Animal Cruelty - Why should we care?

[Red Baron Farms]

All other things being equal, it's better to be killed painlessly than tormented beforehand.

All other things being equal, if we aim to minimize the harm we cause to animals in all the areas where its reasonable and easy to do so, then reducing dependence on animal products to the point of eliminating animal products entirely -- veganism, animal liberation -- is the logical end and most straight-forward way to satisfy that objective.

It seems to me that veganism and vegetarianism follow from the animal welfarist views that you already hold.

It is the simple solution. But like most simple solutions, it fails when put into practise.

Don't get me wrong. I respect anyone who is Vegetarian on ethical grounds. But eliminating livestock from the planet would be a huge catastrophe and cause way more harm than good. Many of the same reasons removing livestock from the land and placing them in nasty CAFOs are the same reasons removing them completely as a species is fail. The problem is in removing the animals so they can't function and provide the ecosystem services that all animals provide.

“As the small trickle of results grows into an avalanche — as is now happening overseas — it will soon be realized that the animal is our farming partner and no practice and no knowledge which ignores this fact will contribute anything to human welfare or indeed will have any chance either of usefulness or of survival.” Sir Albert Howard

Now the ethical thing to do is to treat them as our farming partner, not abuse them in CAFOs in some insane massive animal abuse program. But the second you go past that and start to advocate removing entire species of domesticated farm animals from the planet, you turn an ethical agenda back into an evil agenda.

So I could support you in a call to end all animal abuse. I could especially support you in a call to end all CAFOs world wide due to them being the worst form of animal abuse. But the second you cross the line and start advocating a vegan agenda, you loose me.

At that point you leave reality and start becoming a tree hugging Bambi watching caricature.

 

[bit_pattern]

I can relate to the two above posts. I'm uncomfortable with eating meat - I do it but it makes me uncomfortable - and i definitely couldn't kill meat for myself, which makes me the worst kind of hypocrite in my book. I do try to minimise my meat intake though, as much for health reasons as ethics.

As for livestock, domesticated animals have been bred to the point that they couldn't exist in the wild. Cows for instance have to be milked otherwise they go through excruciating pain and die. Viewing this from a vegan perspective, if you could wave a magic wand and make everybody vegan tomorrow there would be billions off animals that would have to be killed. Or, in the case of cattle, kept alive and milked in the same way as what happens now, except that the perfectly good food resource would have to be simply thrown away. So I take the view that not eating any animal products isn't particularly ethical. I'm all for a vegetarian diet but am happy to eat cheese and yoghurt and other dairy products (although I don't eat much of them because they aren't particularly good for you in high doses and make me feel kind of ill).

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

As for livestock, domesticated animals have been bred to the point that they couldn't exist in the wild.

And? What is the moral reasoning you are connecting this to?

Cows for instance have to be milked otherwise they go through excruciating pain and die.

Or, in the case of cattle, kept alive and milked in the same way as what happens now, except that the perfectly good food resource would have to be simply thrown away.

I don't think you understand how milk is produced. Cows are constantly artificially inseminated with rape racks and their calves separated and killed (even on "pure free range" farms") in order. There is no moral hazard in not breeding these genetically cursed creatures. In fact, I would say the moral hazard is in continuing to breed them.

Viewing this from a vegan perspective, if you could wave a magic wand and make everybody vegan tomorrow there would be billions off animals that would have to be killed.

If we ever run across such a magic wand, I am sure this will become a moral dilemma.

So I take the view that not eating any animal products isn't particularly ethical. I'm all for a vegetarian diet but am happy to eat cheese and yoghurt and other dairy products (although I don't eat much of them because they aren't particularly good for you in high doses and make me feel kind of ill).

Dairy is worse than meat in every conceivable fashion. I have never met a person who could defend the inverse.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

It is the simple solution. But like most simple solutions, it fails when put into practise.

Don't get me wrong. I respect anyone who is Vegetarian on ethical grounds. But eliminating livestock from the planet would be a huge catastrophe and cause way more harm than good. Many of the same reasons removing livestock from the land and placing them in nasty CAFOs are the same reasons removing them completely as a species is fail. The problem is in removing the animals so they can't function and provide the ecosystem services that all animals provide.


Now the ethical thing to do is to treat them as our farming partner, not abuse them in CAFOs in some insane massive animal abuse program. But the second you go past that and start to advocate removing entire species of domesticated farm animals from the planet, you turn an ethical agenda back into an evil agenda.

So I could support you in a call to end all animal abuse. I could especially support you in a call to end all CAFOs world wide due to them being the worst form of animal abuse. But the second you cross the line and start advocating a vegan agenda, you loose me.

At that point you leave reality and start becoming a tree hugging Bambi watching caricature.

Evidence?

 

[angrysoba]

It is the simple solution. But like most simple solutions, it fails when put into practise.

Don't get me wrong. I respect anyone who is Vegetarian on ethical grounds. But eliminating livestock from the planet would be a huge catastrophe and cause way more harm than good. Many of the same reasons removing livestock from the land and placing them in nasty CAFOs are the same reasons removing them completely as a species is fail. The problem is in removing the animals so they can't function and provide the ecosystem services that all animals provide.


Now the ethical thing eto do is to treat them as our farming partner, not abuse them in CAFOs in some insane massive animal abuse program. But the second you go past that and start to advocate removing entire species of domesticated farm animals from the planet, you turn an ethical agenda back into an evil agenda.

So I could support you in a call to end all animal abuse. I could especially support you in a call to end all CAFOs world wide due to them being the worst form of animal abuse. But the second you cross the line and start advocating a vegan agenda, you loose me.

At that point you leave reality and start becoming a tree hugging Bambi watching caricature.

There is a mountain of bare assertions here including that quote.

 

[luchog]

Except for the ones who don't. Going on 9 years of veganism and I'm not dead yet. Cain and mumblethrax have been vegan longer than I have, and they seem very much not dead either.

If you're not taking a vitamin B12 supplement, or eating foods that are fortified with it (nearly everything that's in any way processed), then you're looking at serious neurological problems developing eventually. The problem with diets insufficient in B12 is that the body stores the stuff, and can run off reserves for years after quitting animal products; so most people don't think about it, and don't realize it's a deficiency problem when they start getting symptoms. Particularly as the symptoms are often misdiagnosed as something unrelated.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000574.htm

With the amount of processed/fortified foods most Americans eat, it's unlikely to be a significant issue. Raw-foodist vegans, however, are pretty much guaranteed to suffer from B12 deficiency eventually.

If modern technology makes it easier for people to become vegan and minimize the harm they cause to others, that would be an argument for veganism, not against it.

Only in those places that have adequate and inexpensive access to the technology. Otherwise, veganism is a rich person's game.

Personally, I don't buy into the "meat is murder" nonsense, and don't see any reason to exclude it, even when I was still a vegetarian. I do agree that there's no need for excessive cruelty when raising and butchering animals, and try to avoid eating anything from factory farms (I don't really eat all that much meat even now that I can, I generally prefer fish).

 

[Meed]

If you're not taking a vitamin B12 supplement, or eating foods that are fortified with it (nearly everything that's in any way processed), then you're looking at serious neurological problems developing eventually. The problem with diets insufficient in B12 is that the body stores the stuff, and can run off reserves for years after quitting animal products; so most people don't think about it, and don't realize it's a deficiency problem when they start getting symptoms. Particularly as the symptoms are often misdiagnosed as something unrelated.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000574.htm

With the amount of processed/fortified foods most Americans eat, it's unlikely to be a significant issue. Raw-foodist vegans, however, are pretty much guaranteed to suffer from B12 deficiency eventually.



Only in those places that have adequate and inexpensive access to the technology. Otherwise, veganism is a rich person's game.

If by "rich" you mean something like "non third world", then sure. Otherwise, B12 supplements are very cheap (much cheaper than western animal products). An optimally cheap diet in a country like the US would include little-to-no animal products. Rice, beans and a b12 pill makes for a much cheaper meal than eating animals unless you hunt for your food or something.

Personally, I don't buy into the "meat is murder" nonsense,

"Meat is murder" is a pretty silly slogan. Personally I'd go with "causing needless suffering to animals for selfish reasons is wrong" or something along those lines.

 

[mumblethrax]

It's a curious sort of partnership that ends with a bolt to the brain.

Anyway, gotta take ten years worth of horse vitamins now. Thanks, luchog, you literally saved my life.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

There is a mountain of bare assertions here including that quote.

The quote is from Sir Albert Howard a British scientist sent to India to reform India's agriculture when India was still under colonial rule. His purpose was to oversee the "modernisation" of agriculture there with chemical fertilisers instead of the largely animal manures and similar traditional techniques being used.

But after decades of study, he found that long term, it was unsustainable. Removing the animals and replacing them with chemical manures was destructive to the soil and the ecological foundation of the food web. Ultimately there were parts of the traditional system in India that were far superior to the "modern" artificial manures.

So instead he started studying the traditional methods more closely, and set about removing the culture and religious aspects while keeping those parts that could be verified and reproduced scientifically. His (and his wife) work ultimately resulted in the birth of "organic agriculture" and thus Sir Albert Howard is commonly referred to as the father of organic agriculture. He also worked on a way to properly handle the manure to take advantage of what he found. Thus he invented modern science based composting.

The context of the quote is in relation the the very harmful effects seen in agricultural soils when farm animals are removed from a farming system. In this case he was specifically also talking about how harmful the CAFOs were as well. You end up turning a beneficial and sustainable nutrient cycle into harmful toxic waste. Even shipping that CAFO manure back to the farm is dangerous now because the CAFO manure has a far greater pathogen load.

Now vegans may be happy to eliminate the toxic waste side associated with CAFOs, but they forget that the agricultural nutrient cycles are hugely benefited by having those animals properly raised in the fields and in partnership with the farmer. So eliminating animal cruelty from our farming systems I can get on board with, but eliminating domestic farm animals not so much.

Where Howard was wrong is in underestimating how long it would take for the conventional agriculture system with its chemical fertilisers and unethical CAFO warehouse animal husbandry to fail. I agree with him it will collapse. Impossible to be sustained. But it has survived far longer than he predicted. He failed to understand that societies don't always act in their own best self interest.

 

[luchog]

If by "rich" you mean something like "non third world", then sure. Otherwise, B12 supplements are very cheap (much cheaper than western animal products). An optimally cheap diet in a country like the US would include little-to-no animal products.

It's cheap because of the technology involved; mainly engineering yeast that can produce it in large quantities; then either eating the yeast, or extracting the cobalamin. Prior to that, it would only be available from animal products; or by extracting from animal feces, a far more expensive process.

And yes, by "rich" I mean by the standards of the entire world, including the third-world and developing world. Those of us privileged to live in the developed world are certainly rich by comparison. Veganism is a conceit of those with sufficient privilege and wealth to pursue it. Even by American standards, a purely vegan diet is hardly cheap, and requires a considerable amount of effort to do right.

"Meat is murder" is a pretty silly slogan. Personally I'd go with "causing needless suffering to animals for selfish reasons is wrong" or something along those lines.

It's possible to eat animals without causing needless suffering.

 

[Dani]

I would say that the only moral reason to treat animals well is that it helps condition the mind to treat other people well.

You beat me to it. I was going to mention empathy. Yes, that's the only moral reason I've found so far.

 

[Meed]

It's cheap because of the technology involved; mainly engineering yeast that can produce it in large quantities; then either eating the yeast, or extracting the cobalamin. Prior to that, it would only be available from animal products; or by extracting from animal feces, a far more expensive process.

Indeed, the technology exists, and thus B12 supplements are very cheap.

And yes, by "rich" I mean by the standards of the entire world, including the third-world and developing world. Those of us privileged to live in the developed world are certainly rich by comparison.

Agreed.

Veganism is a conceit of those with sufficient privilege and wealth to pursue it.

It's a conceit? How does that make any sense, and in what way is it an argument? Or is it even supposed to be an argument?

Even by American standards, a purely vegan diet is hardly cheap, and requires a considerable amount of effort to do right.

You're wrong. It can be incredibly cheap to be vegan in America. Pretty much all of the cheapest foods are vegan. The cheapest are flour, beans, rice, lentils and oil. Peanut butter and pasta are also up there. I don't know of any animal products cheaper than these foods. The most expensive part of a cheap vegan diet will be fruits and vegetables, but these are part of an omnivorous diet too

Like I've said if you planned a diet to be as cheap as possible while still being healthy it would contain little-to-no animal products.

Also, it doesn't take a considerable amount of effort unless you obsess over being completely 100% animal product free, which I don't think is necessary. Just cutting out all obvious animal products is all one has to do for starters and then they can scrutinize for the less obvious ones to the extent they see fit. Personally I don't stress over trace ingredients and most of what I eat isn't processed with a bunch of unknown ingredients anyway.

 

[luchog]

You're wrong. It can be incredibly cheap to be vegan in America. Pretty much all of the cheapest foods are vegan. The cheapest are flour, beans, rice, lentils and oil. Peanut butter and pasta are also up there. I don't know of any animal products cheaper than these foods.

And if you only eat those; you're looking at getting deficiency diseases real quick. As for animal products, see below.

The most expensive part of a cheap vegan diet will be fruits and vegetables, but these are part of an omnivorous diet too

True; but with a meat-based diet, it is not necessary to eat as many of these to gain all essential nutrients. Ounce for ounce, meat is higher in complete, bio-available protein than any vegetable source except soy; and higher in many bioavailable essential nutrients, such as iron. Although many vegetables have these in reasonably high concentrations, their lower bioavailability makes it necessary to eat higher quantities more frequently to obtain sufficient amounts of them.

Like I've said if you planned a diet to be as cheap as possible while still being healthy it would contain little-to-no animal products.

Not true. Meat is remarkably cheap in many parts of the US; especially if you avoid the premium cuts. Organ meats in particular are extremely cheap. I can go to the supermarket and pick up a pound of chicken hearts or beef liver for considerably less than it costs me for a pound of peanut butter. Dairy products also tend to be very inexpensive; and cheese is an excellent way to supplement a diet poor in certain amino acids and vitamins.

And for herding cultures with little access to fresh vegetables, meat provides the overwhelming majority of their diet; for little more cost than the work to herd them to forage (and fight off predators); while providing the majority of their essential nutrition (if organ meats are consumed).

Also, it doesn't take a considerable amount of effort unless you obsess over being completely 100% animal product free, which I don't think is necessary.

It is for the vegan diet I was explicitly referring to. If it's not 100% animal free, then it's not vegan, by definition. A vegetarian diet that allows some animal products (particularly dairy and eggs) does not have anywhere near the difficulty of a vegan diet.

Just cutting out all obvious animal products is all one has to do for starters and then they can scrutinize for the less obvious ones to the extent they see fit. Personally I don't stress over trace ingredients and most of what I eat isn't processed with a bunch of unknown ingredients anyway.

Er, no, it's not all one has to do.

There is a lot more effort that goes into even a vegetarian diet; let alone a vegan one. For starters, balancing amino acids is something that a lot of people simply don't think about; but which has to be done with a vegan diet. How many people know how to do that? No vegetable source has a completely balanced amino acid profile and concentration, except soy, and to a lesser extent, amaranth. If you can eat soy, then you're good. If you're allergic, or it's less available in your area, you have to find other options. This can be done with a blend of the right legumes and grains; but even there, you still need to eat two to three times as much of those as you do meat to get the same amount of amino acids.

Then there is iron. Iron is available in many vegetables, primarily dark green vegetables. However, it's also commonly found bound to or in conjunction with other substances that reduce the ability of the human digestive system to absorb it; so far more is needed to achieve a sufficient dietary level.

Many people neglect to do this sort of study; and end up with deficiency disorders. The problem is that these disorders can take a considerable amount of time before they manifest, and the symptoms are often misdiagnosed. For example, depression. This is one of the symptoms not only of vitamin B12 deficiency, but also of vitamin D deficiency (and is one of the major contributing factors to Seasonal Affective Disorder), and iron-deficiency anemia.

There is an old stereotype of vegetarians/vegans as being unhealthy, thin and anemic. This stereotype exists in the West because for a very long time, that was a very common state for adherents of such diets; as people did not understand nutrition well enough to plan and balance their meals. It's still pretty much the case for hardcore raw-foodist vegans. There is no culture in the world where a purely vegan diet has ever existed. Even the strictest vegetarian diets were supplemented by dairy or fish/shellfish; or were considered only short-term restrictions. (That's excluding some of the more nutcase religious proscriptions, which generally didn't last very long, as they tended to kill their adherents if they did.)

These are hardly the only examples; they're simply the most obvious, and most commonly brought up.

As noted, I spent over 20 years as an ovo-lacto vegetarian, predominantly for health reasons; and spent all that time arguing these issues from the pro-vegetarian side (I'm still pretty much pro-vegetarian, I just find as I get older, it's less effective for me, and I'm healthier if I include more animal products). I put in the time and effort from the very start to learn about the nutritional requirements and challenges before I committed to it. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm simply saying that it's not as easy as people are making it out to be; particularly for those who do not live in affluent western cultures.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

The quote is from Sir Albert Howard a British scientist sent to India to reform India's agriculture when India was still under colonial rule. His purpose was to oversee the "modernisation" of agriculture there with chemical fertilisers instead of the largely animal manures and similar traditional techniques being used.

But after decades of study, he found that long term, it was unsustainable. Removing the animals and replacing them with chemical manures was destructive to the soil and the ecological foundation of the food web. Ultimately there were parts of the traditional system in India that were far superior to the "modern" artificial manures.

So instead he started studying the traditional methods more closely, and set about removing the culture and religious aspects while keeping those parts that could be verified and reproduced scientifically. His (and his wife) work ultimately resulted in the birth of "organic agriculture" and thus Sir Albert Howard is commonly referred to as the father of organic agriculture. He also worked on a way to properly handle the manure to take advantage of what he found. Thus he invented modern science based composting.

The context of the quote is in relation the the very harmful effects seen in agricultural soils when farm animals are removed from a farming system. In this case he was specifically also talking about how harmful the CAFOs were as well. You end up turning a beneficial and sustainable nutrient cycle into harmful toxic waste. Even shipping that CAFO manure back to the farm is dangerous now because the CAFO manure has a far greater pathogen load.

Now vegans may be happy to eliminate the toxic waste side associated with CAFOs, but they forget that the agricultural nutrient cycles are hugely benefited by having those animals properly raised in the fields and in partnership with the farmer. So eliminating animal cruelty from our farming systems I can get on board with, but eliminating domestic farm animals not so much.

Where Howard was wrong is in underestimating how long it would take for the conventional agriculture system with its chemical fertilisers and unethical CAFO warehouse animal husbandry to fail. I agree with him it will collapse. Impossible to be sustained. But it has survived far longer than he predicted. He failed to understand that societies don't always act in their own best self interest.

Still waiting on evidence directly related to your claims, beyond name-dropping a near century old, tangentially related botanist.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Still waiting on evidence directly related to your claims, beyond name-dropping a near century old, tangentially related botanist.

Honestly? I didn't reply to you because your radical veganism the last time we discussed an issue was both a put off and made me believe you just are not capable of understanding any information on the issue after it is filtered by your bias.

Possibly I was wrong. I suppose I can send you some information and hope you do have the capability to interpret it. Here is something very simple. Lets see?

The Fertility of North American Soils, 2010

 

[Frozenwolf150]

As for livestock, domesticated animals have been bred to the point that they couldn't exist in the wild.

This is what I was getting at when I was saying that domestic animals, including pets, co-evolved with us. They are the way they are today because we made them that way. Our survival as a burgeoning civilization depended on them, and their survival as species depends on us. Now, they can't live without the basic necessities we provide, and this is true for both pets and livestock animals. The cats I care for wouldn't stand a chance out there in the wild, or out on the streets, where they'd likely be hit by a car, or killed by a larger animal. Livestock animals have no defenses either, and would be unable to fend for themselves if released into the wild.

It's kind of a trade-off for livestock animals to be living with us. On one hand, they're going to be killed for food eventually. They have no freedom and they have to do what we tell them. On the other hand, they have food and shelter, are able to reproduce in large numbers, and are kept relatively safe from diseases and the elements. I don't know. Which is a better survival strategy for a species? Living in the wild, or domestication?

I should mention that some of the cats at our shelter are kept in cages. It's for their own good. Some are crippled due to injury and can't move around a lot. Others prefer or need a separate space of their own because the other cats pick on them. Still others are recovering from surgery or illness. Yes, it restricts their freedom, but it's the more humane solution. The cages are 4' x 5' so they have room to move around, it's standard size as sold by pet stores. We clean them every day, give the cats attention, and let them run around if they want to.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Honestly? I didn't reply to you because your radical veganism the last time we discussed an issue was both a put off and made me believe you just are not capable of understanding any information on the issue after it is filtered by your bias.

So, for anyone else reading this, you have no evidence?

I am "put off" by your devotion to Savory's Holistic Grazing, but I still am asking for evidence for your claims in this thread.

Possibly I was wrong. I suppose I can send you some information and hope you do have the capability to interpret it. Here is something very simple. Lets see?

Here is an internet trophy.

The Fertility of North American Soils, 2010

Right, so I suppose me pointing out that this article doesn't validate your claim makes me stupid and incapable of understanding?

I understand what logical leap you are implying, but this doesn't cut it.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

This is what I was getting at when I was saying that domestic animals, including pets, co-evolved with us. They are the way they are today because we made them that way. Our survival as a burgeoning civilization depended on them, and their survival as species depends on us. Now, they can't live without the basic necessities we provide, and this is true for both pets and livestock animals. The cats I care for wouldn't stand a chance out there in the wild, or out on the streets, where they'd likely be hit by a car, or killed by a larger animal. Livestock animals have no defenses either, and would be unable to fend for themselves if released into the wild.

It's kind of a trade-off for livestock animals to be living with us. On one hand, they're going to be killed for food eventually. They have no freedom and they have to do what we tell them. On the other hand, they have food and shelter, are able to reproduce in large numbers, and are kept relatively safe from diseases and the elements. I don't know. Which is a better survival strategy for a species? Living in the wild, or domestication?

I call this the "social contract" theory of animal ownership. It is silly because the frame of reference is entirely alienated and burdened with assumptions. Is there a moral principle behind maximizing the number of a given species (at the expense of other species)? Is there a moral principle behind any one species qua species continuing to exist? Are there moral obligations or considerations for species qua species? It is sort of like the cousin of the "better to be born and suffer than not be born at all" argument. What is the moral principle behind unborn being judging things?

These are very sketchy territories.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I understand what logical leap you are implying, but this doesn't cut it.

Then perhaps you'd better be more specific about your request of evidence. I gave evidence of my claim. Not proof mind you. No explanation or interpretation at all, logical or not, not stated nor implied. I left it up to you to interpret the evidence, to see if you were capable of such a feat.

It seems you apparently are capable, at least you claim you understand, but suffering from cognitive dissonance because you disagree with your own interpretation?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Then perhaps you'd better be more specific about your request of evidence. I gave evidence of my claim. Not proof mind you. No explanation or interpretation at all, logical or not, not stated nor implied. I left it up to you to interpret the evidence, to see if you were capable of such a feat.

It seems you apparently are capable, at least you claim you understand, but suffering from cognitive dissonance because you disagree with your own interpretation?

So instead of properly establishing your claims, you will continue this lecturing charade?

Fine by me, I am not the one trying to establish your claims.