fascinating topic, and i really have to read more of it, but i had to answer this first.What are your thoughts about the morality behind veganism/vegetarianism?
also note, there is a whole lot of silliness involved, but it is also a tad serious.
this would actually indicate that there is an assumption that eating meat is not moral... and that is nonsensical to me.
we evolved to eat meat (and plant material). this is evident in our teeth as well as digestive tract and microbiome. we also can see that most vegans and vegetarians aren't healthy looking (likely because they're too f*cking lazy to actually eat correctly and insure they're getting the right nutrients... but some may well be because we need certain proteins that are typically only found in living flesh)
so i ask myself: why is nature immoral?
i know that there are problems with the farming industry, but you can't assume that the practices of farmer x are the same as the practices of farmer y unless both farmers are part of a parent organization and are literally just operating at the behest of said management, per their rules, per their instruction, etc... and i know from experience, living rural as well as being next to a local "farmer" that this isn't the case. we can also see around here that the people who mistreat their stock are looked down upon and treated badly... they also don't tend to make good money at the auctions (which sell not only to locals, businesses and farms, but also to larger commercial operations with processing facilities nearby -like Tyson, etc).
then there is the fact that we've evolved to be omnivorous, which means, by definition, eating plant and animal matter (and anything else that you can, really).
far, far better questions would be directed to the vegans: [hyperbole intended]
so where is the morality in denying your evolutionary traits?
where is the morality in neglecting the millennia of historical predecessors who've survived to get you thus far?
sure, the above sounds like i'm being facetious, but lets look at this from a different perspective for a moment: sanctity of life or sacredness of life
where is the defining characteristic of being sacred or living?
if you consider the question, you will see that everything we call "alive" has certain traits that we can agree on, but there is no real scientific definition of "life"...
so remembering that, we then turn to the point of: why is it better to kill thousands of living plants and not animals?
for every cow you eat, they also eat plant material... so leave the cow and eat the plant material but you're still killing a living, breathing, replicating organism, right?
why is it not OK for a vegan to take out a cow but it's ok to decimate soy, beans, legumes, nuts, tomato's, potato's etc???
something else to consider, although humorous, it's relevant as well as cogent to the topic of vegans:
so i guess the first thing is defining what morality is, and what you will choose to accept WRT said definition. this will not be the same for everyone, and there isn't any immoral act being done by ingesting flesh (unless it's a neighbor or other human... there are laws against that). the act if ingesting flesh is not about morality, but rather survival. it is also about availability and access to food, BTW>.... a typical hunter/gatherer or even farmer is limited by what they can eat, find and grow... whereas today there is a far, far, far larger choice in what you eat because you only need money and a market to purchase it. if you were isolated and stranded, you would not be able to be a vegan or vegetarian... you would die because of the limited resources available to you. however that isn't the case in a typical US town/city.
then you should consider what is healthy in a diet and what you can live with regarding eating meat or not: i truly suggest talking to dieticians and DR's before deciding to become a vegan... and definitely consider the above meme as well
mostly people use the emotional arguments WRT this topic, being they empathize with the prey (not a good thing for someone who needs to eat to survive... where does the defining line stop? where is the segregation? why is bambi the fauna more important than your flora when the flora provide more O2 than the fauna?)
don't mind me, though... i'm a mountain man and i predominantly eat meat. it's a large part of my diet, and i usually eat fresh kills, too... i don't like store-bought meats at all because of the processing, steroids, slurry, additives, and the rest of the crap that is used... of course, most of my vegetation is also fresh for the same reasons...
meh