Meat is Murder!

On my facebook, I have liked a ton of food related pages because they all have one thing in common: they believe in eating sustainable, wholesome, and unprocessed food as much as possible. One page had been posting more and more vegetarian biased articles. I admire vegetarians because they at least think about and care about the food they eat.

However... Vegetarians and - even more so - vegans tend to verbally abuse meat eaters. At least that's the way it appears to me. Whenever I see a food debate happening, it never fails that a vegan will point out that eating meat is murder.

SO, when Food Inc shared this link: http://www.takepart.com/photos/raising-farm-animals-birth-to-slaughter?cmpid=foodinc-fb, I responded with a heartfelt thank you.

Thank you, Food Inc., for posting something about animals. I personally agree with a lot of what you post, but it seemed to me this page was leaning more and more towards vegetarian/vegan only philosophy when the original goal was healthy and sustainable food. I scratched my head at one point, because a page called Food Inc should concern itself with all healthy food, not just Vegetarian fare, you know? So thanks again for proving to me that the page is still dedicated to all food. :-)



When I went to see if there had been any comments after mine a few hours later, I realized that the post I had commented on was actually not their main post of the article. It was actually them posting it on the wall of another page. On their official post of the link, a lot have people had given them a hard time by saying things like: "There is no such thing as a humane slaughter," and "You mean abnormally short life-spans, right?" It saddens me that vegetarians think they are so much better than everyone else because they choose not to participate in "murder." In response, I posted this:

Dear Vegans and Vegetarians, with respect, I would like to point out that if you are eating only plant foods - organically grown or not - there is "murder" involved. Even organic farmers must control "pests," such as insects, animals, and other plants that would destroy the crops. ( http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97836&page=1#.UWyS4cpUnoF )
Also, plants are alive, and in order to eat them, one must take their life. The only way to make sure that one's vegetarian diet is free from murder is to grow all of one's own food, and then apologize to the plant when it is time to harvest it or its babies so that they can be eaten. If done with respect, I am certain that the plants will understand and speak well of the human who eats them. ( http://www.livescience.com/1909-plants-communicate-warn-danger.html )
In the meantime, since there is no way to consume a food without killing it - aside from milk, milk products, and unfertilized eggs - I hope that everyone can agree that any food grown or raised with love and respect is much healthier to eat than food grown as nothing more than a commodity to be sold. I respect your beliefs as a vegetarian, please respect my belief that eating humanely raised animals is better than factory farmed animals. If you cannot respect this belief, then please kindly agree to disagree. :-)

Thank you and have a happy day :-)

Oh! P.S. Here's a better link to what Steve Davis had to say about ethical and humane farming:  http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2002/mar/osu-scientist-questions-moral-basis-vegan-diet


HERE I HAVE DECIDED TO POST RESPONSES :-) 

From a vegetarian: Roxanne Packard: you are delusional. "Agree to disagree" is the coward's way out. You are wrong. Hey! News Flash: "Researcher: Planet Earth is Actually Made of Asbestos." That's how much credence that headline you offered deserves.

My response: So you are saying that plants are not alive and that small animals are not killed on organic farms? Can you please provide proof? And, is this link perhaps better for you? http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2002/mar/osu-scientist-questions-moral-basis-vegan-diet

From a different Vegetarian (actually a vegan according to her profile): Roxanne, the point is that a majority of our grain crops are actually grown for animal feed. So meat eaters are responsible for not only the death of billions of animals that they consume, but also a MAJORITY of the deaths of the animals killed in fields.
And no, plants aren't sentient. Can't believe people even attempt to make the argument. And once again, should anyone actually pretend to care about the wellbeing of plant life... we feed more plant matter to animals for feed, than vegans would consume. So either way, the omnivorous diet involves more death (for plants AND animals) than the vegan diet does. End of story.

My response to her: I guess that depends on what you consider sentient. When plants respond to love in a good way and then respond to hate by getting sick and withering, I do believe that shows sentience. On an episode of Mythbusters, they tried to bust the myth that plants are telepathic, but couldn't conclusively bust that. Here is a study by the government that goes in to great detail the many ways that plants communicate: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2634023/
Also, anyone who is concerned about the ethics of their food already seeks out and obtains their meat from producers who raise their animals on pasture, so not ALL meat eaters can be lumped into one category. In fact, if all factory farmers reverted to the way animals have been farmed since the dawn of agriculture, the statement that that the majority of grain crops go to feed animals would be untrue since cows and sheep are ruminants who should not eat grain, and pigs and chickens are omnivores who should only eat a little grain. Also, in point of fact, while it may be true that currently the majority of grain goes feed confined animals, it is also true that 25% of the grain grown in the US gets converted into ethanol. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/22/quarter-us-grain-biofuels-food
Do you drive a car? Do you choose ethanol because it is more eco-friendly?
My point remains, in order to be a vegetarian, you still have to murder the plant or harvest its babies - plus, unless you farm it yourself with humane catch and release traps for the small animals that come to feed - you'd have to have some kind of pest control. If I personally choose to consume animals raised on farms where I know they were eating a biologically correct diet and raised with love, then I am no more horrible than a vegetarian.
The point you are trying to make is that feedlot and factory farmed animals are bad, and on that point, I agree completely!     

MORE RESPONSES

Response from the vegan above: this is a response vegans hear all the time -- you're not on uncharted territory here. but i have laid out a detailed response to your concerns here: http://veganrabbit.com/2013/03/18/plant-sentience-and-pain/  

And another person: Oh geeze.. the plant killing argument again. Come on.. just admit that you're not compassionate/strong/selfless enough to stop eating meat. Stop trying to make yourselves feel better by coming up with these ridiculous arguments.

My response to both: @1, thank you for the link, I have bookmarked it. However, I still disagree that plants are not sentient. I believe that plants are alive and have an important jobs keeping us breathing and cleaning up our pollution. In the grand scheme of things, neither plants nor animals were created specifically to be food. They evolved on their own and their biological imperative it to propagate their species. Eating anything at all is a sign that we as humans are also animals that need sustenance. Our bodies need meet because of nutrients - such as Co enzyme Q12 - that cannot be found in vegetables. Co enzyme Q12 is well documented as being needed by the heart. It can be synthesized in a lab, but to actually help the body, it needs to be real, which means from an animal.
Also, if you read the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, you will see that Dr. Price specifically went looking for healthy vegetarian populations but could not find any that remain healthy into their old age. They often developed things like goiters from iodine deficiency and rickets from B12 deficiency.
@2 - I most certainly am compassionate. I'm also diabetic. If I switched to a vegan diet, then I would watch my health slowly deteriorate. I'm sorry you disagree, but I would prefer to stay as healthy as possible until my sons are 18. I have tried vegetarianism and my blood sugar numbers got higher and higher - and believe me, I was not eating sugary junk food. The ONLY problem that I have with vegans is that they cannot admit that each body is different and that some bodies need meat.
If you choose to not eat meat, that is wonderful. If I choose to eat only humanely raised meat, then I am not weak. I am not selfish either. I also am concerned by your ethics that allow you to tell yourself that you are doing no harm to the planet by eating plants. At least I honor my food and realize the every bite is sacred. I am also concerned that you were raised to believe that it is okay to verbally (via the written word) demean other simply because they disagree with you. You do not read me asking you to admit that you are too weak and heartless to admit that plants are alive until you eat them. I would never demean or abuse you like that.
As I said before. I agree that you have the right to eat what you believe is right. All I am asking is that you all take a deep breath and agree that I have the right to eat what I believe is right
Thanks again for the link, and have a happy day