• Suddenly unable to log into your ZooVille account? This might be the reason why: CLICK HERE!

I am very scared of the vegan movement, they will try to take our right away to have companion animals.

I always found the vegan argument confusing and exhausting. Tearing up forests to grow soy and wheat is not exactly ethical or harmless. The victims of mass farming may generally be smaller (mice, insects, deer, birds, fish) or directly or indirectly impacted (predators, habitat loss, water availability or quality, displacement of communities, exploitation) but there is harm all the same; seen and unseen. Not to mention, the people harvesting the food are not exactly treated like human beings. In the U.S, fruit pickers frequently live in unheated, overcrowded sheds working for hours in the hot sun for pennies. Discrminationatory practices are common and abuse is rampant, where are the ethics in that?
Their environmentalist position is shaky too, thier food is grown usually with GMO plants which require an obscene amount of pesticides which damages the soil and kills animals and sickens humans. Then, after the trucks and tractors belch thier exhaust into the sky, the food will be will be packaged in plastic, cardboard, and smaller still into single use packages and shipped across the world travels in the same vehicle as my meat. The lower visibility of suffering does not mean vegan lifestyles do not cause less suffering. To say their lifestyle is better simply because a factory raised animal didn't die, or a cow wasn't milked ignores the mechanisms behind how our food is made and supplied and the actual suffering involved for all aspects.
What is more, the Vegan position lacks cultural relativisim, and is extremely ethnocentric, it callously conflates eating meat with a lack of concern for animal wellbeing regardless of the individuals circumstances, cultural background or individual ethical considerations. People who buy, raise, hunt, catch and eat meat for self sufficiency and/or sustenance are not eating meat to be cruel and conflating taking a life with a lack of respect for life is a conceited and condescending argument; especially to those who engage in methods and practices to preserve and protect the environment or their animal's welfare.
The all or nothing position of vegans interlaced with condescension, oversimplification, and arrogance makes your fears understandable. However, I do not see policy makers siding with anyone on banning pets, let alone getting people to surrender them.
 
I always found the vegan argument confusing and exhausting. Tearing up forests to grow soy and wheat is not exactly ethical or harmless.

You may not know that the soy is mostly used to feed animals for slaughter. We need much less soy for direct human consumption than is grown as feed for livestock.
 
You may not know that the soy is mostly used to feed animals for slaughter. We need much less soy for direct human consumption than is grown as feed for livestock.
Though I specifically named soy, this does not mean I am only speaking of soy. I think that should have been obvious.
 
Though I specifically named soy, this does not mean I am only speaking of soy. I think that should have been obvious.

It applies in general, not just to soy. Livestock animals eat plants. So whether you eat plants or meat—plants are going to be eaten. But livestock animals also burn energy for body heat and movement that you won't get back when eating the animal. Therefore you need more land and more plants to get your necessary energy out of meat than directly from plants.

There are a few exceptions where animals have adapted to plants that we humans can't eat and where plants we humans can eat don't grow, for example in the arctic regions where reindeer live of moss. That's a valid point, but it's not what our meat industry is mainly based on. Our meat consumption is much higher than that.

The truth is that we would need less land for a vegan nutrition than we need for the current nutrition. It's not a matter of opinion or ethics, it's due to physics.
 
It applies in general, not just to soy. Livestock animals eat plants. So whether you eat plants or meat—plants are going to be eaten. But livestock animals also burn energy for body heat and movement that you won't get back when eating the animal. Therefore you need more land and more plants to get your necessary energy out of meat than directly from plants.

There are a few exceptions where animals have adapted to plants that we humans can't eat and where plants we humans can eat don't grow, for example in the arctic regions where reindeer live of moss. That's a valid point, but it's not what our meat industry is mainly based on. Our meat consumption is much higher than that.

The truth is that we would need less land for a vegan nutrition than we need for the current nutrition. It's not a matter of opinion or ethics, it's due to physics.
And yet, none of this addresses my central point the suffering exists regardless. Using less farmland does not solve the environmentally harmful effects of farming, nor does it account for crops like almonds which grew in popularity due to human consumption as an alternative to milk and is contributing to the devastation of bee populations, water scarcity, and pollution from pesticides.
Most importantly you are avoiding my key point to make a different point because it's easier for you to defend that one point instead of the whole.

First you picked out the mention of soy out of all rhat I said.
Then when I restated my statement, you broadened yours to meet the threshold of "plants in general": A point which was never presented.
Then you start about physics which makes no sense because energy cannot be destroyed or lost, energy is transferred.
You end your statement by saying not eating meat is about physics...or is it not farming meat that's about physics? I can't tell because it makes no sense in relation to anything I said.

I am already exhausted.
So....what I am going to do, is end this discussion here. There are no prizes for going back and forth the longest and I have no shame in saying this discussion is tedious and unproductive as we get further and further from the original statement; which you have bafflingly redefined as a matter of physics, despite your tenuous grasp on the elementary concept of how energy works.

I'll have no parts of this chennanery.
I said what I had to say and I'll say no more.

Have a wonderful night
 
Last edited:
Most importantly you are avoiding my key point to make a different point because it's easier for you to defend that one point instead of the whole.

I chose only to reply to your first argument because you started your post with the idea that these arguments are exhausting, so I did not want to confront you with a wall of text. But the first point you made is also among the most frequent misconceptions I hear about meat. I think it's saddening when people avoid soy products in order to help the rain forest, choosing meat instead, while in reality they do the opposite unknowingly, since more soy went into their steak. I just wanted to clear that up so that people can make an informed decision.

I'd be happy to discuss more of what you said, but it probably does not make sense anymore, seeing how talking about the first point has already upset you and since you have declared that the discussion is over. When you are interested in a discussion, I'll be here.
 
I think that the real losers from this discussion, at this point, are the factory farming industry. They have not just made life difficult for small farmers that use traditional and more humane methods, but they put their workers in untenable situations that leave abuses against the animals they work with all but inevitable.

I have a local farmers market that I like to shop at, and the meat and egg farmer there is someone that I know. That person refuses to engage in the practice of beak amputation on chickens and informs people about this practice and why he disagrees with it, and as often as his ducks "go on strike" and refuse to produce, he is obviously above using abusive hormone treatment to force production. I can look this guy in the eye, and if I want eggs, I can get them from this guy knowing that I would trade places with the animals they came from without hesitation. His animals have union jobs, and I don't.

I honestly think that industrialized meat production is going to be a thing of the past once it becomes affordable to synthesize animal proteins in a lab, and raising animals for traditional dairy or eggs will be done more for personal fulfillment and a spiritual connection with the animals than out of perceived necessity.

Still, those animals have obtained a net win from their relationship with humans. Without their relationship with humans, an existence in the "wild" is never one in which the animal is truly free. In the wild, herd animals are still hemmed-in and controlled by predators, including wild wolves. This has always been the case. There has never been a world in which these animals lived altogether without depredation as a part of their existence.

The only case in which cattle or sheep or pigs are apt to live without depredation as a probable part of their existence will be to live as pets that are kept in the existence of their humans for historical and aesthetic reasons. This takes us back to the primary discussion of the OP, actually. While it is fitting and appropriate to criticize the industrialized meat production industry, we must not allow that to be confused with individuals who live in communities where people have always coexisted with animals and have always kept to traditional practices, even when they have had to pursue other careers in order for it to be tenable to continue having their traditional agrarian lifestyle. I think that the people that live in those communities ought to be protected from persecution by people that would unjustly conflate them with the factory farming industry, which is controlled by people that are really nothing like them at all.

This might seem like a concern that is faraway, in the distant future, but I would beg to differ. Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have begun putting usable and affordable products on the shelf within the past year, and Mosa Meat and Perfect Day will inevitably be able to produce a product that is not distinguishable from conventional animal products at all. Usable products are appearing right now in the grocery store with more and better ones on the way, and it will be only a matter of time before they have driven out conventional meat.

Traditional agricultural families are not going to just disappear, and many of them are members of the zooey community. For us to throw them under the bus would be unfair because they are not really to blame for the factory farming industry. If anything, I think that they have been among the greatest victims of the factory farming industry, regardless of whether or not all of them realize it.

I would agree that it is time for those of us that are driven by an ethical conscience to turn away from products that were clearly put on the shelf by the factory farming industry, but I think that we should also take the lead in establishing the truth that traditional farmers are not in the same category. They do not deserve the same level of hostility from animal rights advocates. I see these people every week working under tents, often in the rain, at my local farmers markets. These people are not sadists or driven by greed, but they are driven by their beliefs.

I think that the answer is, instead of demonizing all meat, to drive a more unifying message that we--as zoos, as animal lovers zooey or otherwise, as people who grew up with western values, and as decent human beings--unequivocally reject the products that have been marketed to us by the factory farming industry. They are not the wholesome and relatively moral product of our Neolithic past, and they do not represent what we believe.
 
Last edited:
@SkawdtDawg

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods can furnish their products at lower prices than meat that does not come from factory farms, so budget-conscious shoppers that knew to avoid potentially factory-farmed meat as a false economy would probably buy the less costly vegan alternative, anyhow. The direct consequence would be the same.

Furthermore, it would be easier to unify people behind a retaliation specifically against factory-farmed meat.

The indirect consequence of sheltering traditional families from being demonized is that the children and eventually the grandchildren of these people, if allowed to integrate into a society where nobody feels they have to buy meat that comes from animals, will probably regard it as a profoundly lurid and bizarre idea to bother raising an animal only for the sake of killing it and then chopping it to pieces for food, when it just costs substantially less to go to the supermarket and buy a better and more consistent product off the shelf. It would sound to them like a weird heathen ritual.

Conflating those families with the genuinely greed-driven factory farm industry would ultimately lead to someone being treated as a monster just because he owns a cow at all, regardless of whether that person intends to ever slaughter that cow.

In a world where packaged lab-grown meat is simply cheaper, those families will ultimately just think it's strange to slaughter a perfectly good animal when a better product is less costly. Give them a couple of generations. The ones that are in it for profit will drop off pretty fast.
 
Last edited:
Maybe some farms with animals will shift to sustainable tourism and education in the future—similar to zoological gardens—or as places for therapy? They could still have a business then, but one where the well-being of animals is an important factor.
 
Maybe some farms with animals will shift to sustainable tourism and education in the future—similar to zoological gardens—or as places for therapy? They could still have a business then, but one where the well-being of animals is an important factor.
I actually have a feeling that people in these industries will ultimately just enter fields like engineering, and they will keep their animals on their farms for the same reasons that people still have backyard gardens.

There are already farmers that work in other occupations to help pay their bills.
 
I admire every single one of you people arguing with Zoo50 and the like, I gave up reasoning witg vegans a long time ago. Now a days I just block/ignore then, but some are stupid enough to still push they're luck and those are dealt with accordingly
 
I'm trying to find the video I watched about a year ago where a slaughterhouse employee was interviewed, and he said that whenever he would periodically clean out the gas chambers, there would be bits of hooves and legs down in there. It's not every single pig that chews them off, just a few; which illustrates the agony and fear they are experiencing.

"The density of the gas is so painful that slaughterhouse workers have reported finding pigs' hooves at the bottom of the chamber, a result of the pig thrashing around so violently while being asphyxiated with gas that they rip their hooves off their feet."

https://www.facebook.com/Jo.Frederi...-into-where-they-will-exper/1537402693008683/

It's pretty awful, anyway.


That video does look pretty brutal. But as of now it is the most humane way of slaughtering pigs due to their social nature. Yes they have to go through 15 seconds of trying to escape a gas, but the gas itself isn't painful.
The rest of the video is just an attempt to make a senseless appeal to empathy, even though the pigs are already dead and it doesn't matter that they are manhandled roughly by machines.

I agree that we should be working on a better way to deal with the slaughter of pigs. They already are trying to make LAPS (Low Atmosphere Pressure Stunning) a workable method for pigs. LAPS is the sensation pilots feel when subjected to high G force that could render them unconscious without the proper equipment. The sensation is not unpleasant.
This method is already used with poultry and is in the process of possibly being approved for pigs.
 
Tearing up forests to grow soy and wheat is not exactly ethical or harmless.

This is idiotic. More forests are cut down in order to sustain animals (pigs, cows, etc.) than for plant uses (such as soy). Cows require far more land than plants alone. In fact, most of the soy produced is itself used to feed animals that are eventually slaughtered. It makes more sense to eat only plants, rather than eat animals that eat plants. So, if someone is eating meat, they are contributing more to deforestation than they would if they were only eating plant-based things (such as soy).

Moosekub said:
The lower visibility of suffering does not mean vegan lifestyles do not cause less suffering.

This is bullshit. Of course being vegan means less animal suffering -- the torturous, agonizing process in which animals are slaughtered involves a ton of animal suffering -- and by not eating meat, one is not supporting that system.

Moosekub said:
What is more, the Vegan position lacks cultural relativisim, and is extremely ethnocentric

"Cultural" concerns are not relevant. What matters is whether an animal's interests are being respected. Clearly, eating meat is unethical because it does not respect an animal's interests.

Moosekub said:
People who buy, raise, hunt, catch and eat meat for self sufficiency and/or sustenance are not eating meat to be cruel and conflating taking a life with a lack of respect for life is a conceited and condescending argument

You're wrong. Even if people are not aware of the suffering and cruelty they are inflicting by hunting or eating meat, they are still doing it. And depriving a being of his/her life is an inherently disrespectful thing.

Moosekub said:
nor does it account for crops like almonds which grew in popularity due to human consumption as an alternative to milk and is contributing to the devastation of bee populations, water scarcity, and pollution from pesticides.

You're picking and choosing things which best fit your pre-conceived beliefs. The negative effects of the dairy industry (such as the suffering and exploitation of cows) is far worse than the almond industry.

Moosekub said:
So....what I am going to do, is end this discussion here.

You're just saying that because I think you know your arguments defending meat-eating are not compelling. Also, when people challenge your nonsense, you'd rather shut down the conversation instead of discussing it further.

SigmatoZeta said:
I have a local farmers market that I like to shop at, and the meat and egg farmer there is someone that I know.

If an animal is killed in a "local" farm, it is still unethical. As @Llandefie said, it doesn't matter if an animal is treated "nicely" before they are killed, because killing them is itself immoral. As @SkawdtDawg said, small farms are often just as bad as factory farms, which is why all meat-eating should be avoided.

Frezzato said:
Now a days I just block/ignore then, but some are stupid enough to still push they're luck and those are dealt with accordingly

I'm assuming you don't have any justifiable reasons for eating meat. I also assume you don't have empathy for other living beings.

HyperWoof said:
I agree that we should be working on a better way to deal with the slaughter of pigs.

The best way to slaughter pigs is to not slaughter them in the first place.

I assume you'd be against the killing of a human. What makes a pig's life more expendable than a human's life?
 
The best way to slaughter pigs is to not slaughter them in the first place.

I assume you'd be against the killing of a human. What makes a pig's life more expendable than a human's life?

Intelligence
more value to society
pigs live day to day, no goals or ambitions
humans have loved ones
shorter life expectancy
prey animal
bacon
 
Maybe its hard because the facts are on our side?



It's the most humane way of slaughtering them, and even it isn't humane. It is in fact extremely painful. Carbonic acid forms in the pigs' lungs and burns them from the inside out. I think that rather than finding kinder ways to kill pigs, we should stop killing them.

Bullshit. C02 poisoning is one of the easiest ways to go out. There's a reason why it's used as a common suicide method
 
Last edited:
I have done vegan for a while and dropped out when I lost muscle mass with out no change in activity. The vitamins and protein gets expensive as well
 
Intelligence
more value to society
pigs live day to day, no goals or ambitions
humans have loved ones
shorter life expectancy
prey animal
bacon

Intelligence: like I said earlier, there are some humans who aren't intelligent (such as those in a vegetative state), so by your reasoning, they're not worthy of consideration

More value to society: This is a speciesist statement. "Society" in this case is a human construction. What matters is not how relevant they are to "society", but whether they are worthy of morality -- and non-human animals are worthy of being treated in the same manner as humans (with regard to their interests).

The fact that pigs don't think the same way as humans does not make them have a lesser moral value than humans. Also, pigs (and cows) have loved ones just as humans do.

The "shorter life expectancy" thing isn't relevant, and doesn't make a being more or less worthy of moral value.

With regard to bacon, people should stop eating it (because it supports the cruel animal slaughter industry), and people should, at the very least, try eating bacon that is made from plant sources.
 
The vegan movement in general is largely harmless as far as ever "forcing people to not eat meat." The truth of the matter is, it's not a diet that's really sustainable for a lot of people. I've looked at it from time to time, more out of general curiosity, but it's just not feasible for me or anyone in my household. In my neck of the woods at least, it's just too expensive and very much becomes a diet only accessible to the upper class, maybe the upper middle class (again, in my region).

Unfortunately, no vegan, vegetarian or meat-inclusive diet is healthy for the environment, at least not now. They all do damage in their own ways, as much as anyone may pretend otherwise. Materials that don't directly claim animal lives will do harm to the environment in the way of petroleum manufacturing, common to faux fur production, or deforestation to raise animals OR grow plants, there's a dozen different factors that play into the argument that can't really make the choice a definitive decision for everyone. TL;DR: It has to come down to individual choice.

The scary ones that want to take away pets are extremists, going so far as to completely ignore sensible actions. They'll shit on people hunting to survive (Also on people living in the north. As someone who lived in North Dakota during a mild winter, no amount of faux fur will keep a person warm in the winters). They'll steal people's dogs off their front porches. They'll release domesticated animals into the wild to upset the ecological balance and die horrible deaths because "it's better than the alternative." But thanks to an increase in understanding to the amount of harm these organizations do, they're quickly losing the amount of trust people have in them.

The best you can do for your rabbit and any other pets you own is endeavor to provide them with a good life. Give them good food, take them to a vet for regular checkups and care, proper enrichment and lots of attention (unless they don't want attention, looking at you not-so-cuddly but still precious animals). Do that, and you're good.
 
Meanwhile, other people have gained muscle mass. Why were you taking a bunch of vitamins? Plant proteins are cheaper than animal proteins, unless you include meat alternatives.
I take B complex and a once a day. As for protein mine is free for the most part. I eat what I kill in the woods. I think it’s quantity and quality that gets people sick along with all the grain. Too much starch to sugar convention going on.
I like your profile pic by the way
 
The vegan movement in general is largely harmless as far as ever "forcing people to not eat meat." The truth of the matter is, it's not a diet that's really sustainable for a lot of people. I've looked at it from time to time, more out of general curiosity, but it's just not feasible for me or anyone in my household. In my neck of the woods at least, it's just too expensive and very much becomes a diet only accessible to the upper class, maybe the upper middle class (again, in my region).

Unfortunately, no vegan, vegetarian or meat-inclusive diet is healthy for the environment, at least not now. They all do damage in their own ways, as much as anyone may pretend otherwise. Materials that don't directly claim animal lives will do harm to the environment in the way of petroleum manufacturing, common to faux fur production, or deforestation to raise animals OR grow plants, there's a dozen different factors that play into the argument that can't really make the choice a definitive decision for everyone. TL;DR: It has to come down to individual choice.

The scary ones that want to take away pets are extremists, going so far as to completely ignore sensible actions. They'll shit on people hunting to survive (Also on people living in the north. As someone who lived in North Dakota during a mild winter, no amount of faux fur will keep a person warm in the winters). They'll steal people's dogs off their front porches. They'll release domesticated animals into the wild to upset the ecological balance and die horrible deaths because "it's better than the alternative." But thanks to an increase in understanding to the amount of harm these organizations do, they're quickly losing the amount of trust people have in them.

The best you can do for your rabbit and any other pets you own is endeavor to provide them with a good life. Give them good food, take them to a vet for regular checkups and care, proper enrichment and lots of attention (unless they don't want attention, looking at you not-so-cuddly but still precious animals). Do that, and you're good.
I was quite shocked when I read about the cotton shopping bag fad to get rid of plastic. It turns out it’s worse then production of plastic bags.
oh and god help anyone that takes my dog off my property.
 
So someone's right to live should be based on their intelligence, value to society, and ambitions? That would disqualify quite a large portion of the human population. Pigs have loved ones, too (when they are allowed to). Life expectancy and "prey animal" aren't very good reasons, either. Bacon--artery-clogging carcinogen that harms people's health.



I guess all the people who were gassed in World War II got it easy?

"In sum, it is noteworthy that CO2 is used to induce pain and stress in animals, and the concentrations used in these studies are the same or similar to those used for anaesthesia and euthanasia.

The primary concerns are that exposure to CO2 gas may be painful; CO2 may cause onset of asphyxia while the animal is still conscious; physiological effects of CO2 on nasal mucosae and on the autonomic nervous system may be distressing; the cognitive/perceptual/behavioural effects of CO2, suchas ataxia, may be disturbing to the animal; and the process of CO2 inhalation may be highly aversive. Some or all of these results may cause pain and distress."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1258/0023677053739747

"Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most commonly used agent for euthanasia of laboratory rodents, used on an estimated tens of millions of laboratory rodents per year worldwide, yet there is a growing body of evidence indicating that exposure to CO2 causes more than momentary pain and distress in these and other animals.

There is clear evidence in the human literature that CO2 exposure is painful and distressful, while the non-human literature is equivocal. However, the fact that a number of studies do conclude that CO2 causes pain and distress in animals indicates a need for careful reconsideration of its use."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15901358

"The investigation involved climbing down into a gas chamber while wearing an oxygen tank to position hidden cameras. The activist who did so immediately noticed their eyes burning, which led to the discovery that when carbon dioxide reacts with liquids or mucus coated membranes (like that of the eyes, nostrils, sinuses, throat, and lungs), it forms carbonic acid.

From their first lungful of gas, these pigs are burning from the inside out."

https://anews.az/en/pigs-being-forced-into-small-cages-before-they-are-lowered-into-gas-chambers/

"The pigs scream up to 60 seconds from stress, irritation, and then complete panic caused by hyperventilation and the burning sensation of inhaling CO2."

https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org...ed-with-co2-commission-refuses-responsibility


All humans have the ability to have goals and ambitions, whether or not they currently have them is irrelevant. If a pig drops off the face of the map it has 0 effect on anybody.

And I'd rather trust medical citations than propaganda sources that are trying to get slaughtering animals banned...they tend to have somewhat of a bias. Is there pain? I'm sure there is some form of pain. Is it nearly as debilitating as you're making it out to be? Absolutely not. There are plenty of suicide survivors who can attest for that. It would not be a commonly suggested form of suicide if it was like how you describe it


 
I was quite shocked when I read about the cotton shopping bag fad to get rid of plastic. It turns out it’s worse then production of plastic bags.
oh and god help anyone that takes my dog off my property.
I learned how to turn the plastic shopping bags into reusable ones by basically crocheting them. They work pretty good, and certainly hold up better than the crappy bags they came from.
The main instance I was quoting was a PeTA personell snatching a child's chihuahua off the front porch and euthanizing it immediately. The poor girl was distraught, and if I remember correctly PeTA tried to offer a fruit basket as an apology.
 



"That's ridiculous reasoning. Someone's value to someone else has no bearing on their intrinsic value. You don't really have any kind of an argument there."

Whose life matters more, a middle class business man with a family or a hermit living off of the local landfill? Yes everyone has a different value, like it or not. And a pig is peanuts compared to any human. If not where do you draw the line? What separates a bear from a mouse? A mouse from an insect?



"When the gas is as concentrated as in the gas chambers, you can bet the carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid. The first two links I shared were medical citations. Watch the video I shared earlier again. Does that look like a kind death? Or humane? It's not. You're trying to justify a horrible action by making it seem less cruel than it is."

Your first source literally subjected humans voluntarily to breathing in Co2 at up to 100% concentration....voluntarily did this to dozens of humans. Yes it's painful, but it's not THAT painful. It's the type of pain you'd endure as a bet from a friend.
Your first two links

"Aversion was assessed from the pigs’ reluctance to enter or remain in the gaseous atmospheres for a reward of apples. When 90% CO2 was in the box, the pigs immediately withdrew their heads, repeatedly attempted to feed, but withdrew their heads when they began to hyperventilate. The following day, three out of six pigs hesitated to enter the box. It was concluded that high concentrations (90%) of CO2 were aversive to the majority of pigs (88%) "

Does that sound like incredible torture to you? Your own source is working in my favour. some of them kept going back for apples despite the gas...Your video demonstrates pigs trying to escape a situation they don't want to be in, not extreme pain levels.
 
Back
Top