Quote: Original post by Iftah
You'd be surprised but most farm animals suffer very much for years and years, not just a small amount before death.

I grew up on a farm in a very rural community, where feedlots/dairy farms/hog farms were quite abundant, so I know the life those animals live. I would agree that chickens have it the worst (most pigs too) as they are confined indoors, and often times in cages (as opposed to being outside on dirt like most dairy/beef farms).

The farm I grew up on was not a large scale production farm by any means. We had up to 300 cattle at times, and they were free-roaming, usually in pastures up to a quarter mile square. Most of these were breeding heifers (we usually rented our land to other breeders/ranchers, bringing their animals to our place for up to a year until they were large enough to breed).
We also would keep some (usually 5-20) cows in corrals for our own personal meat needs, or to sell to other people of the community. These animals had water, shelter, room to run (our corrals were about an acre, or roughly the size of a football field) and were fed a combination of hay and grain (usually a soybean/corn mix). The most 'suffering' these animals went through was the half hour semi truck ride to the slaughter house. Would you eat these animals? They suffered about as little as possible when it comes to domestic meat animals.

Also if you're on an entirely meat-free diet, how do you justify using the land/habitat of wild animals to supply your food? Do you feel bad for all of the deer, rabbits, raccoons, birds, etc that inhabited your soybean or corn field until it was harvested? Is that not making those animals suffer as well?

I'm not trying to point fingers and say "I'm right, your wrong", I'm merely pointing out other alternatives to your thinking (as you have to mine). I think no matter we do as a human race some other animal is going to suffer in some way, whether its what we eat, where we live, etc.

Quote: Original post by geo2004
Also if you're on an entirely meat-free diet, how do you justify using the land/habitat of wild animals to supply your food? Do you feel bad for all of the deer, rabbits, raccoons, birds, etc that inhabited your soybean or corn field until it was harvested? Is that not making those animals suffer as well?

As I said even when considering plants amounts, meat is inefficient so if you want to minimize fields land area and deforestations then being veg is the right way. Anyway one generation of deer and rabbits suffer once when their forest is destroyed for a field or a road, its a huge difference as opposed to generations of animals that suffer daily in a farm. And anyhow, doing one wrong does not "make it right" to do other wrongs. Its perfectly valid and consistent to have a non-perfect record and still avoid wrongness when possible.

Cows in Israel mostly arrive by ship all the way from Australia (pretty much as far as possible), some of them die on the way and most just barely make it. The cows are also marked with hot iron and their horns are chopped off (both very painful and without any anesthetics). Before their slaughter they spend 24-48 hours in stress next to the slaughterhouse for health check, the entire handling in that place is done with clubs and violence and the Kosher slaughter means they get hanged upside down and the blood flow from their necks for several minutes before they loose conscious.
For me just one violent clubbing alone is unacceptable handling of animals, especially when the result is just some slightly better tasting food.

My opinion is that if an animal was grown in good care and get slaughtered without needless pain or stress most of the ethical problem is diminished. I personally would not be comfortable eating such a cow anyway, I pretty much "brainwashed" myself to see meat as a result of evil handling of animals. I don't trust farmers and slaughterhouse employees to handle meat destined animals with care and compassion, so this "brainwash" is actually a safe assumption.

I am waiting for meat that will be grown artificially (a muscle tissue grown without any animal attached) before I'll happily eat a burger. Some vegetarians will not eat even that.

Lab-Grown Meat: The Answer to Animal Cruelty and Environmental Ruin From Feedlots?

Quote:
A philosophy paper recently published in Neuroethics presents the current state of biotech research on the use of genetic engineering to eliminate pain in animals.
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PETA's interests are aligned with a growing network of scientists. The In-Vitro Meat Consortium is an international alliance of environmentally concerned scientists collaborating to facilitate the establishment of large-scale carne-culture.

While the group has gained momentum and believers, the goal of lab-grown meat that's affordable enough to compete with factory farms is still five to 10 years off, according to Jason Matheny of New Harvest, a U.S. nonprofit that channels funding to animal-free meat research.
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New Harvest commissioned a recent Oxford University study to estimate the environmental impact of lab-grown meat. The study found that replacing factory farms with meat labs would create 80 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, use 90 percent less land and water, and be cost-comparable.
...

Jonathan Safran Foer's beef with factory farms

Quote:
Jonathan Safran Foer is a strict vegetarian, but his most recent book, "Eating Animals," is not a screed against meat. It is, rather, an indictment of the corrupt, large-scale factory farming that dominates the American meat market. A journalistic work with a novelistic feel, the book is the result of three years investigating the U.S. meat industry, and it weaves together animal activist and farmer interviews with statistical research and even memoir to provide a sweeping account of Big Beef and its social, economical and environmental impact. Descriptions of animals suffering on the "kill floor" are enough to incite squirms from even non-animal lovers, but cruelty is not Foer's only grievance: There are health concerns and devastating environmental damage at issue as well.
...

Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Eating Animals' Book Will Fundamentally Change the Way You Think About Food

Quote:
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Eating Animals takes a bold and fresh approach to our most important relationship with the world around us -- our food. The originality of the thinking and depth of research establishes Foer as a major player in the national discussion of the ethics of eating. He is the Michael Pollan of a younger generation: grittier and more daring, more insightful and decisive. And as we would expect from Foer, the stories he tells explode off the page and into our hearts.

Foer takes us alongside him as he bungles through undercover investigations and into the hidden world of today's industrial farming. We find out that turkeys have been so genetically modified they are not capable of sexual reproduction. We learn that the chickens on American's plates have been bred to grow so large so fast that their mere genetics destines them to suffering. We learn that "free range" means next to nothing and why it's fish and chicken you want to most avoid.
...

Quitting Meat Is a Process -- Almost Impossible to Do All at Once (excerpt from Eating Animals)

Quote: Original post by Iftah
As I said even when considering plants amounts, meat is inefficient so if you want to minimize fields land area and deforestations then being veg is the right way. Anyway one generation of deer and rabbits suffer once when their forest is destroyed for a field or a road, its a huge difference as opposed to generations of animals that suffer daily in a farm. And anyhow, doing one wrong does not "make it right" to do other wrongs. Its perfectly valid and consistent to have a non-perfect record and still avoid wrongness when possible.

I'm talking about the actual field itself, not the woodland that may have been cleared to make room for it. It's not a one-time, one-generation thing for wild animals though either. Corn fields, for example, provide a huge amount of food/cover/protection for all kinds of animals ranging from deer, rabbits, raccoons, pheasants, quail, coyotes, etc. I can guarantee you that if you were to harvest a corn field, you would see numerous animals throughout the harvest process run out of the ends of the fields.

Also I'd be interested in seeing any stats about the amount of land it would require to sustain a 100% vegetarian population, given the current output/productivity of our harvesting/growing techniques. I would be pretty surprised if it were any lower than the amount of land we currently use to sustain us and our meat animals.

EDIT: I can see how you would not like eating meat if what you said is true about the shipping techniques to get the animals to Israel. If that few really do survive the trip then it seems like it wouldn't be worth the time/money to ship them, and they need to re-think they're shipping technique.

Quote: @geo2004
Also I'd be interested in seeing any stats about the amount of land it would require to sustain a 100% vegetarian population, given the current output/productivity of our harvesting/growing techniques. I would be pretty surprised if it were any lower than the amount of land we currently use to sustain us and our meat animals.

I dropped some references here.

Raising meat animals and the crops used to feed them takes up 30 percent of the planet's land and emits 20 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas pollution (more than transportation).

If, however, the global population shifted to a low-meat diet – defined as 70 grams of beef and 325 grams of chicken and eggs per week – around 15 million square kilometres of farmland would be freed up.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I dropped some references here.

Raising meat animals and the crops used to feed them takes up 30 percent of the planet's land and emits 20 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas pollution (more than transportation).

If, however, the global population shifted to a low-meat diet – defined as 70 grams of beef and 325 grams of chicken and eggs per week – around 15 million square kilometres of farmland would be freed up.

Thanks for the links LessBread, I didn't get to those when I was reading through the replies before.

If those numbers are in fact close to right, I can see how eating less meat could help the environment.
Also if those numbers are accurate, then that is an amazing stat. 15 million sq. km is almost the size of South America, which is 17.8 mil sq km. A quick Google search says that the average meat intake per person/per day is about 100g. So completely eliminating meat intake would result in freeing ~26.55 million square km, twice the size of South America.
I would be quite impressed if that is correct.

Anyways, I still think no matter what we eat, whether its all meat, all veggie, or a mix, there is still going to be some animals suffering at some point in the process.

I don't think that's a unavoidable consequence (animal suffering / eating meat). We will soon have the technology to synthesize meat directly or even grow it. Once that occurs I can't see why we would continue to raise and slaughter animals when there is a better way, unless some people just enjoy animal suffering (which some do).

-ddn

I can't see how animals combined with profit could go wrong.