I dunno about anyone else here, but I changed from meat-eater to unrepentant-ravenous-beast-consuming-machine ever since I had my first fillet. I will kill a cow with my bare hands to get one. I will tie my hands behind my back and fight with only my teeth if necessary. Blindfolded. While on the phone with telemarketers.

Second to that is pork tenderloin. You add balsamic vinegar and rosemary to the equation, and I'll start foaming at the mouth and spouting obscenities. No pig will be safe. At the very least, he'll have his feelings hurt.

Ahhh complex amino acids and protein. I love the flavor of you when you come out of something that bleeds.

Never have I seen such a succinct and colorful testament to carnivorous behavior. That is one for the books, my friend.

And I was holding back.
There are certain details one should leave out on posts as to ensure the size of Vegangelica's inevitable reply will be as minimal as possible. While one certainly retains the ability to ignore such responses, one tends to scan for info that may be damaging or debatable to his/herself, thus that he/she may reply to set said offender straight for not the benefit of the offender, but the benefit of the viewing public's opinion of a validated perspective.
The infamous "Vegangelica Reply" is to be feared and avoided at all costs, because there is a real danger that due to the sheer volume of text, you will miss something detrimental and concede defeat unwittingly.
The most strategic route is to give only what will get a narrow response, and one that you have already planned for. Thereby, you retain a higher percentage of emerging victorious............ or at least drunk.... enough to be typing all this bullshit I'm typing right now.

If we weren't meant to eat meat they wouldn't have made it taste so nice:pimp:

Anticipation, my strong emotions about the injustice of killing sentient beings were what made me become vegetarian. My first vegetarian night was when I was 5: I was told I had to choose between having no dinner or eating a fish whom I'd seen bludgeoned to death before my eyes. I chose to go without dinner because I felt so strongly that killing that fish was callously brutal, wrong, and unnecessary. Only later (after age 18) did I learn more about the logical reasons for vegetarianism.

Dancing princess is full of emotion and concern about animals and I am no different. I just have had many more years than she has to learn more about the logical reasons for vegetarianism (animal welfare, human health, environmental health). I do not see her as "trying to be different" but rather standing up for and expressing her values.

Ha ha! That made me chuckle, Akira, because it is funny. And also true.;)

Stormjh, I was surprised to learn some vegans had to ponder about the answer to whether swallowing semen or breastfeeding is "vegan."

Veganism is not a list of dietary restrictions ("don't eat animal products"); veganism is a *lifestyle* that involves treating animals kindly and reducing harm to sentient beings by not using their bodies and not forcing upon animals actions that are intended to harm them.

When a person willingly gives his semen or her breastmilk, and the consumption of the semen and breastmilk does not harm the sentient being (the person), then there is no cause for vegan concern. Orally-raping a man would not be vegan, though!

It is human nature to choose the behaviors we want to express. Although we are biologically omnivores (able to digest animals and plants), this does not mean we have to choose to eat animals or their fluids/eggs.

Four reasons.

First, people still kill the egg-laying hens and dairy cows at young ages, regardless of whether they are free-range or not.

Second, all the male brothers of the egg-laying hens are killed after hatching since they will never lay eggs and it is not cost-effective to use them as broilers. In the U.S., 219 million male "egg-layer" chicks were killed directly after hatching in 2006 (in Iowa, 40 million were killed) (USDA statistics).

People kill these male chicks by gassing, crushing, and grinding them up alive. Similarly, male calves of dairy cows are killed at a young age to be "veal." Producers inseminate dairy cows each year to ensure they produce milk; this leads to people killing many male calves to save money.

Third, calling eggs or milk "free-range" does not assure that the chickens and cows spent time outdoors: "The USDA requires that “free-range” animals have access to outdoor areas, but there is no provision for how long they must spend or how much room they must have outside. The Associated Press reported that the USDA’s regulations don’t “require the birds to actually spend time outdoors, only to have access.”(3) Even if a farmer opened the door to a coop with thousands of birds inside and then closed it before any chickens went outside, he would still be able to use the free-range label.(4)" PETA Media Center > Factsheets > Free-Range and Organic Meat, Eggs, and Dairy Products: Conning Consumers?

Fourth, being vegan involves treating other animals in ways that serve their own ends and purposes, rather than our own. I do not want to exploit sentient beings. Taking eggs from chickens or milk from a cow is using these animals for our own purposes, not theirs.

Since it takes a much smaller quantity of farmland to produce vegetarian foods than to produce the vegetables and grain to support an omnivorous diet, most meat-eaters actually cause more harm to wild animals than vegetarians do. The reason: most livestock (chickens, pigs, cows) are grain-fed, requiring more farmland to be in production than if people were vegan.

What is moronic about these reasons for being vegetarian?

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." American Dietetic Association Vegetarian Diets

"Limit red meat—and avoid processed meat. Research suggests that people who eat more than 18 ounces a week of red meat have a higher risk of colon cancer. So make red meat—beef, pork, lamb—only an occasional part of your diet, if you eat it at all. And skip the processed stuff—bacon, hot dogs, and deli meats—since that's also been linked to higher cancer risk." Harvard School of Public Health. Protein - What Should You Eat? - The Nutrition Source - Harvard School of Public Health

Your reason for eating meat is the main one I think meat-eaters have: taste. At least you are honest, Freebase.

I see the debate over vegetarianism vs. eating animals as a debate over values. Do you value the lives of animals because you care about the animals for their own sake? Or, do you simply value yourself and your tastebuds? I answer with the former; you answer quite clearly with the latter.

Here's a question for you, Freebase, and others who eat animals. What qualities would an animal (fish, bird, sheep or pig or cow, etc.) need to have to cause you to *not* want to eat these animals? Pigs are very intelligent, so I assume it isn't a lack of intelligence of the animals that makes you feel they are "fair game" for being eaten Pig Video Arcades Critique Life in the Pen

If a livestock animal were able to say to you, "NO!" would this stop you from eating her?

I care about animals because I know they have feelings and I know they can suffer. I have pondered for a long time if it is possible to "get" other people to care about animals when these people just don't have the feelings there. I still don't know the answer. However, I think the more information people have about a subject, the more informed their decision will be. I can't change people's feelings, but I can try to inform them.

Here are two videos for you to watch, if you wish, to consider more what the experiences of animals are like. When I watch these videos, I can't help but care for these animals and wish people would stop killing and eating them.

(1) Abusing hogs and killing piglets by blunt trauma (standard industry practice) in Iowa:



(2) People slaughtering sheep, pigs, and cows in England:

English slaughterhouses exposed: 10 minute overview on Vimeo

That's true, but we're the one species that understands exactly how most other animals suffer.
So yeah, a lion won't listen to me if I ask it not to eat me.
But I'll sure as hell understand what's going on when an animal screams out in pain as the skin is being ripped from it's still warm and very alive body.

Well.... you must give really weird blowjobs.

LOLOMG eww
he uses teef

I value the lives of animals as a natural, balanced system of life that supplements other life and vice-versa, as it is naturally intended. I also value plant life in the same regard. I find Broccoli to be the tastiest vegetable on earth. Does it feel pain? I don't know. And I'm sure if 10 years from now scientists figure out that they do, I'd still eat it, as would you. Because it is most certainly not a matter of values when it comes to survival.

I think that it is a matter of balance when it comes to how we treat the equilibrium of our natural world and that we must maintain that balance, but pain and suffering was not, and never will be, a factor when it comes to the natural balance of life and its detrimental continuity. Pain is a defense motivator first and foremost that all animals share, including us. But it is NOT a value card, otherwise our values would be a universal aspect of nature and all animals would be herbivores.
Our values are a result of our intelligence and our culture, and while a lot of our values are important to us as a civilized society, the ability for us to "understand" pain we are inflicting on animals when we kill them to consume them doesn't make our natural inclination and makeup for their consumption "wrong" in absolutely any natural sense.
As long as we maintain the balance of nature, then we are doing as nature intended. And if nature intended us, then our natural inclinations are intended.

Well, I'd have to say that I wouldn't eat my own kind unless it was absolutely necessary for survival. All others that I could take down = fair game. It's kind of absurd to postulate how you would react if an animal was as intelligent as you in a decision to eat it, since it's not nor will it ever be in context with humans. Not to mention that it has absolutely no bearing on the layout of the nature of survival.
I wouldn't eat my cat, because I like him and enjoy his company.
I wouldn't eat my neighbors' cat because he likes it and enjoys its company.
But pain and suffering has nothing to do with it. It's a personal decision based on preference and, in most cases, laws.

You say you care about animals because they have feelings and suffer, but I don't see you campaigning to protest wild animals behaving in their natural habitat. I don't understand why you have a problem with us doing it when it's going to happen regardless. Maybe you'd feel better because you wouldn't have anything to blame on yourself, but it wouldn't change a thing as far as pain and suffering goes.
If you'd rather just be oblivious to what's going on in the wild, well you can do that just fine while you eat a steak. Your choice.

I think if a pig could ask me not to eat it, I would be able to identify more with the pig and it would be easier for it to appeal to my emotions that way. I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't eat it if it could talk to me. A decision not to eat the pig because it talks would be a decision based on emotion. If eating the pig is good for me, then you could say the pig would be able to exploit a weakness, appealing to my emotions rather than my logic, to stay alive. The smartest thing to do (best strategy for survival) for me may still be to eat the pig, even if it could talk. I don't believe it would be objectively wrong for me to do so - I think a wish to keep the pig alive when I could benefit from eating it is a byproduct of my compassion for people, which is why it's important to be able to identify with the pig for that compassion to work.

No pig I've met so far has the power to appeal to my emotions that way (I've met a few) and I don't think emotions aside from basal ones like hunger and craving play a large part in deciding what goes on my dinner plate. I try to use logic instead, like these french fries are bad for me even though I want to eat them, so I don't. If the day comes when I or pigs change so that they can appeal to my emotions that way, I may change my habits. Right now, I think I'd need arguments based on logic rather than emotion to turn from a meat eater into a vegetarian or a vegan (I know there are plenty of good, logical arguments as to why we should all be vegetarians).

For me, I can think of a very few things :

• Should not be threatened by extinction
• Should not be toxic

And last but not least, it may be important whether or not I view it as food - if it's been culturally used for food where I come from. Jellyfish may appeal to some asians, but not to me .. Although who am I kidding? Of course I'd try a bite if I ever met someone who could prepare it well.

edit :

I'll admit that the less the animal suffers before I eat it, the more preferable it is to me, but I'm not so strict about that that I feel I could make some sort of simple black or white rule out of it. It becomes a very hard criteria for me to base my diet on. When an animal is dead, it's dead - I'd eat it - but preferably, I don't want to support something that causes unnecessary suffering if there's a more painless way to get that animal on my plate. My feelings regarding that are not equal to all animals. I'm colder towards the suffering of fish than I am towards pigs.