In “Flesh of your Flesh,” published in the November 9, 2009 edition of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert reviews several books that investigate the kinds of creatures we eat. Well, actually, we love our creatures too:
Forty-six million families in the United States own at least one dog, and thirty-eight million keep cats. Thirteen million maintain freshwater aquariums in which swim a total of more than a hundred and seventy million fish. Collectively, these creatures cost Americans some forty billion dollars annually.
We love our animals, but we also love to eat them:
This year, they will cook roughly twenty-seven billion pounds of beef, sliced from some thirty-five million cows. Additionally, they will consume roughly twenty-three billion pounds of pork, or the bodies of more than a hundred and fifteen million pigs, and thirty-eight billion pounds of poultry, some nine billion birds. Most of these creatures have been raised under conditions that are, as Americans know—or, at least, by this point have no excuse not to know—barbaric.
Isn’t this a contradiction that we love our pets but that we don’t care that we treat farm animals so incredibly badly?
Kohler quotes Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals: “Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.”
Cartoon: a bear considers veganism. http://www.urbanjunglecomic.com/comics/2010-05-25…
slaughtering animals humanely is not treating them badly. torturing them to death is. I saw this video on the net of these people who skin catfish alive it was aweful. another in japan a guy took this fish out of the aquarium sliced off a thin slice of it's sides and put it back into the aquarium where it preceded to swim off. the two guys were laughing at it still living and swimming poor fish.
the fact I get attached to my animals is one reason we don't get a cow or pig for slaughter. I would rather buy it from someone else.
animal meat is nutrient dense, hence you don't have to eat much to get alot of nutrients (provided it was taken care of properly) whereas you would have to eat alot of grain and veggies to get that same nutrient capacity. personally I am not a big grain eater, I do like buckwheat pancakes with wheat germ, otherwise I eat only a few servings of whole grains per day. I dont eat alot of meat by any stretch of the imagination, when I get a craving for it it takes only a few ounces to satiate me.
I am fond of fruit even more than meat. green beans are wonderful lightly steamed to tender/crisp, corn on the cob is wonderful and leafy green salad with onions and peppers is good tasting enough for me.
I love my dogs too, I am attached to them so eating them is out of the question, barring extreme starvation nearing death. but my heart would probably be so broken I couldn't eat.