Circumstances in which animals get bred to become our food

• Zid wrote on 2011-08-02 08:18
  I'm more or less planning to go vegetarian once I have the financial stability to do so. For now, meat is a cheap(er) source of protein for me.
  
  Reason why is, well, because of these kinds of things. I know not eating meat won't change people from eating meat or "making" meat this way, but I'm not here to change people; I'm here to live my life the way I want it to be. And I'd rather not eat the meat of some chicken (abused or not) that was born, raised, and bred for one purpose: to die (whether cruelly or not) and be eaten.
• Kazuni wrote on 2011-08-02 08:51
  It bothers me how people go on about saving a tree or lessening animal cruelty in similar situations when they really don't give a damn when it comes right down to it. Not just talking about people on the forum, either.
  
  Imo, it'd do everyone some good to accept that it happens, and that we don't have the time or resources to go about pampering each chicken before we eat it. With increasingly limiting space issues and various other problems that we're facing already, the comfort of a chicken is really the least of our concerns.
  
  Of course, I feel uncomfortable thinking about it. I can barely stomach lobster/crab because I can hear their shells crack and I think about what they were like when they were alive. I love animals, but I'm not about to go vegetarian or even pick free range chicken/eggs instead of the regular variety.
  
  It's life, it's survival, and it happens. It's like smoking. Everyone knows it's bad, and really there ought to be a ban on it, but the tobacco industry brings in money, and so it continues.
  
  I hate seeing people bawww about every little issue in the world, and yet when they close whatever article it was, they forget all about it. You can complain about every cruel act and injustice under the sun, but at the end of the day, barely any of them matter, nor can they be changed.
• TA wrote on 2011-08-02 09:00
  Yeahhhh... At the end of the day, we're killing them and eating them. What their lives were like don't particularly matter, given their sole purpose in life.
• Cynic wrote on 2011-08-02 17:32

  Quote from TA;534815:

  Yeahhhh... At the end of the day, we're killing them and eating them. What their lives were like don't particularly matter, given their sole purpose in life.

  
  
  Thing is, they weren't put on earth for us to kill them. Animals provide a primary source of meat, but they don't exist for that sole purpose.
  People are forgetting that animals came first, not humans. So to say "Oh, they were made to be our food source" is beyond incorrect.
  
  The thing that bugs me is people do these things to animals when they don't have to. It's really not that hard to treat the animal that is helping to give you life some respect, it really isn't. People are just lazy f*cks with no consideration. If animals didn't exist? Yeah, you'd be screwed.
  But I forgot that the human race lovvveeesss taking things for granted.
  
  Sigh. Humans.. diggin' their own grave in so many ways.
  I can only hope that some day another race comes along and treats us like game so we see how it feels, but by then it will be far too late for regrets, heh.
• Spike wrote on 2011-08-02 18:41

  Quote from Cynic;535083:

  Thing is, they weren't put on earth for us to kill them. Animals provide a primary source of meat, but they don't exist for that sole purpose.
  People are forgetting that animals came first, not humans. So to say "Oh, they were made to be our food source" is beyond incorrect.
  
  The thing that bugs me is people do these things to animals when they don't have to. It's really not that hard to treat the animal that is helping to give you life some respect, it really isn't. People are just lazy f*cks with no consideration. If animals didn't exist? Yeah, you'd be screwed.
  But I forgot that the human race lovvveeesss taking things for granted.
  
  Sigh. Humans.. diggin' their own grave in so many ways.
  I can only hope that some day another race comes along and treats us like game so we see how it feels, but by then it will be far too late for regrets, heh.

  If we started caring about life we'd all die of starvation (plants included), also animals don't hold these morals and would rip each other apart for a daily meal.
  
  Think a grizzly bear is going to be nice as it eats your face? No. It doesn't care. It just wants to eat you. Like sharks. Does the shark care that it bit off your arm and now you're a cripple? No. It's too busy eating its delicious arm.
  
  Animals don't care about what's correct or not. For them, it's survival of the fittest. Only our comfortable society can come up with ideas to defend animals against us. Do animals try to come up with ways to protect human beings ? I don't think so. We always tried to fight nature / protect ourselves from it, as well as pillaging its ressource. If we hadn't, human society wouldn't exist. And nature isn't waiting for an invitation from us to reclaim its right. Wild animals kill enough as it is. It's beyond ****ed up to try to protect wild live when wild live actually kills human whenever it has the chance.
  
  Plus, you have to learn humans are also animals.
  
  2/10 for trolling this time... again, no one can be this ignorant. Sigh.. cynic, when are ya gonna learn.
• Chiyuri wrote on 2011-08-02 18:53

  Quote from Spike;535146:

  If we started caring about life we'd all die of starvation (plants included), also animals don't hold these morals and would rip each other apart for a daily meal.
  
  Think a grizzly bear is going to be nice as it eats your face? No. It doesn't care. It just wants to eat you. Like sharks. Does the shark care that it bit off your arm and now you're a cripple? No. It's too busy eating its delicious arm.
  
  2/10 for trolling this time... again, no one can be this ignorant. Sigh.. cynic, when are ya gonna learn.

  
  Spike.. you arr the only one who look like a troll around here.. just incase you weren't aware of it.
• abc33kr wrote on 2011-08-02 19:01
  This is an interesting discussion.
  
  *posting so I can mark this thread when getting new posts search.
• Lan wrote on 2011-08-02 19:20

  Quote from Cynic;535083:

  Thing is, they weren't put on earth for us to kill them. Animals provide a primary source of meat, but they don't exist for that sole purpose.
  People are forgetting that animals came first, not humans. So to say "Oh, they were made to be our food source" is beyond incorrect.

  
  
  Except you know the main sources of meat, chickens, cows, sheep and pigs were domesticated by humans. Meaning humans took their wild ancestors and bred them until we got the traits we wanted from them, they didn't just appear in the wild (as in natural selection didn't put them on earth as is because these animals are so not meant to live on their own) we made them what they are now. So saying they weren't made for us is wrong, we made them to eat and provide us with other products :3
• Osayidan wrote on 2011-08-02 19:33
  I only care about the conditions they're in because of potential effects on the quality of the food. If it's eating crappy food, can hardly move, and is living in it's own ****, it probably isn't going to be as good as if it's living the way it should and eating lots of food to get fat in a clean environment.
  
  Like Kobe beef, those cows are treated better than the workers where they farm them.
• Lan wrote on 2011-08-02 20:06

  Quote from Osayidan;535196:

  I only care about the conditions they're in because of potential effects on the quality of the food. If it's eating crappy food, can hardly move, and is living in it's own ****, it probably isn't going to be as good as if it's living the way it should and eating lots of food to get fat in a clean environment.
  
  Like Kobe beef, those cows are treated better than the workers where they farm them.

  
  
  Osay do you still have the dream of using a time machine to try the meat of all the animals in the world?
• Phunkie wrote on 2011-08-02 20:32
  I don't get vegetarians or vegans. Lions eat meat. Bears eat meat. And not in the most kindest ways either.
  
  Why should humans even consider going vegetarian or vegan? There's nothing wrong with eating meat.
  
  When you think about things too much, it becomes complicated, IMO. Don't we have to break chickens' beaks off before eating them anyway? It's gonna hurt nonetheless. Killing them to eat them is already pretty bad, but hey, we need to eat something.
  
  If tomorrow we discovered that plants had feelings, should we have to begin worrying about how we pull them out of the ground? No, we shouldn't.
  
  But yeah, I don't agree with some things people to animals. Like skinning a dog alive on the street. That stuff hurts me, because I love animals. Pets and food are two different things though. At the end of the day, I'm gonna have to kill my prey to eat it.
  
  
  

  Quote from Loopster;534736:

  This is why I only eat organic eggs, where the hens roam free and are unharmed, including the males.
  
  And I checked my subscription box to see this video, I was happy, talking about the end.
  
  [video=youtube;Xmg3gJr-8FQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmg3gJr-8FQ[/video]

  
  
  Oh, this is cool!
  
  I support cage-free all the way then! Better welfare for the chicken, which means better food quality for us.
  
  Nonetheless, again, chickens have to die eventually. As long as they're not drilling cows while they're alive or etc., then I'm fine. Just gimme my meat!
• Adelynn wrote on 2011-08-02 21:19
  Animals eat animals. It happens with things other than humans, the difference being we've made it so that we don't have to work as hard to keep ourselves from starving (in some cases...). If I were to disagree with anything, it would be the conditions they're being bred in. It's not like most of us are killing them because we think it's fun.
• Osayidan wrote on 2011-08-02 21:38

  Quote from Lan;535226:

  Osay do you still have the dream of using a time machine to try the meat of all the animals in the world?

  
  
  Some day I will get to :cryno:
• TA wrote on 2011-08-03 00:16

  Quote from Cynic;535083:

  Thing is, they weren't put on earth for us to kill them. Animals provide a primary source of meat, but they don't exist for that sole purpose.
  People are forgetting that animals came first, not humans. So to say "Oh, they were made to be our food source" is beyond incorrect.
  
  The thing that bugs me is people do these things to animals when they don't have to. It's really not that hard to treat the animal that is helping to give you life some respect, it really isn't. People are just lazy f*cks with no consideration. If animals didn't exist? Yeah, you'd be screwed.
  But I forgot that the human race lovvveeesss taking things for granted.
  
  Sigh. Humans.. diggin' their own grave in so many ways.
  I can only hope that some day another race comes along and treats us like game so we see how it feels, but by then it will be far too late for regrets, heh.

  
  
  Their species may not have been, but they were.
  
  The problem with giving our prey great conditions and letting them roam free and have wonderful lives right up until the point that we kill and eat them...
  
  That may be feasible if you live on a farm, but do you really imagine that the entire world's meat supply can be filled this way?
  
  No, no it can't. There is a much larger requirement for meat than there is space and availability of such meat. As such, the available meat this way would be ridiculously expensive and only the richest would be able to eat meat.*
  
  We didn't evolve all the way to the top of the food chain on this planet just to be nice to our prey.
  
  The problem is now, we've evolved so far that our own weak human mortality is getting the better of us.
  
  * = This would then stress our plant life with a much heavier strain on it due to everyone being forced to eat plants instead of meat, and unlike animals, plants are very reliant on requiring a certain amount of space to grow, and growing fruits and vegetables takes time. With everyone becoming reliant on them, there's no way we could supply that either.
  
  This would in turn bring our problems of over population and food shortage on much quicker than they would otherwise. With requiring land for our food supply (plants), we could not expand and live in those areas ourselves. That means humanity would no longer be able to expand. It would stagnate and we would starve out to the point of not being able to continue reproducing as our food supply would not be sustainable for us any longer.
  
  Our population is simply too large to be sustainable on such a food source. We have to do this. As time goes on, things are only going to get worse. Food will continue getting more expensive, even without ridiculous standards for our meals.
  
  Perhaps it's horrible what we do, but that's how nature works. The predator eats the prey. And you know what? No other species remotely cares about what their prey's life was like, unless it means they're a better or easier meal ticket.
  
  Maybe future generations will make it so that we don't have to eat animals or plants and can synthesize our food, and who knows, maybe we'll even come up with some sort of folding space technology or spread amongst the stars and return wild animal life to this planet.
  
  But, we aren't there yet. The world's food supply would not be sustainable if things were not the way they are. There are people starving, here and now, and making food harder to obtain and more rare would only make that worse.
  
  At the end of the day.... You have to put your own species first.
• Sumpfkraut wrote on 2011-08-03 00:33

  Quote from Cynic;534192:

  Animals are actually, in some ways, better than humans. You don't see crime, rape, murder and all that other stuff in the animal world.

  
  Uhm... there are many species where the young animals of strangers get mauled to death due to reproductory opportunism, including lions.
  
  Chimpanzees sometimes actually eat the young animals of rival tribes (yes, they wage war, though obviously not on the scale humans can do it).
  Also consider wolf packs just tearing away at their victim instead of killing it first, or Orcas playing with their still alive seal prey.
  
  Humans aren't particularly more gruesome than other members of the animal kingdom.
  

  Quote from TA;535440:

  That may be feasible if you live on a farm, but do you really imagine that the entire world's meat supply can be filled this way?
  [...]
  This would then stress our plant life with a much heavier strain on it due to everyone being forced to eat plants instead of meat, and unlike animals, plants are very reliant on requiring a certain amount of space to grow, and growing fruits and vegetables takes time. With everyone becoming reliant on them, there's no way we could supply that either.

  
  If people would reduce the meat consumption to appropriate levels, quite probably. If they don't, then obviously not.
  

  [Image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YldhY2H2N-U/TU7SRpybsGI/AAAAAAAAA70/3trXBWjQuq8/s1600/Blobby+Britain01.jpg]

  
  Those people don't need anywhere near as much food as they consume, surely including loads and loads of meat.
  
  Uhm, I hope you're aware that those animals that get slaughtered already are being sustained with agricultural products, and I'd bet five hypothetical monthly wages that this process is much more energy inefficient than just eating it directly.