Comments on South Texas Vegan: Some ramblings

The reason that is a silly argument is because the...

2008-04-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

The reason that is a silly argument is because the VAST majority of food raised intensively in farms is raised for the SOLE purpose of feeding animals. If we quit raising the food to feed animals, we would kill FAR fewer field mice.

With the kind of agriculture we do now, farms have become very dead places. We should all be supporting organic agriculture - but only the kind that attempts to cause less abusive to our farmland.

I think you comments are kool and insightful. Anim...

2008-04-03T12:08:00.000-07:00

I think you comments are kool and insightful. Animals aren't dumb. They don't want to get run over. Tractors don't exactly move at high speeds. I would surprised if very many died. I was talking to a man who does prairie restoration, and he says when you burn the fields, the small animals sense the fire coming and get out of the way. The ones that would die are probably the weak ones or the sick ones. They are probably not the ones that would be good for humans to consume. I don't doubt that many die from the use of pesticides, but then, do you really want to eat those animals? I don't hear anyone getting excited about road kill. Most of those animals are organic. Why aren't people clamoring to harvest those animals? The reality is that most people are uninformed about where their food comes from. I wouldn't be surprised if many thought that meat just appears magically in the grocery store. We don't have to eat animals to survive, so why should we have to worry about justifying that diet? The overwhelming evidence is that eating meat and consuming dairy is not good for your health. If you want to put up road kill, it might be ethical to eat it, but do you really have the guts to do so? Most humans I know are pretty squeamish. Small animals from the farm fields? Most of those are field mice. The death of living creatures are not wasted in nature. Their deaths provide for many creatures who depend on that. There's also the issue of the ethical slope. Small horrors build up to be bigger horrors. A serial killer starts with killing cats and other small animals before working his way up to humans. And why not eat humans killed on farm equipment? Wouldn't their deaths be a waste? From what I understand, there's not much difference in taste between a human being and a pig.

(I hope it's okay that a non-veg - but one who ful...

2008-04-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

(I hope it's okay that a non-veg - but one who fully supports the veg lifestyle and actively encourages people to cut waaaay back on meat and dairy - is commenting so much.)

I'm curious what your response is to people who argue that so many small animals are killed when fields are plowed with big machines, and that's a "waste" of an animal (rather than eating it, it just rots or gets eaten by scavengers), so we might as well eat animals.

I've heard this a lot lately, and I'm always at a loss for how to respond. My argument is mostly that those animals have led good, normal, healthy, cruelty-free lives up until that point, probably suffer a fairly short death, and aren't being intentionally killed or raised to be killed. But no one seems to buy that.

Just curious. Thanks!