Would you kill for your daily meat?
I still remember a research that I read many years ago, when I was a vegetarian, stating that almost 90% of the people who were participating to the quiz and were meat eaters at that time said that if they were to kill by themselves the animals that they eat the meat from they couldn't do that. I couldn't do that either and this quiz popped to my mind yesterday while I was fishing.
Usually I fish with artificial bait and all type of metal and other plastic lures that are not alive, but are very tempting to fish due to their shinnies, shape and movements in the water. I am perfectly fine with that. Worms also. However, yesterday I went fishing with some live bait. A few small fish caught and imprisoned in a bucket that served me as a bait for some more big fish. One that didn't showed to eat them.
While hooking those live fish into my fishing gear I felt pity for them and I even felt like throwing up when doing that. Not as much from the image of them being hooked, but more because of me and what I was doing. It's the first time from years of fishing when I really felt wrong for doing that. I really felt like those small fish didn't have to be there in my bucket. They didn't deserved that. They didn't deserved to be killed that way by me.
I still stubbornly used them all, although I had the same feeling with each and one of them. I guess my stubbornness didn't let me waste them. After yesterday I don't think I will repeat this type of fishing with live bait though. I think I am going to stick with the plastics and metals that I've used for years. The fish I catch end up back in the water anyway so I am not doing any harm to them. Except the fact that I am pulling them to the shore for my fun, but I am not killing them. There might be some bad karma linked to this thing also, but fishing is one of my few passions so I am not going to quit it just for that. Live bait, however, I used the last time yesterday.
This fishing experience though makes me think to the food I eat. Although I was a vegetarian for about five years, now, I am eating almost all types of meat so indirectly I am participating to some more cruel killings of pigs, cows and whatever they sale in the grocery stores nowadays so I should feel even more pity for animals. Now, thinking about the research I mentioned in the introduction I believe I would be among that 90% that wouldn't kill for the meat. I feel too much pity for live animals, but I still eat meat and that's the thing that kind of bothers me and it is also in contradiction of what I feel.
Plus, I know that we as a specie are able to choose what we eat and can live fine without meat, in comparison with animals that are doomed to survive on how the nature designed them, herbivores or carnivores, but I found myself almost choosing the easy way. The meat way. That which ended on my table thanks to someone else who's done the dirty job for me. However, I still feel that I am somehow guilty also for the those animals being slaughtered to get to my table and I don't feel OK at all with it. Thus I am thinking that I might be doomed to become a vegetarian again with this type of thought hunting me. Now even more with the image of the small fished in my had.
I don't have problems with the taste of meat. I have problems with their slaughtering. What do you think regarding this topic? How do you feel about it?
Thanks for your attention
I think it's not the killing that's the worst, I think it's the mere fact that we're "farming" animals in cages, with no other purpose than eating them that is the worst.
Sometimes I'm considering eating only sheep, whales, reindeer and other animals that I may believe have had a happy life prior to slaughter.
That's also a point of view that I heard on a TV show once. That the animals should at least live a happy life before being slaughtered. I was fine with not eating meat for years and I think I will gradually reduce it to zero.
I hunt, I think its natural. Man and beast share the planet and its the way it was intended. Of course i do not condone illegal hunting or anything, and in my area we hunt animals which need to have numbers contained.
Animals die for your food and not eating animals doesn't change that. In fact, if you take care where you sourced
your animal sourced food, it is likely you can achieve a significantly lower body count on a 100% carnivore diet than you could even on most variants of a vegan diet.
Been ovo entire vegetarian in the past, but the more I look deeply into different aspects like health, cruelty, climate, etc, the more I find out that we'll sourced nose to tail meat is hard to beat on all fronts, most notably from an non-naive ethical perspective. Poorly sourced meat arguably can be the worst ethical choice, and thus it can be hard to swallow that just sourcing can make so much difference, that the smug feeling we had as vegetarians was so misguided, but once you start looking into plant food deadcounts and cruelty vs holistic pasture raised beef farming , it becomes quite hard to defend not actually becoming a full 100% carnivore.
There of cause is the financial problem because non industrial produced meat is rather steeply priced, and eating nothing but ruminant meat will likely soon get boring, but ethically, eating more (not less) meat, given it has the best possible sourcing, turns out to actually be the most ethical choice unless you apply the cuteness filter to your personal ethical framework.
I think animals are slaughtered/killed for you food because they don't die of old age then we eat them. I am not advocating though a vegetarian lifestyle for everyone as I am not for the moment one myself, but I surely think about this suffering very often when I choose to eat meat.
The question is though: Do you also think about it when eating lettuce or bread? Animals die for those things too, for many foods at a much higher rate than responsibly sourced meat. Just ask yourself, for example, how many rodent parents get poisoned for your plant-based foods, how many of their babies starve to death as a result? How many animals suffer and die as a result of red tide that in term is a result of plant-based food production practices? The more I look into it, the more clear it becomes that food sourcing is many times more important than any other consideration when it comes to animal suffering and death.
this is something that troubles me too- I have always eaten meat but if I think about having to kill the animal myself I just couldnt do it. I have some thinking to do.
@acesontop Thank you for not using bidbots on this post and also using the #nobidbot tag!
We were thinking about this. I stopped eating meat because of empathy with animals. I love taste of meat but I can't stand killing animals so I quit eating meat.
I am 95% to become a vegetarian again, neighbor. I was years ago for a period of about 5 years, but I quit. However, I feel better when I don't eat meat.
You will feel better. Just keep eating eggs and milk and milk products because our body needs enough proteins and amino acids that are existing there.
Congratulations on XRP rise 😁
HAHA. Thanks. Will pop a champagne bottle at $10 :)
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Not interested with your offers. I won't even click that link of yours. I don't see what has to do with my post. I also flagged you although my voting power is low.