Know that I'm not trying to "convert" any of you to veganism; it's a choice that I am making for myself. It is something that feels like home to me. If I post a bunch about it, it's not me trying to change you, it's me sharing things that are interesting to me. If you're not interested in it, don't read it.
I do understand that most of you are happy eating meat, etc., but I have pretty much always felt different about eating meat than everyone I knew and have known. To me, it's gross. I don't understand it.
Here's some other things I don't understand:
I don't understand the line between animal abuse and animal production. Why is it that Mitt Romney got bad press for driving with his dog on the roof of his car, but it is okay for animals to be driven on long trips in open-air trucks? (c'mon, you've all seen those trucks!)
I don't see why people are grossed out when a dog eats feces, but most livestock is fed chicken feces and rendered animals of all sorts, and that's okay.
I don't understand why it's cruel to euthanize stray cats and dogs, but it's okay to eat meat from animals that only lived a short portion of their natural life span. (Cows live something like 20 years naturally; dairy cattle are slaughtered for beef when they stop "producing", somewhere around five years of age.)
I don't understand why we respect the lives of some animals, but not others. Why do we cremate our pets when they die, but barbeque cows when they are dead?
I don't understand why "conscious meat eating" is okay. So what if someone whispered sweet nothings in the cow's ear, or gave it a massage once in a while, or played music while it roamed open fields. Did that steak die of natural causes? Probably not. It was was still killed ahead of it time.
I don't understand why people drink milk. Milk is made by mammals to feed babies. It's made to grow things, and grow them big. Cow's don't just magically give milk, just like how I don't just naturally lactate. I've never had a baby, so I don't lactate. Cows have to have babies so that they produce milk. What happens to the babies? Ever heard of veal?
I don't understand these things. They just don't make sense.
So I looked for another option and found it. Being vegan is a way that I can live in a way that makes sense to me. I understand it. It doesn't hurt me emotionally to eat this way.
If you don't feel like I do, then go ahead and eat that meat. Please just understand that this is what I feel is best for myself and for the animals. And, heck, if I help the planet to boot, that's just awesome.
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3 comments:
After eight years of being more or less a vegetarian, one thing that I still find completely baffling is the response from people.
Either they feel the need to tell me that they would be a vegetarian except they just love meat so much, or they make fun of my food.
Maybe it's just how I was raised but I find the second response really rude. If I did something like that, my mom would tell me to watch what's on my plate and not on somebody else's.
The first response just kind of makes me shrug.
Also, I've done animal experimentation and I'm not very sentimental about animals so I think that doesn't really jive with people as far as what a vegetarian should be. But cruelty is cruelty and factory farming is unequivocally cruel.
Anyway, good luck with things!
i know you're not trying to convert us, and i'm not trying to argue with you. just respond to your questions. and even ask a few of my own.
the willard romney question is a good one. i only barely heard that there was something about, so i'd love to know more about that one (well, if i really cared to know more about quit romney).
i'm grossed out that animals are fed other animals as part of feed. and even though this is illegal, it happens. and then we get mad cow.
i'm fine euthanizing stray dogs and cats. and, i'm also fine spaying/neutering feral cats and dogs.
why do we respect some sorts of animals? well, you're going to have to go back through a lot of cultural history. why do hindu's cherish the cows we eat? why do jews detest pigs? why do we allow dogs to sleep in our beds?
i don't drink milk. i do eat cheese. and, on rare occasions, ice cream. but, the milk, i stopped drinking because yeah, it's intended for baby cows. just like human breast milk is intended for human babies. we stop drinking breast milk @ some point. baby cows do too. as for calcium, which is always touted as a reason to drink milk, i eat broccoli.
here's my question, why do many vegatarian foods try taste just like their non-veg counterparts? i know eleanor got a bit upset one time @ a barbecue when nick and i were reading the ingredients of some veg dogs. one of the ingredients was liquid smoke or something to that effect. to me, it just seemed like a strange ingredient with a goofy name.
Thank you both for your responses!
Ed- a few answers and thoughts in return:
-Romney put his dog in a carrier, strapped it to the roof of the car, and drove. Theres more, but that much is enough to guess why that's an issue.
-Actually, it's only against the law to feed cows rendered remains of cows. So, cows aren't supposed to eat cows. It is, however, routine and legal for animals to be rendered and fed to other animals. Take a look at Mrs. Puddles' food. If there's something call "animal by-product", it can be from any animal out there, including euthanized shelter animals, which are routinely sold to rendering plants and rendered along with all the other stuff. Recap: cow, not cannibals. Pets: cannibals. Oh, and there is growing amounts of evidence that Mad Cow is able to cross the "species barrier", so even the law against cannibalism in cows is fairly useless.
-Broccoli is good, eh? I love it.
-About the taste thing. I think companies create "replacement" foods as a way to satiate consumers who don't know how else to eat. It's comforting, I suppose. Personally, I don't much like the stuff like "smart" dogs and such. I try to focus on food that are diverse and interesting, and for the most part, it doesn't include all the over-processed "smart" fakey foods. Same thing with "liquid smoke". I've seen it in recipes and have heard people rave about it, but I'll pass for now. If you're interested in what I eat, I'll run a few posts about the food I'm making. Other than cookies, which I've already posted.
I think that's it for now.
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