In my prior post about "best" diets, I promised to address the ethics of eating animals. And so, after an inevitable digression into 9/11 reflections, I turn now to that topic.
On the basis of both health and ethics, the case for eating a mostly plant-based diet is strong.
The health case is all but irrefutable. It is impractical to cite all of the relevant evidence here. If one goes to the National Library of Medicine website and types "vegetarianism AND health" into the search box, more than 730 peer-reviewed articles pop up. I cite some portion of that evidence in the chapter on vegetarianism (chapter 43 for those who have the book) in my textbook, "Nutrition in Clinical Practice, 2nd Edition" (2008). In this pop culture forum, however, we may reasonably limit ourselves to the view from altitude and noting that relevant citations include intervention studies, nutrient studies, epidemiologic studies, trans-cultural comparison studies and ethnographic studies of cultural transitions.
But before the more zealous carnivores start sharpening spears or pitchforks, and despite my prevailing support for the vegans, I must add that neither on the basis of health, nor ethics, do I find a decisive case for only eating only plants.
The surest sign you're on the middle path is that people on both sides of you are telling you why you're wrong (often in terms unsuitable for prime time). In this instance, I anticipate the wrath of staunch carnivores and devout herbivores alike. Oh well.
I addressed in my prior post the evidence against veganism as the ONLY health-promoting diet. Rather than revisit that argument here, I will simply reassert the takeaway message. Both entirely plant-based and mostly plant-based diets have been linked to powerful health benefits as compared to the typical American diet, the many glow-in-the-dark constituents of which might be hard to assign confidently to either the plant or animal kingdom. There have been no decisive, long-term comparison trials of optimal omnivorousness versus optimal vegetarianism, and perhaps never will be. The evidence available shows that eating only plants can reduce heart disease risk by 70 percent or more, and so can adopting a Mediterranean diet that includes animal foods. Impassioned arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, on the basis of evidence -- it's a draw.
Eating only plants -- whether vegetarianism or veganism -- is generally a good idea, and when practiced well, an excellent idea -- for health, for the kinder, gentler treatment of our fellow species and for the preservation of our planet. That is a trifecta if ever there was one, so I lend my very strong support to well-practiced vegetarianism.
But the fact that there are variations on the theme of eating well -- both health-related and ethics-related variations -- allows for more of us to opt in, and fewer to renounce the whole enterprise.
The ethical case against eating animals generally originates with our place in the animal kingdom. We are, of course, animals. We are not vegetables, or minerals and, in a time-honored, if admittedly simplistic cataloging of the universe, there's nowhere else to hide. Ethical arguments ensue from one of two fundamental assertions: We are like other animals, or we are different from them.
Let's start with being like other animals. I embrace this as the stronger claim not only on the basis of richly detailed renderings of evolutionary biology and molecular genetics, but on the basis of a far more intimate knowledge. Two animals -- dogs, to be specific -- are among the very best friends I have.
Living with these two animals and sharing friendship with them allows me to see just how much alike we are. I love them, they love me. I know joy, anxiety, fear, anticipation, delight and irritation -- and so, very clearly, do they. I can be impatient, thankful, annoying, loyal, affectionate and contrite -- and so can they. I can solve problems, and so can they -- albeit less complex ones (of course, they also create less complex problems!). I like some people and dislike others -- so do they. I remember what matters to me -- and they remember what matters to them.
By any measure that counts -- intelligence, resourcefulness, capacity to love, self-awareness, loyalty -- I find that Bramble, Zouzou and I differ only by degree, not kind. We are much alike. And of course, this isn't only about my dogs, or dogs in general. All animals are related at one remove or another, and all life is a continuum.
The ethical case builds from there. It is inarguably wrong (at least in modern society) for humans to practice cannibalism and eat other humans. Other animals are members of the extended animal family. It is therefore wrong for, presumably, lesser versions of all the same reasons to eat other animals. Rationalizing the eating of some animals, but not others, is rank "speciesism."
But this argument quickly falls apart under scrutiny. If it is wrong for humans to eat animals because we are so alike, then what applies to us must apply to them. In other words, the logical extension of this thinking must be: It is wrong for any animal to kill and eat any other animal.
This is just silly. It is silly for many reasons, among them the fact that some animals are obligate carnivores and could not survive by any means other than killing and eating other animals (sometimes in drawn-out, painful and rather brutal ways). It is also the very height of presumption for creatures born into a natural world to declare that natural world in its normal workings "unethical." It would be as if carbon-based life forms decided it was unethical to use up carbon in making life forms. We could assert it, but it would be nonsense.
We should extend this reasoning a bit and note that it would be silly for modern humans to declare animal eating by pre-modern humans unethical. While there seem to be some differences of opinion among anthropologists about the extent to which our forebears were hunters vs. gatherers, there appears to be universal consensus that they were both. Hunting extends even beyond the timeline of our species, to populate earlier entries into the genus Homo. Was it unethical for Homo erectus to hunt and eat what it killed?
There would be no modern ethical vegans had there been no Stone Age hunters feeding their ancestors, because those ancestors would have starved before ever making babies. (As I have noted on prior occasion, people who don't survive to make babies make very poor ancestors.) In contrast, there could certainly be modern meat-eaters whose meat-eating ancestors were fed by hunters, with no help required from ethicists. I am not sure it is reasonably in the purview of ethicists to declare as unethical something on which their existence depends.
It cannot be unethical for animals to kill and eat other animals. And it cannot be unethical for humans to have done so throughout their history. So can we make the ethical case based on how different we are from both other species, and our former selves?
In one sense, no. Biologically, we are the same as our former selves -- at least the same as we have been for tens of thousands of years, if not far longer. And while we might argue we are fundamentally different from other animals, that might as readily destroy as make the argument against eating them. If animals are so different from us, why extend to them the same ethical considerations we apply to ourselves?
But in another sense, there is a case to be made based on how different we now are from other species, and our former selves. That sense is our impact on the planet.
In our voracious, resource-devouring multitudes, we are exerting a force no other species has ever approached, and which our Stone Age ancestors could not have imagined. In that sense, we are genuinely different.
The ethical issue has little to do with whether or not we eat animals. Instead, it has everything to do with how we turn them into food. Knowing, willful neglect or abuse of any creature by any other is unethical. It may be that only humans can be "knowing" about such things, which would give us a basis to limit ethical considerations to ourselves. It allows us to exonerate the occasional brutality of lions, or Komodo dragons. But if fully conscious, premeditated abuse of one creature by another is not unethical, it's hard to see how anything is.
A growing mass of humanity with a penchant for meat inexorably drives the supply side toward methods of mass production, involving cost-savings and corner-cutting. Animals are fed food unrelated to their native diets. They are crowded together. They are dosed with antibiotics and hormones. There are expedient means of turning creatures into chops and patties that, according to a litany of first-hand accounts, play out very cruelly.
In other words, the mass production of meat can obliterate the life of the animal whose meat it is. A steer is turned into something other than a creature -- it's just a whole bunch of hamburgers on the hoof. By almost any defensible definition of ethics, the practices that ensue from depending on animals for food to the extent that we do -- are over the line.
Let's wrap up. Staunch proponents of veganism tend to over-interpret the evidence for plant-based eating, strong as it is. While it is clear that eating mostly plants is far better than hardly eating plants prevails in the U.S., it does not follow that eating only plants is the only way to eat well. Advocates of meat-eating who base their arguments on our ancestral consumption of meat overlook how radically different modern, domestic, mass-produced animal flesh is from the variety our ancestors ate.
As for the ethics, there are too many of us Homo sapiens on the planet already, and every reason to believe there will be many more of us before we control our population growth. Most of us who can, eat too many animals and animal products. The combination of our multitudes and our appetites results in the mass production of animal foods, which in turn results in -- or at least invites -- terrible abuses.
Perpetrating abuse while knowing it is abuse is unethical, if anything is. Eating animals may not be intrinsically unethical, but the means in this case may un-justify the ends. If we must maltreat animals to produce the volumes of animal food we demand, then we should stop demanding such volumes of animal food.
There is, however, some latitude left in the solution.
It would be fine if all of us were to eat only plants. But if most of us were to eat mostly plants, we could raise many fewer animals for food, and could treat those we do... ethically. There is more than one way to eat well and do good. The prevailing norm at present, however, isn't one of them.
-fin
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org
Follow David Katz, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrDavidKatz
Singer, Scruton debate ethics of eating animals - The Daily ...
'Eating Animals,' by Jonathan Safran Foer -- New York Magazine ...
Vegan Recipes, Diets, & Information
Ethics of eating meat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Singer, Scruton debate ethics of eating animals - The Daily ...
BBC - Ethics - Animal ethics: Eating animals
'Eating Animals,' by Jonathan Safran Foer -- New York Magazine ...
Even former President Clinton has stopped eating his beloved hamburgers (which contributed to his coronary artery disease and needing bypass surgery), going vegan on the advice of his doctor, Dr. Dean Ornish. The result? Clinton lost 20 pounds and feels he is aggressively combating his cardiovascular disease.
HP moderators would not post this same post earlier, for no discernible reason. Flesh eaters at the moderating post are silencing those who speak for the animals.
By the way, a cross sectional analysis from the European Prospective Investigation found that a staggering 52% of the vegans had severe B12 deficiencies. And the same study, which you seem to like so much, found that less than 1/2 of one percent of the omnivores were B12 deficient!
And I am sorry to have to tall you, but having the lowest BMI is nothing to brag about. In fact, according to the research of leading eating disorder specialists, veganism is often used as a cloak for anorexia! Here is an article about it, with numerous references to leading authorities on the subject:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/22/when-veganism-is-an-eating-disorder.html
Using the term "meat" hides the reality that you are really eating the flesh of dead animals, their tissue, their muscles, their flanks, their ribs, legs, organs. Presumably the word "flesh" annoys you because you prefer not to acknowledge the reality of what is on your plate --- the corpse of a chicken, cow, pig, or sheep who was confined and abused in life and often slaughtered in fear and agony.
If the thought of eating dead animals bothers you, stop doing it. Repent and respect life.
Only meat I won't eat is human, and I've starved before and never looked upon anyone as an appetizer.
You should be commended for so well illustrating a classic example of denial, refusal to take responsibility for the suffering one causes, and the philosophy of "ignorance is bliss."
Also, it appears that yet another carnist seems not to get that there is a difference between animal, vegetable and mineral. As Schiller said, "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
Refusal to take responsibility for the suffering one causes? Yep, that's a "there's-no-death-on-my-plate" vegan, alright. It's A-OK for animals to die in the thousands in the course of producing a vegan's food as long as the vegan doesn't have to see them and they don't actually end up on the vegan's plate. That's the Inconvenient Truth of veganism.
People who eat animal flesh loathe admitting that consuming agribusiness animal products contributes to the enslavement, torture and cruel killing of animals who feel fear and pain and suffering. Hunters gloss over that animals often die in agony from bullets or leghold traps --- and in their selfishness deny the rest of us the gentle animal encounters in places where animals are not hunted and fear man not. Flesh eaters choose to ignore the cruelty and suffering inherent in what they call meat.
Oppressors will always deny they are oppressors. "Nothing strengthens oppression as much as silence." said Leonardo da Vinci. Those of you on the side of the animals must use your voices for them and think where you can be most effective. Discourse here is largely sophistry; vegan posts are censored and silenced; and anyway, most adults are beyond hope. Children, whose hearts are still open, get it right away when they learn the truth about where "meat" comes from.
"We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat animals. Animals suffer as much as we do . . . . It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it." —Albert Schweitzer
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You're just spewing ridiculous fantasy again. When was the last time you had a "gentle encounter" with a truly wild animal? Does the name Timothy Treadwell ring a bell with you? Mr. Treadwell was so foolish he actually thought he could befriend wild Alaskan Brown Bears. His encounter turned tragic, and certainly not gentle, when he was eaten by a pair of the large bears.
Wild animals are supposed to have an innate, instinctual fear of humans. This is a GOOD thing. It protects both human and animal. Animals that have no fear of man have lost part of their wildness, and the protective barrier of instinctual fear is broken. That isn't cute. It's tragic. Despite all your blather about how much you care about animals, waxing affectionately about wild animals not having fear of humans shows an utter disrespect for wildlife and wildlands.
I frequently have close, gentle and nonviolent encounters with wildlife --- swimming in the oceans with free dolphins, kayaking with wild orca whales, and out hiking and backpacking. This summer in northeast Washington state, a black bear sat down about ten feet from me, we spent a fine half hour in eacho ther's company, he let me photograph him and was happy to share my PB&J sandwich. In Oregon, a mountain lion followed me while out backpacking and came very close. I have also been to several islands where animals have not been harmed or hunted for some 60 years, the animals in those places are not afraid and let humans come close. Animals are smart and they know the difference between humans who should be feared and those who love and respect them. Obviously, animal killers will not have similar experiences. More stories, but word limit will not permit.
There are meditational techniques that allow one to banish fear and violence from one's heart. Animals do not fear such a human, but rather deal with her as another curious creature in the forest. When such a one walks in the jungle, the animals do not flee, as they do from hunters and other humans.
People have this ugly habit of projecting their own inner violence and cruelty onto animals who do not typically harm humans. This ugly projection put an end to the red wolf, which NEVER harmed a human, and to the eastern cougar, and just about wiped out the gray wolf as well.
Unlike the hunters who kill animals or take them into captivity, some of us respect them and their natures and only want for them to be allowed to live their normal lives in their natural habitats.
Well, maybe when some moderator finally figures out that some "peaceful" vegan has gone over the line just one time too many with the "corpse muncher" nonsense, and the "enslavement, torture, cruelty, blah blah" accusations flung at anyone who eats meat. Quite honestly, it surprises me that so many of your comments are allowed to stay. A lot of them certainly violate the site's comment policies and community standards.
i had a removed reply to a comment of mine and now i'll never know.
In the production of animal flesh for consumption, animals are enslaved, tortured, abused, and slaughtered. Even USDA inspectors have documented daily animal cruelty and torture. Slavery is when someone completely dominates another, forces them to labor for no compensation and takes for themselves the fruits of the slaves' production ---this slavery model exactly fits what humans do to animals. Pigs and chickens are confined in animal prisons, their production is stolen from them for profit; calves are ripped from mother cows so that the mother's milk can be sold for profit while the calves are penned, slaughtered and sold as "veal."
I haev wasted enough time here among those who do not care about the torture and suffering of animals, whose hearts are closed to animals and who think they are better than the creatures they slaughter. To the animal lovers and people of compassionate hearts, put your energies to work where they can help animals. Waste no more time on those with closed hearts and minds.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Fine_Art_of_Baloney_Detection
I thought that was an excellent link.
Sagan was awesome.
Lighten up everyone. Live and let live. We can't all be the same, think the same or look the same. How boring the world would be!
Actually, a number of the people commenting HERE who are supposedly "members of the Meat Lobby" (as certain other members have labeled us) were once vegetarians and one I know was actually a vegan (at least a DIETARY) vegan until not long ago. One of them is an ORGANIC farmer and NONE of them support factory farming or animal cruelty. The strident attacks on and denunciations of these people (by one poster in particular) are completely over the top. Unfortunately, the kind of people who engage in this over-the-top judgmental behavior are "enabled" by articles like Katz's, that ask if we can ethically eat animals and imply that all animal foods are necessarily products of factory farms and animal abuse.
I see this as the point of your piece her Mr. Katz, but there are flaws in this view that you should either inform yourself correctly of, or you are willfully ignoring reality. I fail to see how animal's "must" be maltreated to produce volume in every case. I don't see that as a requirement for beef, sheep, goat, or dairy, and I speak as someone with direct experience raising those animals commercially, and also selling forage to those operations that do. I admit though, with poultry & pork, volume does seem to be a problem, although I have zero experience with the commercial raising of them. Yet, there are a growing number of commercial poultry operations, producing volume, that are humane.
here are two in my area
http://www.maryschickens.com/
http://www.diestelturkey.com/home.htm
Those who choose to eat meat are being, not likened to, not compared with, but DIRECTLY CALLED slave-owners, murderers, and torturers. How ON EARTH can this POSSIBLY be considered to be within acceptable community guidelines??
Does being a vegan constitute license to get away with comments of such an abusive nature that, were similar comments made by a non-vegan, they would result in the user's account being promptly shut down?
If you think that all meat, dairy and egg production is torture and murder, no matter what the living or dying conditions of the animals, then you'll never be happy. You should go off and live where you can grow your own food, make your own clothes and build your own house, so your existence causes less death. Otherwise, you are a hypocrite of the highest order.
Really, if this issue is so important to you, you should have quit your job and daily risk life and limb, not to mention jail time, in order to free all the animals. Calling people names on the internet is hardly noble and certainly not effective.
Btw, how do you know you speak for the animals? I have yet to see a dog or pig, or even chicken, turn down an animal based treat. They have no problem with participating in the cycle of life, where they eat other things and other things might eat them. I'm pretty sure if you fell in the pig pen when they were hungry, they wouldn't recognize you as a savior. They would recognize you as dinner.
The health case is all but irrefutable."
Seriously? Anybody who can say that with a straight face does not deserve a national platform for his ideas. This guy is an M.D., hardly well-educated concerning either diet or ethics (or, for that matter, scientific methodology -- which is why he is impressed by all those studies). Please HuffPost, would you get some people with genuine credentials?
Do you have any idea how much science one has to take to earn an M.D. degree? Dr. Katz, having obtained an M.D. and holding the position of Director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, knows how to evaluate research and the methology, validity and reliability of research studies.
It is incontroverible at this point that the consumption of animal fat is associated with cancers and cardiovascular disease. Just anecdotally, I can name a dozen meat-eating men of our acquaintance who died in their 40s, 50s or early 60s from heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. All the male vegetarians or vegans of our acquaintance in those age groups remain alive and kicking. A third of American adults are obese and obesity is also related to the ingestion of animal fats.
Sorry, dude, I think Dr. Katz is a better authority on human health than you are.
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Obesity is caused by ingesting more calories than one burns, not by a particular kind of fat. Stop posting falsehoods.
Addressing the tangent: Fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and nuts are all carbon-based. Indeed, all multicellular life on Planet Earth is carbon-based.
The issue of whether it is moral and ethical to consume animal flesh is not resolvable by debate, because it is not ultimately an issue of the mind. It is an issue of the heart. When the human heart of compassion opens, evolves and expands to be able to embrace and empathize with all sentient beings, contributing to animal suffering becomes unthinkable, unconscionable. When you are awakened at the level of the heart to compassion and the suffering of other beings and your heart burns with love, then you cannot but seek to relieve suffering and lead your life consciously with the idea reducing the suffering in the world.
One can live a reptilian brain life primarily concerned with self, I me, mine --- what I want, my appetites, my desires. Or one can live a higher brain life concerned with others, recognizing that all beings want happiness, and being committed to reducing suffering and increasing the happiness of all beings. A matter of the heart.
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You are either blatantly intellectually dishonest, or you have problems with reading comprehension. That issue has been addressed here, and it has been stated by some of us that we do not consider eating animals in and of itself to be unethical. Go back and read the thread before you post something this foolish. You just happened to get a response that you didn't like because it doesn't fit your rigid worldview. I don't know why you can't grasp the fact that not everyone shares your values, never will, and that your values on this issue don't trump anyone else's. Your just regurgitating the same old talking points.
The Animal Cruelty faction goes off on all sorts of tangents, but never addresses directly the question of how they rationalize causing pain, suffering and premature death to animals. Not one has justified the morality of confining chickens in battery cages where they do not have room to turn around. Not one has justified the morality of the animal death industry killing off all the boy chicks. Not one has justified the cutting or buring off of chicken beaks without anesthesia. Not one defends the morality or justifies the castration (without anesthesia) of cattle. Not one has addressed the morality of skinning live animals in the slaughterhouse. Not one has justified ripping a calf from its mother and penning her in dark cramped pens.
Do tell us how the dead animal eaters justify the deliberate suffering impose don animals.
Again, words, rationalizations, justifications remain babble and blather. Because the issue is one of the heart. If one's heart of compassion is not open to the suffering of others, then one is able to justify any atrocity to oneself.
Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love . . . there is something so dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harme dus, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power." --Cardinal John Henry Newman
I addressed each of the three terms you use, "enslaving", "torturing", and "killing".
I'll go real slow here for you, and I'll keep it simple:
1) "Slavery" by definition is limited to enslaving human beings. Extending it to animals is a personal philosophical view which cannot be "proven" one way or the other.
2) Not all animals raised for food are "tortured". Do you honestly think that those PeTA videos showing workers slamming piglets on the floor and beating cows with crowbars is how farm animals are routinely treated? Even if a farmer has no compassion for animals whatsoever, he or she is still going to want to protect his or her investment. And even though some practices that are not so heinous are still less than desirable, there are ever-increasing sources of meat from animals raised more naturally and humanely.
3) Re: "killing" - unless you're a strict fruitarian and harvest all of your own food by hand, your diet results in the death of animals as well, so you're in no position to judge others, even if killing animals for food WERE inherently unethical, which it cannot logically be, since people in many parts of the world live in areas where without animals and animal products they would starve - or do you suggest they just commit suicide?
http://myfitnessdepot.com/diet-fitness/a-vegetarian-diet-shrinks-the-brain/
And eschewing the slaughter and consumption of animals did not seem to harm the brains of any of the following people of compassion for animals: Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Alice Walker, Ben L. White, Franz Kafka, Albert Schweitzer, Albert Einstein, Voltaire, Plato, Plutarch, Mahatma Gandhi, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Rabindranath Tagore, George Bernard Shaw, Cillian Murphy, Horace, St. Francis, Bob Marley, Abraham Lincoln, Cesar Chavez, Claudia de Breij, Joan Armatrading, Jeff Beck, Kate Bush, Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, Jane Goodall, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Sir Isaac Newton, Mary Shelley, John Coltrane, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dick Gregory, Joan Jett, Cloris Leachman, Natalie Portman, Nikola Tesla, Marl Twain, Ellen DeGeneres, Benjamin Spock, Franz Kafka, Louisa May Alcott, Buddha, Soraya Bonali, Sylvia Cranston, Thomas Edison, William Wordsworth.
Do note how many recognized geniuses and brilliant minds evolved past the cruelty and immorality that is inherent in the penning, enslavement, slaughter and consumption of animal flesh . We veggie people are in very good company.
Compassion is the foundation of everything positive, everything good. If you carry the power of compassion to the marketplace and the dinner table, you can make your life really count.-Rue McClanahan
I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you. Have you ever heard the expression "leading with your chin"?
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I think it goes beyond wanting to remove themselves from the cycle of life, to not even having a basic understanding of the cycle of life, and perhaps even a loathing for it. One of the vegan proponents here in an earlier post claimed that wild animals have "desires of others to live and be left in peace.". This type of statement is not only indicative of ignorance about the cycle of life, it seems to delve into anthropomorphized fantasy. These people have a complete disconnect from reality that is actually disturbing.
Even "appealing to authority" by posting quotations from "famous people" who are/were allegedly vegan/vegetarian is much like the Fundies' whipping out Bible verses as if they constitute actual "argument."
Your comment elsewhere about how they also seem ignorant of the vast geological and climate changes the earth has gone through (e.g., whalepeace thinking northern and eastern Africa has always been the kind of arid, treeless savanna it is now, and the area of the Fertile Crescent was always desert) is also reminiscent of the ignorance of Creationists.
Then there's their arrogance of trying to "convert" the world to veganism in order to be "saved." In fact if they tried to convince a peasant farmer in sub-Saharan Africa to give up his goats because it's immoral to use them for food, he'd look at them as if they were out of their minds. They really are reminiscent of those 19th C. Christian missionaries who cluelessly felt they should impose their message of "salvation" on the rest of the world "for their own good."
Yep. Vegangelicals.
Next.
Do what you want, eat what you want.
I'm on a plant based diet and a vegan but I used to be a meat eater.
Well, I won't try to convice you that you should become a plant based dieter as I am because that is my decision, my choice.
I just don't understand why people who choose to eat meat are so obsessed to make sure they will make a point about it.
Take it easy, it's your body, do what you want, then maybe you can think about the impact you have due to your habits but that's entirely up to you...
Information and knowledge are a very good thing, why don't we, from both sides, agree to just let it be...
The assumption that not eating meat will save the world is viewed by many of us as misguided at best, dangerous at worst. Without animals in our agriculture, we are dependent upon chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which are poisoning the world at an alarming rate. Those who don't want to wear leather or wool are generally dependent upon petroleum based materials. Animal free alternatives seem to usually be dependent upon chemicals and other pollutants of some sort. Many of us have realized that's not a good thing.
The eco system has evolved with plants and animals working together and, with sustainable agriculture, we can hopefully slow, if not reverse so many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture. There are no simple answers to complicated questions.
I don't see any "meat-eaters" here telling vegans they MUST eat meat and other animal foods and are moral degenerates if they choose not to, but I see plenty of nastygrams going in the other direction. About the worst "meat-eaters" do is remind vegans that they're at risk for B12 deficiency if they don't eat fortified foods and take supplements -- and since even responsible vegan authorities say that, I can't imagine why so many of the vegans commenting here start foaming at the mouth at the merest suggestion that there are NO "plant-based" sources of B12.
I feel a fainting spell coming on!
"Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one." Edward Abbey
There will come a time when civilized people will look back in horror on the peoples of this time and the ones who preceded us. Future people will think we were morally-undeveloped primitives for enslaving, torturing and killing animals. The people of the future will say "meat-eaters" in disgust and regard us as lower than barbarians and view us with the same disgust as we view cannabalism.
The arc of history bends slowly, but it bends toward justice. Slavery was once acceptable, now it is not. The day will come when there is at last a belated justice for the animals and an end to their suffering at the hands of cruel heartless men.