How can Vegetarianism/Veganism be supported morally?!
How can Vegetarianism/Veganism be supported morally?
Articles like http://web.archive.org/web/2005040201015... http://web.archive.org/web/2004110708452... and http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/... show that veganism/vegetarianism causes vastly far more animal death than a traditional diet. Keeping the least harm principle in mind, how can supporters of a Vegan/Vegetarian diet morally back their beliefs? How can taking away choices of food AND killing millions more animals a year be better unless it is part of your religious beliefs?
Additional Details1 month ago
Sorry, forgot to mention that while animals raised for meat usually eat more grain than flesh they produce, they can be grown free range which requires no harvesting of said grains, the animal does all the harvesting. Second I forgot to mention that there is not enough surface area on the earth to plant enough vegetables to support the human population on a vegan diet without the use of pesticides because of the amount of crop loss and that for all that food to be gathered without any mechanical aid it would require a significant portion of people, at least hundreds of millions, to switch from their current employment to food gathering diverting resources from other worthy causes.
Answers:
1 month ago
Sorry, forgot to mention that while animals raised for meat usually eat more grain than flesh they produce, they can be grown free range which requires no harvesting of said grains, the animal does all the harvesting. Second I forgot to mention that there is not enough surface area on the earth to plant enough vegetables to support the human population on a vegan diet without the use of pesticides because of the amount of crop loss and that for all that food to be gathered without any mechanical aid it would require a significant portion of people, at least hundreds of millions, to switch from their current employment to food gathering diverting resources from other worthy causes.
Those articles do not show that veganism causes more animal death than a traditional diet. While those articles raise good points that everyone should consider, the fact of the matter is that animals raised for food in our society are fed plants that were cultivated in the same way. And as you know it takes so many pounds of plants to produce one pound of meat, and along with the faulty math breaks this argument apart. The argument for grazing ruminants is moot if you compare it to veggies who farm their own vegetables or buy from small organic local farms that don't use pesticides, etc.. These articles only talked about factory farming plants versus small scale free range farming of animals. Most animals raised for food are NOT roaming around grazing for the majority of their food intake. My fiance's family lives in France and grows most of their own veggies and get many of the rest from neighboring farms. The only pest control is a dog to chase birds away and a garden snake, who well, yeah. It's not like they put him there! And to make my point clearer, my future in-laws are not hippies by any means. That's just countryside life. I don't see how a vegan living in this environment is causing more harm to animals than someone killing the chickens next door.
Eat whatever you want just get me another beer.
Wow. You are actually smart, and not just an internet troll. Well...I'll be leaving now.
Well I really don't know about anyone Else's choices or why they eat vegan or vegetarian, but I was born and raised vegetarian. We had a ranch farm with all kinds of animals. Ours was for religious purposes the reason for our diet. I tried meat later in my life because the doctor suggested it for health reasons. But after adding it to my diet I found that my health and skin, hair, nails and just over all emotional and physical health suffered. So I returned to my vegetarian diet happily.
I'm not vegan because I eat cheese, eggs and drink milk. But I do not support any type of cruelty to animals except for the purposes of feeding, and necessary clothing! I'm Native American Indian so as you know in our culture and history we do believe that animals are to be used to feed, clothe, and only use what is necessary,nothing more.
I don't care what they are. I like my steak and pork and chicken and , no not fish and rabbit and and and.
I buy organic fruit, and its all I eat, I don't see any death in being a fruitarian. plus, if one grows there own veggies.
Veganism does not cause more animals deaths. I read that study about the Oregon professor before, he said that if ALL of the land in the US was used for farming that 1 billion animals would die per year. That is no where near the 26 billion animals killed for meat, eggs, and dairy each year. A meat diet isn’t sustainable. It would take up tons of water. And it isn’t realistic to have all free range cows. And plant foods are more efficient than animal foods. There is already enough food to go around, the 1.3 billion cows that populate the Earth consume the needs of about 6.8 billion people, more than the current population. It requires much less resources for a plant based diet than a meat one. Even if cows were all free range, you would have to still factor in the gas used by transportation, refrigeration, processing, housing etc. The least efficient plant food is ten times as efficient as them most efficient animal food. One acre of land can grow about 20,000 pounds of potatoes,but only 165 pounds of beef .The use of pesticides does not greatly increase output, organic farmers lost about 5-10% of the average toll, but they saved money because they didn’t have to pay for expensive chemicals. Anyways, we currently don’t have all free range cattle, and most of are vegan because of factory farming. Without factory farming it would be unrealistic to raise 26 billion animals per year.