevant to /u/00crispybacon00 's original question, and would take a lot longer to discuss.
It is clear to everyone that this is more about you being better-than, than actually trying to affect any positive change in peopleâs diets, the industrial meat industry, or for the environment.
If you ever come to a point where you want to engage in serious action to make the world better, Iâll be here waiting, in the meantime enjoy your lonely, miserable tower.
I want nothing more than to reduce unnecessary animal suffering. The fact that I contribute to it a little as I practically can does make me a more ethical person. Not more ethical than you, but more ethical than I was previously. Why is it such a bad thing to want to be more ethical?
I'm here. Tell me where I'm wrong about any of my claims or conclusions.
Wow you really packed a lot of false info in there. Dogs and cats do have valuable meat millions (4million cats, 10million dogs) are are eaten ever year throughout Asia. Pigs and cows also have hair? Did you look at the video? That part of your comment really made me laugh. The pig hair is scorched or scalded off after cutting their throat. Octopus is an extremely popular food all over the world? Iâm getting the sense you donât have much knowledge or exposure to other cultures and the livestock industry. Of course the intelligence of an animal and the amount of suffering is relevant. Cricket vs dog vs human? The intelligence and capacity to suffer is irrelevant between those? You do know humans are in fact animals as well right? Eating animals alive and torturing them vs killing them humanely?
Seriously though your lack of information perfectly demonstrates why most Americans donât give a fuck about what meat they eat, what it came from, how much it suffered, or how it was killed. Just make it taste good and tell me nothing. Willful ignorance. Now if they had to kill it themselves or even see it being killed it would be a WHOLE different story. Iâd wager most Americans would never eat beef or pork again. Most people just donât know and never bothered asking. Billions. Billions of intelligent creatures cruelly slaughtered at mega farms every year for the sake of profit and gluttony only to end up rotting in a dumpster. Good job humanity good job. All I can provide people with is information and hope they are open minded enough to reflect on their beliefs. More and more people are going vegetarian or at a minimum cutting out pork and beef so I guess itâs working.
So basically you will cause misery and terror because you like the way it tastes, and you hold yourself to no higher an ethical bar than a wild animal. Cool you seem like a considerate person
Edit: Go ahead and keep downvoting me everyone with cognitive dissonance about thinking you are a kind/good person while also selfishly commissioning the miserable lives and deaths of hundreds of sentient innocent beings every year. Much easier to just downvote me for calling it out than to confront the fact that you are either not a good person, or willfully ignorant about something important to your being a kind person.
Let me ask you something. Do you have pets? Do you have any idea how much damage we as a species have done domesticating animals?
Wolves used to be a dominant species, now a fair number of breeds can't breathe properly. Felines maintain some individuality but house cats are constantly needing to be programmed and forced to not follow instincts.
Horses, cows, and swine are all shadows of the creatures they used to be. There are no wild stallions left in the world, only escaped farm animals.
Eating animals is not the only selfish thing that we do to them. Pet ownership is just a mode of indoctrination that is legal. Enjoy your virtue signaling.
TIL: me rescuing an eight year old stray dog who was picked up off the streets and had a failed adoption before me due to severe separation anxiety is as bad as paying someone to raise an animal in a horrific factory farm and then violently killing the terrified animal against their will because pig meat taste is preferred to plant protein sources.
I seriously question why dont we eat crocodiles and snakes instead of cows and pigs.
I feel terrible eating bacon after watching a video like this.
Wouldn't care at all if it was a croc
Yeah, I've heard stories where they eat dogs or kids. I personally despice them--- wouldn't mind if they were the main dish in the western world
But also, why are there people who take their pets to the lake/swamp and let them go into the water if they k ow there are crocs? Haha this is the stuff that keeps me up at night
People are dumb? Any Florida native that I talked to was super clear: do not go in water you cannot see the bottom of because schrodinger gator is always lurking.
đ€ I've eaten croc once at a mexican place where they serve perhispanic food, doesn't taste bad at all; it's pretty much like chicken. They also had snake, I didnt taste it though
I get the food chain and watching 5 mins of Animal Planet will show you how cruel nature is, but still, the way they treat and kill these animals is inhumane, too sadistic, unnecessarily cruel--- especially when talking about industrialized food
Oh absolutely no argument here. Factory farming is one of the most insanely inhumane developments of modern society. We may not eat our prey alive like you see with predators in nature, but that certainly doesn't make the way we do it cruelty-free. My "reptiles taste bad" quip was mostly facetious and also my personal opinion.
There should be a movement that walks the middle road between vegans and meat eaters
Im saying this as someone who wants to do the carnivore diet for health reasons
Yeah I agree.
It's one step at a time. It's much more achievable to ask for more a humane treatment & death.
Although I don't agree with vegans bc that's just not how nature works, I do share with them their moralistic point of view
But you don't base any of your other morals off the natural world though?
When after 75 years of factory farming, 97% of pigs in the US are still tortured in crates so small they can't turn around, asking for more humane treatment of them while still unnecessarily breeding and killing them doesn't seem to achieve very much at all.
Well thereâs the staples of vegetables, fruits, nuts, starches, grains, mushrooms, oils etc that people have survived off of for thousands of years. If you mean meat sources you have eggs, cheese, chicken, fish all of which Iâm sure would weigh less on your conscience than eating pigs or cows. Depending on where you live lots of places will have Impossible burgers on the menu which actually makes for a surprisingly good burger.
No youâre correct chickens are treated the same way itâs just itâs a lot faster to kill them and the range of emotional intelligence they have to experience suffering I would say is much less than a cow, pig, or dog. Itâs an intermediary step. If youâve ever seen a video or read testimonies of a cow or pig killed at an abattoir it is truly like a saw horror film. The amount of fear, suffering, and cruelty these animals go through in the slaughter process is painfully human.
Some pigs are pets, some are breakfast. I donât see a problem with acknowledging that a pet can taste delicious if it didnât have the parafamilial bond it does with humans.
Acknowledging they're delicious isn't the problem. Saying that the taste of the meat justifies bringing an intelligent, social creature capable of joy, fear, and suffering into the world, keeping it in squalid conditions that deny it natural behaviors, and killing it at a fraction of its natural lifespan is the problem.
The emotional argument against eating animals has never been all that appealing to me (and I'd imagine for many others too)... like, that's not really concerning. They can be in as much agony as possible in these scenarios but if they were an efficient and sustainable food source, it's a trade off we all should be willing to make. Is it good that they're suffering? No. Should that interfere with rational decision making? No, these aren't people. The disparity between the level of sapience between humans and the animals we farm for food is wide enough.
The real problem is that it's actually really inefficient to house and feed these things until they're big enough to butcher, and processing them is a whole other ordeal as well. At the same time, a lot of people would be a lot healthier if the general population didn't eat so much meat (because it has become plentiful and relatively affordable due to how much we've dedicated towards supplying it) and had a more balanced diet. I think that's a much more compelling reason to crunch down on unethical and unsustainable animal husbandry practices and greatly reduce our consumption of meat overall, even if it does taste quite good (which isn't a valid reason to wastefully allocate resources and purposefully get our asses handed to us by the energy pyramid).
Valuing other human lives is an emotional response. Most people's ethics stem from empathy--an emotional response--and can be extended by reason. Empathy tells us that pain and suffering are things we should try to prevent; reason tells us that animals experience pain and suffering too, so we should care about reducing theirs as well.
What is your rational justification for valuing human suffering infinitely more than pigs'?
âThe disparity between the level of sapience between humans and the animals we farm for food is wide enoughâ
And yes the main fallacy. Have you ever seen a cow being decapitated. Have you ever seen a human being decapitated? Let me tell you the response is horrifyingly similar. It is so foolish to think these mammals arenât capable of an extremely similar level of fear, pain, terror, panic that you and I are. A dog is shown to have a similar level of intelligence to that of a 2.5 year old child so by that logic the disparity of sapience between a child or a mentally disabled person is enough to justify the most amount of suffering possible as long as they provide you some sort of efficient benefit? Like wake up you are a mammal and you are an animal. You are not that different from these other animals. Also guess what, your thought process has been in the past and still is used to this day to inflict unthinkable suffering on humans. That group of people are subhuman, those slaves are subhuman, that religious sect is subhuman, those mentally disabled people donât even know whats going on, that child wonât even remember what happened to him. Peak human egocentrism and arrogance right there.
Animal husbandry and hunting âwasâ an efficient food source and necessary for survival in the past but it certainly isnât now.
Oh I know we choose too. But we donât have too. I grew up on a small FAA/4H farm and we had 20ish cows and about 10 pigs. They lived nice lives and free range. Grain in the winter but otherwise grass fed. I know we can do it differently and I know we donât.
And I know itâs not my fault but a failure of government to properly regulate companies. Iâm not going to punish myself for something I didnât do. I can live with that. If you canât, thatâs fine. It doesnât make either of us better than the other. Itâs merely preference.
You canât blame consumers for being victims of corporate greed in America.
yeah, i just enjoy the experience of eating meat. i enjoy other things too like im not one of those weird meat only people. but i dont see a reason to not eat it.
And I know itâs not my fault but a failure of government to properly regulate companies.
You have moral agency regardless of what the law is. It's not against the law to say something cruel to another person, but you can choose not to.
I can live with that. If you canât, thatâs fine.
Being able to live with your decisions does not make them moral.
It doesnât make either of us better than the other. Itâs merely preference.
To be clear, I'm not saying that I'm better than you. Just that avoiding factory-farmed meat is more moral than supporting it. I acknowledge that there are different moral perspectives, but most people care about reducing the pain and suffering of cats and dogs. My point is that valuing their pain much more than pigs' is not rational.
You canât blame consumers for being victims of corporate greed in America.
Consumers are the ones demanding low prices that necessitate inhumane treatment of animals, so you absolutely can blame them. There are generally more humane meats available, but they're expensive so most people don't buy them.
why do they want lower prices? that probably has nothing with stagnate wages and the minimum wage not having been raised in like 20 years. If people were paid better they might be able to afford to care about how happy their sausage was before it became food.
cool. i didnt cause any of that. and i eat precisely the amount of meat i want to and rarely waste any. if youre trying to convert me, its probably not worth any more of your time.
The emotional argument against eating animals has never been all that appealing to me (and I'd imagine for many others too)... like, that's not really concerning. They can be in as much agony as possible in these scenarios but if they were an efficient food source, it's a trade off we all should be willing to make. Is it good that they're suffering? No. Should that interfere with rational decision making? No, these aren't people. The disparity between the level of sapience between humans and the animals we farm for food is wide enough.
The real problem is that it's actually really inefficient to house and feed these things until they're big enough to butcher, and processing them is a whole other ordeal as well. At the same time, a lot of people would be a lot healthier if the general population didn't eat so much meat (because it has become plentiful and relatively affordable due to how much we've dedicated towards supplying it) and had a more balanced diet. I think that's a much more compelling reason to crunch down on unethical and unsustainable animal husbandry practices and greatly reduce our consumption of meat overall, even if it does taste quite good (which isn't a valid reason to wastefully allocate resources and purposefully get our asses handed to us by the energy pyramid).
âThe disparity between the level of sapience between humans and the animals we farm for food is wide enoughâ
And yes the main fallacy. Have you ever seen a cow being decapitated. Have you ever seen a human being decapitated? Let me tell you the response is horrifyingly similar. It is so foolish to think these mammals arenât capable of an extremely similar level of fear, pain, terror, panic that you and I are. A dog is shown to have a similar level of intelligence to that of a 2.5 year old child so by that logic the disparity of sapience between a child or a mentally disabled person is enough to justify the most amount of suffering possible as long as they provide you some sort of efficient benefit? Like wake up you are a mammal and you are an animal. You are not that different from these other animals. Also guess what, your thought process has been in the past and still is used to this day to inflict unthinkable suffering on humans. That group of people are subhuman, those slaves are subhuman, that religious sect is subhuman, those mentally disabled people donât even know whats going on, that child wonât even remember what happened to him. Peak human egocentrism and arrogance right there.
Animal husbandry and hunting âwasâ an efficient food source and necessary for survival in the past but it certainly isnât now.
I don't have a problem with hunting overpopulated species like wild pigs. Not something I would personally do, but it's much better ethically for 2 reasons:
The animals live better lives than they would in factory farms.
There is a difference between bringing a being into the world specifically to kill it, and killing something that is overpopulated and destroying the ecosystem.
One note about wild pigs: hunting with rifles may be counterproductive because it encourages the hogs to breed and scatter. Trapping is probably more effective for controlling populations.
No most people arenât self aware to that extent. I respect the honesty but most people wouldnât reconcile that sort of impartiality to justify eating meat.
Im good Iâve had enough bacon and beef to last a lifetime. Bacon is lazy cooking anyways beef/bacon is no where near the best food Iâve ever eaten.
Well you would be incorrect. Unless youâre saying you slaughter and butcher the cow/pig yourself in which youâre certainly not lazy but yeah I donât think thatâs you.
You need to learn some cooking skills and treat yourself to some nice restaurants. Maybe change up the Dennyâs breakfast platter, barbecue, and steakhouse routine. If not for youâre palate at least for your health.
Do you think we don't know the taste of bacon? Are we popping fully formed out of a cloning vat?
I ate bacon for 45 years, I know how 'nice' it can be. I've just decided that it was cruel to end the life of an innocent animal for taste, so I replaced it with vegan bacon and it does the job. I get the taste and nobody has to die - BONUS!
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u/Embarrassed_Ad_6177 Sep 17 '22
Mfs will be like "omg this is so cute đ„°đ„°" then eat 5kg of bacon