On the Morality and Necessity of eating Animal Products

[IbelieveInanarchy]

For over 2,5 million years humans have been eating meat and other animal products(1). It is often said that because we have done this for so long it is ‘natural’ and when something is natural it is therefore moral or good for you. This is as anyone can see, of course, an erroneous fallacy. It is indeed true that humans are ‘naturally’ omnivores but this says nothing about the necessity of consuming animal products. Various studies have shown that animal products are indeed harmful to the human. Red meat is shown to be carcinogenic(2), milk protein is a promoting factor in cancer(3) and non-consumption of meat has been linked to lower mortality rates(4). The first immorality of promoting the use of animal products is that one is playing the game of obscurantism to keep people ignorant about the harmful effects of animal products. The analogy of the asbestos producer telling everyone that asbestos is not harmful fits well here. This is of course a vile crime committed against people who then go work with asbestos or go eat animal products. But, one may say, that if people are well aware of the risks of this behaviour, the same as with cigarettes, they are free to choose to do it anyway. This analogy fails, since smoking cigarettes is to a very great extent a personal choice. Alas there are tobacco plantations which have a harmful impact on the environment, but this effect is minimal. Eating animals is however is not a personal choice, for one; it is necessary to deprive an animal of the light in his eyes, only to enjoy the taste of his dismembered limbs on your taste buds. Secondly; the impact of animal agriculture on the environment is immense(5) one third of the worlds water is spent on animal agriculture, while 10 percent of the world’s population does not have access to safe water(6). There are 795 million people who lack proper nutrition(7), while it is entirely possible to feed these people if just the USA alone would stop animal agriculture(8). What is the justification in letting people die of thirst and hunger for your ‘personal’ choice of eating animals. (let it be very clear here, I do of course see that capitalism leads to this unequal distribution of resources, this however does in no way justify us rich westerners eating inefficient food which could have been fed to starving people)
It has been finely established that there is no reason to eat animal products. I will now deal with some objections often levied against vegetarians or vegans. If you have any more, or have a question, you are of course free to respond.
1. “We need meat for our protein, vegans are protein deficient.” It is trivially easy to get enough protein, every plant has it, if you are super worried, go eat some beans and you’re fine. (9)
2. “plants don’t provide all the nutrients, b12 is a good example of this”. B12 is made by bacteria in the soil, historically we got this from eating food with dirt left on it, or river water which has B12 in it from the bacteria. Both vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters are shown to be b12 deficient(10). Meat is not a good source for b12, cattle itself is supplemented with b12(11), why take your supplement via an animal instead of going straight to the source? The vegan diet is not a magic diet, it is true that this diet, like any diet, is deficient in B12. This is why anyone ,even if you stay omnivore, should take b12 supplements.
3. “vegan food is just too expensive” If you take the highly manufactured veggie burgers yes. However, I am truly amazed whenever someone brings up this argument. I never saw a pound of potatoes more expensive than a pound of eggs. Never have I seen beans more expensive than beef. If you think about it, how can it be? Meat is produced by feeding a lot of plants to an animal and then eating the animal. Eating the plant directly is of course cheaper.

Thanks for reading, I am looking forward to your responses. This is my first long text written in English and it is not my native language so any feedback on how the text is written is also appreciated.

1: http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/evidence-for-meat-eating-by-early-humans-103874273
2: http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
3: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4166373/
4: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23836264
5: http://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/
6: http://water.org/water-crisis/water-sanitation-facts/
7: https://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats
8: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat
9: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/105/25/e197
10: https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/nov/b12.htm
11: http://eerainuh.com/supplementation-of-vitamin-b12-in-cattle-and-sheep-to-prevent-deficiency/

[Raul Castro]

so what you are saying is that is that people in Africa should stop hunting for a living because it is immoral?????????????

[Marxman81]

so what you are saying is that is that people in Africa should stop hunting for a living because it is immoral?????????????

...no. That's not what they're saying at all. If eating meat is the only way for you to survive, then eat meat. If you have the ability choose between having a vegan/vegetarian diet or a omnivorous diet, you should choose to have the vegan/vegetarian diet for the reasons listed above.

[The Intransigent Faction]

From what I've gathered, whether vegetables are less expensive than meat seems geographically and seasonally circumstantial. I'm also not sure if the animal feed, which from what I understand is mostly grain, is comparable in terms of price or nutritional value to what most people think of as fresh produce.

That said, I know there are food banks which make all sorts of vegetables readily available here. On top of that, urban agriculture only makes it cheaper and more accessible. It seems to be a matter of marketing. I honestly can't remember seeing a commercial for broccoli, or peas and carrots, or beans. Steak, burgers, chicken, fish...? They're on display in ads everywhere.

[Antiochus]

I would suggest that members ignore the resident PETA moron. Hes made threads before (no joke) about how cattle prodding=rape and how animals are moral creatures etc...

Its pseudo-leftism of the fascist variety. Been explained a billion times by other users. It is very telling how he keeps making these threads, apparently out of all the problems in the world, animals have it the worst. Something did catch my eye however, the habitual "kek meat eating=inefficient, nid vetgtables:D" argument is so idiotic yet its accepted by people. Even if, for arguments sake, humans COULD produce enough food to feed say 400 billion people at the present, it would DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to alleviate worldwide hunger. At the end of the day if someone wants to eat meat, the person who attempts to prevent him can go fuck himself.

[IbelieveInanarchy]

so what you are saying is that is that people in Africa should stop hunting for a living because it is immoral????????????? Nope, not saying that, i agree with what marxman said. In Africa there are pastures which are, for a variety of reasons, not able to be cultivated for plants. Starving people have every right to put cattle on these pastures and make this land available to them in this way. However this does not change the fact that in the western world we don't need to do this, and we actually import food from said african countries to feed our cattle.

Edit: the same applies for hunting, if you will starve if you don't eat meat, you have every right to eat meat. However we dont starve if we dont eat meat, since we have an abundance of plant foods.

- - - Updated - - -


From what I've gathered, whether vegetables are less expensive than meat seems geographically and seasonally circumstantial. I'm also not sure if the animal feed, which from what I understand is mostly grain, is comparable in terms of price or nutritional value to what most people think of as fresh produce.

That said, I know there are food banks which make all sorts of vegetables readily available here. On top of that, urban agriculture only makes it cheaper and more accessible. It seems to be a matter of marketing. I honestly can't remember seeing a commercial for broccoli, or peas and carrots, or beans. Steak, burgers, chicken, fish...? They're on display in ads everywhere. Of course there are examples of vegetables being more expensive than meats. But i believe these are always, as you say, cirumstantial, for examplel when a harvest of a specific produce failed. Or when one compares organic quona hipster food to farm factory pig meat.

- - - Updated - - -


I would suggest that members ignore the resident PETA moron. Hes made threads before (no joke) about how cattle prodding=rape and how animals are moral creatures etc...

Its pseudo-leftism of the fascist variety. Been explained a billion times by other users. It is very telling how he keeps making these threads, apparently out of all the problems in the world, animals have it the worst. Something did catch my eye however, the habitual "kek meat eating=inefficient, nid vetgtables:D" argument is so idiotic yet its accepted by people. Even if, for arguments sake, humans COULD produce enough food to feed say 400 billion people at the present, it would DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to alleviate worldwide hunger. At the end of the day if someone wants to eat meat, the person who attempts to prevent him can go fuck himself. As I said, of course capitalism contributes to this unequal distribution of goods. I don't see how this makes it correct to live a lavish lifestyle here and then say "but capitalism makes me do this :(". If you could explain me how meat production is more efficient than plant production, i would be glad to hear it. If you are going to say that some pastures can't be used for plant production, that is hardly an argument. The issue is that we use land perfectly able to produce plant food for humans, to actually feed it to cattle. This is the inefficiency often referred to.