Should you feel guilty for eating meat?

[The Last Nomad]

(anything that has a life)

This is the most used argument for being vegetarian and its total bullshit.
By saying you won't eat anything that was alive you are a hypocrite unless you eat only processed lab grown goop. Plants are just as alive as animals. They are just a different form of life. They just happen to be generally immobile. But scientists have proven that plants can communicate as well as other things thought only to occur in animals.

So if you don't feel bad about eating plants, there is no reason to feel bad about eating animals.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

Is it wrong for an owl to eat a mouse? Is it wrong for a lion to eat a gazelle? Nope. That's just what they do. They're built to eat meat.

Likewise, we're built to eat meat, though not exclusively. Us eating meat is no more morally wrong than an animal eating meat, in my opinion. It's way worse to kill an animal and then waste it.

 

[Cpu46]

No. There is no reason, moral or otherwise, that you should feel bad about eating meat. Humans are meant to eat meat, our bodies are attuned to the nutrients of meat.

Spoiler: in other words

 

[In Search of Username]

Well then consider this, it has been proven that plants feel pain.

Unless I've missed something pretty big in biology, I doubt that's true. Evidence?

First a disclaimer, I was told this in my landscaping course or Ag Tech, and without spending a couple hours on Google I don't think I can get very solid info either way, so my apologies if my info is incorrect.

Now here's what a brief look onto Google showed me, two websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(paranormal) and http://www.didyouwonder.com/do-plants-feel-pain/ both are probably not grand sources. other quick skimming leads me to believe that I'm probably wrong, however the fact that plants still are living things can't be denied. We still have to eat one life to continue our own.

Yeah that's what I found when I looked. Seems like it's more like plants react to pain but don't necessarily have the consciousness to have any real way of 'experiencing' it. If plants really did feel pain then being a vegetarian would really be pointless.

But yeah, I know they're alive; that's not the part that bothers vegetarians (at least in my experience), it's the pain inflicted that causes the feeling of guilt, not the actual death or the eating of the previously alive substance.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Nope!

In fact, it's pretty much the only excuse I accept for killing animals.

 

[Ryujisama]

Some vegetarians make the argument that they prefer veggies over meat because they don't want to take a life, but they forget that plants are living things too, they just don't yelp when you pluck them from the ground. To truly live a life without taking a life, you'd die pretty soon due to malnutrition. My reasoning is this: if your religion says you shouldn't eat meat, and you are a pious person, don't eat meat. If you don't want to eat meat due to health reasons, don't eat meat. If you don't want to eat meat because you feel sorry for the thing that was killed so that you could eat it, then don't eat meat or vegetables. Plants are living things, too.

 

[Gitty101]

But... animals taste really good. Vegetables and other alternatives simply do not measure up.

 

[kortin]

No. There is nothing wrong with eating meat. It's called the circle of life for a reason.

 

[I am Harbinger]

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Thank you, Yahtzee, for you endless words of wisdom.

Not serious enough? Fine.

No, you shouldn't. Man would not be man without the comsuption of meat. Protein from meat was what allowed our distant ancestors to evolve from upright apes into more intelligent beings. To put it another way, without meat, you would not be here to question whtehr or not you should eat meat.

 

[AngloDoom]

Anyway to cut the long story short, I'm very confused if eating meat/seafood is justified[...]

I think first of all you need to ask yourself why you need to justify the decision, and to whom. No, we don't really need meat and we can probably live a perfectly healthy life without it. Does that matter to you, though?

For me, the amount of effort required to have a healthy diet on a vegetarian diet is far too much for the sake of animals that I am theoretically saving: my decisions are not going to affect how the rest of the world views their animals, so me not eating meat may not save any animals whatsoever.

In the end, I want to be bigger and stronger and I exercise often: having chicken and fish helps me in this pursuit. That's all the justification I need.

 

[Kolby Jack]

Adapting meat into our regular diets is what gave us the excess nutrition needed to develop our brains and become the dominant species. Plus, it isn't like the livestock know what's happening.

 

[Andrew Bascom]

Well then consider this, it has been proven that plants feel pain.

Unless I've missed something pretty big in biology, I doubt that's true. Evidence?

First a disclaimer, I was told this in my landscaping course or Ag Tech, and without spending a couple hours on Google I don't think I can get very solid info either way, so my apologies if my info is incorrect.

Now here's what a brief look onto Google showed me, two websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(paranormal) and http://www.didyouwonder.com/do-plants-feel-pain/ both are probably not grand sources. other quick skimming leads me to believe that I'm probably wrong, however the fact that plants still are living things can't be denied. We still have to eat one life to continue our own.

Yeah that's what I found when I looked. Seems like it's more like plants react to pain but don't necessarily have the consciousness to have any real way of 'experiencing' it. If plants really did feel pain then being a vegetarian would really be pointless.

But yeah, I know they're alive; that's not the part that bothers vegetarians (at least in my experience), it's the pain inflicted that causes the feeling of guilt, not the actual death or the eating of the previously alive substance.

I guess this where being a farmer comes in for me. All my life I've been raised to respect animals. I've never actually killed an animal before, but I've been raised with the knowledge that when they kill an animal it's as quick and painless as possible. Please note this is certainly not always the case, but it's how a good farmer is raised. I try not to look poorly upon vegetarians but if you like meat, you really shouldn't feel bad about eating it, on the other hand I know someone who's in training to be a vet and she's a vegetarian because she feels that it's wrong for her to be saving animal life and then eating them... I explained that horribly, but anyway I've always respected her for that choice. Anyway if I keep going I'm gonna enter controversial ground so I'll stop while I'm somewhat ahead

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

I would say it's okay if that's what you want to do. We as a species are living in an interesting time where we have total choice in what we eat. Some Vegetarians stand behind the "meat is murder" argument but that's just someone's opinions. The fact is, you don't "need" to eat meat as long as you replace the benefits that meat offers with an alternative. You should already know this though from the back story you have us.

 

[Rainforce]

well, your very existence pretty much relies on the destruction of the environment around you, no matter how you turn it, so...
yes, you should feel guilty, by all logic.
Your alternative, though, is to understand that you are a living being,
which also means that you're never "pure" by human standards, and you need to live with that.

 

[CarlMin]

I don't feel guilty for eating meat, the same way I don't feel guilty for squashing and killing spiders and creepycrawly insects.
Yes, a living thing is dying. But in the meat example, at least something useful is coming out of it.

[sub]Also, this thread will get to 20 pages ...[/sub]

Why would anyone feel guilty for crushing spiders and insects? They have no sentience or emotions. Hell, they don't even have a peripheral nervous system.

 

[Lunar Templar]

nope, never, meat, especially when prepared right is some of the best food there is