I don't know how anyone can eat meat :-(

We evolved by eating meat, and it's only little attention seekers like yourself who've come along recently and made the whole vegetarian/vegan bull**** rife. No offence to you, I respect your decision, but I personally couldn't care less about the animal - I like meat, I will eat meat.

This happens every day in the animal kingdom - animals eating animals - what do you propose to do about that? Just stop the food chain? This whole not eating meat malarky is a frivolous attempt at retaining "morals" that quite frankly aren't correct.

Most people realise that there are lot more important issues to address in the world at this current time than how a chicken is killed.

I think it's perfectly okay to kill animals for meat, but I think slaughterhouse practices need to be more humane. I think it's important that you get your meat from good sources.

Animals in this country are raised in some of the best conditions in the world
I justify eating meat through having free range or locally sourced meat. I know that these animals have had good lives and having in some cases even helped raise these animals on placement I know that they couldn't have had better lives. If you buy UK meat (which has a red tractor) for the most part you can guarantee the animals have optimum welfare.

Buy meat from Britain, most animals don't feel pain from their death due to being stunned, the only time animals are not stunned is for Jews and Muslims so just buy normal British meat.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but this is definitely NOT a UK slaughterhouse, and most of the slaughterhouses in these PETA-style videos will not be UK slaughterhouses, because we have very strict rules which are actively enforced and arguably among the most humane globally. For example, the animals in this video can see each other being stunned and killed - this is illegal in the UK. The animals are waiting considerable periods of time between stunning and killing - this is illegal in the UK. The animals are hoisted before being stunned - this is illegal in the UK. These videos only show the worst, I wholeheartedly believe it is possible to eat meat and have it come from humane sources.

It's horrible yeah
But I know I'm not going to personally make a difference, and the animals are already dead when you buy the meat. So I just eat meat and ignore the feels.

I'm not an overwhelmingly affectionate person. So eating meat doesn't affect me. I find it absurd that vegans can't even consume honey.

The French have already discovered that the blackness of skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps, the faculty for discourse?...the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?... The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes...

If you look at our dental structure then we have teeth that are well adapted to eating both meat and vegetation, we clearly are omnivores. No, we don't need it to survive, but it still has many vital compounds in it that are otherwise frustrating to consume (I don't fancy chomping down on a hundred nuts each day, for example).

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I think the truth of the matter is veganism isn't really going to become a trend or anything at the moment, most likely certainly not in our lifetimes anyways. A possible reason for this it that to be honest, there are bigger issues that require our attention, like poverty for instance. OP, do you truly feel as if veganism is the biggest crisis out there at the moment, if not shouldn't you be trying to raise awareness for something else?

I think the truth of the matter is veganism isn't really going to become a trend or anything at the moment, most likely certainly not in our lifetimes anyways. A possible reason for this it that to be honest, there are bigger issues that require our attention, like poverty for instance. OP, do you truly feel as if veganism is the biggest crisis out there at the moment, if not shouldn't you be trying to raise awareness for something else?

I'm a vegan and have been for 5 year now I couldnt even watch the video I just think that the way they do it is so cruel I mean I dont mind if people eat meat if the animal is already dead but I dont agree with them killing animals in this way its terrible!!

I think it's perfectly okay to kill animals for meat, but I think slaughterhouse practices need to be more humane. I think it's important that you get your meat from good sources.

Can vegans get off their high horse and stop judging us meat eaters. Bet you'd love the taste of a bacon sarnie if I shoved one in your mouth.
Also how does killing animals cause climate change?

Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.

This.

I think the state should take stronger steps to protect animal welfare, preferably by mandating that all meat sold in the UK must have been produced according to reasonable welfare standards, but, personally, the cost/benefit analysis of abstaining from eating meat for the sake of potentially making some immeasurably insignificant impact on the meat industry's welfare standards really doesn't work out.

We evolved by eating meat, and it's only little attention seekers like yourself who've come along recently and made the whole vegetarian/vegan bull**** rife. No offence to you, I respect your decision, but I personally couldn't care less about the animal - I like meat, I will eat meat.

When you abstain from eating meat and other animal products, you prevent animals from being raised in the terrible conditions I outlined in my previous post.

Perhaps on a very small scale, in the context of an industry which will benefit from inevitable growth in global demand and therefore continue to expand regardless. I don't really do empty symbolism, personally. If there were a way for me to contribute to a significant change where there are problems I would be happy to do so, whether that involved supporting tougher legislation against abuses or joining a general boycott which actually affected the relevant companies' bottom lines in a meaningful way, but as far as the tiny impact which I could make on the industry by deciding merely for myself not to consume animal products is concerned I'm afraid my enjoyment of meat outweighs the amount of animal suffering I'd actually prevent.

A vegetarian saves hundreds of animals every single year (see the middle of this article, which I linked to before, and here); I'd hardly call this a tiny impact, and that's not including the societal effects of your decision (people around you may eat less meat as a result, for instance). You'll be slowing the growth of the industry, not all "expansion" is equal.

Going vegan shouldn't be seen as an all-or-nothing thing, either. Reducing consumption of meat and other animal products still does significant good, and means that you can still enjoy meat while still alleviating some suffering. Cutting out (in this order) chicken, eggs, pig products and fish whilst still eating beef is also another way to cut out a lot of the suffering while still being able to enjoy some meat. (See here for some commentary and explanation on this.)

Finally, there are some highly cost-effective animal advocacy organizations fighting for better conditions in the meat industry and tackling factory farming, and they're achieving measurable results, including helping to pass legislation outlawing the gestation crate, and getting retailers across the Western world to commit to only supplying cage-free eggs (which is far from perfect, given the problems with cage-free systems, but a start). Animal Charity Evaluators, which compares and evaluates the cost-effectiveness and transparency of animal charities, estimates that for every $1 donated to their currently recommended charities (The Humane League, Mercy for Animals and Animal Equality), 13-14 animals are spared the misery of factory farming. Donating even a small amount to these charities every month would therefore do a lot of good, and potentially more good than your individual dietary change (indeed, some meat-eaters now donate to these charities to 'offset' their meat consumption).

This happens every day in the animal kingdom - animals eating animals - what do you propose to do about that? Just stop the food chain? This whole not eating meat malarky is a frivolous attempt at retaining "morals" that quite frankly aren't correct.

Can vegans get off their high horse and stop judging us meat eaters. Bet you'd love the taste of a bacon sarnie if I shoved one in your mouth.
Also how does killing animals cause climate change?

You've freely chosen to participate in this thread, and it's impossible for me not to make value-judgements. If I didn't believe that being vegan was the right thing to do, I wouldn't be a vegan.

You're judging me right now, in fact, because you believe that I shouldn't be judging you There's nothing wrong with judging people (EDIT: their actions), as long as it's done in a reasonably respectful manner. My last post, with numerous citations, attempts to outline why I think eating meat is morally unjustifiable.

The meat industry is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for almost 15% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transportation sector.

The Environmental Working Group has found that virtually all plant-based products are responsible for fewer emissions than animal products, which is why it’s unsurprising that a 2014 study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change, found that vegans, followed by vegetarians, had the lowest greenhouse gas emissions associated with their diets. It’s also why the UN’s Environment Program has called on everyone to move towards a vegan diet:



Why? Growing plants and transporting them to the consumer is much less greenhouse gas intensive than: growing crops, transporting them to the farm, powering the farm (which produces waste and methane emissions from burps (methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2)), transporting the animals to the slaughterhouse, powering the slaughterhouse, and then transporting the meat to the consumer.

Given that climate change is already causing humans to suffer - and will continue to do so but at an accelerating rate - we should all take individual action to ensure that the warming of the planet is slowed and halted. Governments seem set to fail in the duty: the Paris climate change agreement doesn't even limit warming to 2C, and that's even assuming that every country will keep to its pledge.




When you abstain from eating meat and other animal products, you prevent animals from being raised, transported and slaughtered in the terrible conditions I outlined in my previous post. And, as I demonstrated, the maths roughly works out such that each animal you abstain from eating roughly translates to one animal saved.

EDIT: Also, British animal welfare law already requires that unnecessary suffering of animals in the meat industry be minimized. The industry gets to define what's necessary, of course (and they haven't considered, for instance, that eating meat and other animal products is entirely unnecessary). As a result, most of the meat sold in the UK comes from factory farms, and slaughterhouse conditions are very often inhumane. "Free-range", "humane", "RSPCA-certified" and "Red Tractor" have also been exposed as being nothing more than marketing terms. Again, this is because the profit of the meat industry will always come before the welfare of the animals, and that's because we have such high demand for meat.

We evolved by eating meat, and it's only little attention seekers like yourself who've come along recently and made the whole vegetarian/vegan bull**** rife. No offence to you, I respect your decision, but I personally couldn't care less about the animal - I like meat, I will eat meat.

Can vegans get off their high horse and stop judging us meat eaters. Bet you'd love the taste of a bacon sarnie if I shoved one in your mouth.
Also how does killing animals cause climate change?