These are good points ... this reminds me of why I passed on a deep sea fishing trip last weekend, as fishing, imo, is cruelty to animals....however, I have always struggled with the "respect for all living things" aspect...aren't vegetables and fruit also living things when they are picked/eaten????? "All living things" should not differentiate between animal or plant, should it??.....any opinions??? FWIW, I read somewhere that humans are the only animals that (routinely) share their food with other animals....
basically, we are not able to detect that vegetables (hence the term "vegetable") notice anything happening. i don't think we have a responsibility beyond that which we are aware. but, you can see fear and panic in an animals eyes when it knows it is about to be slaughtered. vegetables and fruits don't squirm and shriek out in pain and try to bite you when you stick a sharp blade in them. also, we have to eat something or else we will die. we can't eat rocks. i am not so much against eating animals if that is required to survive. lions in the wild eat other animals, they can't reasonably get enough sustenance from anything else. look at their teeth, long and sharp for tearing meat. look at ours, just like a rabbit basically, for eating plants. we don't need to kill and eat other animals to survive.
don't be so sure.personally i once saw an apple shake with fear when approached with blade in hand. i am more careful now. i hide the knife behind my back hidden from wary eyes till the very last moment i plunge it deep and forcefully into the hapless fruit's core! a more humane treatment imo. don't ever forget that fruit have feelings too! :-/
I agree on the first part about no need for me to kill other animals... but that doesnt mean we shouldnt eat em, if we find em readily packaged for us in the shops...
Perhaps we could eat rocks, if they weren't too large. I think a well balanced diet could include both plant and rock material. We could all eat FRuiTY PeBBLeS.
Would you use the same reasoning to eat human flesh if it came readily packaged in the shops? (it's only a matter of time)
Ultmately all life derives its nutrition from vegitation. That's why carnivours almost always feast on herbavours, it's an indirect way of getting at plant proteins. So that explains why humans almost always eat herbaviors (chickens, turkeys, and cows) not not carnivours (snakes, lions, vultures, dogs, etc). The few people that do eat catnivours, I bet don't eat them regularly. Doesn't matter now cause almost all food gets engineered and mass produced at factory farms; everything from fruits to animals. You could be eating an apple with implanted cockroach genes and not even know it. The realm of nature is becoming engineered and the realm of the engineered is becoming natural - Kevin Kelly.