veganism: I am not talking about the health aspect of such nutritional approaches, but the ethical aspect of it. Is it right to kill animals for human's benefit? Because we have so many other alternatives to meat.|||Vegan living is a good living. One who believe in it that person is not cursed by animals. Cows are slaughtered, it is inhumane. I hate such persons who eat meat of innocent animals. They are sincere to human beings. I love feeding to animals and enjoy their love and sincerity. Food grow our emotions. Bad emotions grow when We eat bad food. Killing of animals is violent action and eating of meat grows violation in our mind. It is negative feelings.|||I think that's getting to the meat of the matter.|||Different strokes for different folks... I personally LOVE the taste of a yummy piece of rare beef... But I could never personally kill an animal (unless I was stranded on a desolate island, and I had to hunt to keep myself alive, thank u Jesus for the meat department) but people who choose to live the vegan life style I have a lot of respect for. It takes a serious amount of will power, and strength not to compromise ur beliefs for comfort and convienence. Especially since McDonalds is soooooo yummy.|||There is a natural food chain. If you don't eat meat/animal products you've got to take a supplement to get your B12 vitamin. There is a vegan couple in France just jailed for not giving their baby natural B12. The baby died. So, I would say "naturally" we are supposed to eat meat. Now, I think Western societies eat too much eat. But thats just a bad diet choice. When vegans come over all "moral" over their stance, I find that hard to take because, as I have mentioned above, I think we are natural meat eaters.|||Other animals kill each other for their benefit too. We are considered by science to be animals and we are biologically built to eat meat. Is it right to discriminate against plants just because they're not sentient? They're still living, "breathing" things.|||I'm personally into vegan-ism, but I wasn't a born one. If only consuming animals was killing animals, I wouldn't mind so much about it... but these days, to provide animal products to consumers, humans are exploiting animals. That, I feel, is something quite unjustifiable. Animal husbandry wasn't too cruel once upon a time. Killing animals isn't the problem here. It's how we kill them, and why are they killed. Most of the time, animals aren't killed to serve for the purpose of being part of the human diet, they're killed to satiate the lust of humans for meat. There's distinction between the two. One's an average amount of meat, while the other, is excessive killing of animals to get certain part of the animal, for a certain purpose. And then, there's the way the animals are bred, choked with hormones, living without seeing daylight... isn't it just pitiful? Certain animals are so mutated that they can't even function properly. For instance, turkeys are injected with hormones in order for them to develop larger breasts, which leads to a condition where their own legs can't support the massive weight of their body. I find tis' crudeness unbearable. I understand that there is a hunger crisis... but in my opinion, there can be more humane ways for animal husbandry.|||I think that a humane death is ethical under certain circumstances, but the inhumane way which cows are slaughtered is completely unethical. For example, I would allow a cow to be killed under two circumstances: 1. At least half its life is over, or it has experienced the best part of its life. 2. It is killed in a humane and painless way. The question you are asking about the importance of life-forms is a deep one. As selfish as this sounds, I believe that some animals are clearly more important than others. For example, I would have no regrets about stepping on a mosquito and killing it, but I would not want to kill a large, endangered or intelligent animal, since I value those the most. Cows are large, but they are not endangered or intelligent, which is why I support their killings under certain circumstances (as specified above).|||well i only eat fish / Japanese diet etc , found a good quote - To expect the world to treat you fairly because you're a good person, is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you're a vegetarian...|||Well this is one of those touchy issues. My opinion is that an animal life is not at all = to a human life. So I will continue to eat meat. If it were not for the animals human kind would not exist today. Our ancestors did not have alternatives to meat. This is just the food chain. Plus bacon just tastes so darn good. *edit (endangered animals shouldn't be killed either, nor intelligent animals such as whales) wouldn't eat my cat or dog either.|||Most of us buy under the influence of humane myth but there is nothing humane in meat and dairy industries. Free range and organic is to deceive people. And to make it worse there is no labelling of non stun or Halal meat. Taking other life just to appease your taste buds has nothing moral innit. Im practicing and preaching veganism from a long time but what i've found is people go nuts at vegans and claim stupid things. It's true we have alternatives and vegan living is far more healthier but we've to leave it on individual choice. Edit - As you can see some crazy qs that they ask are plants feel pain.....but they don't have nociceptors for that. They aren't evolved to do that. And all going vegan poses no threat to these domesticated species as they are only excessively reared for meat production. Moreover large amount of resources are wasted and land areas for meat production. 3 times more than vegetation requires. So if just Americans cut off their meat we can fees billions of people. But as i said all depends on individual choice.So if just Americans cut off their meat we can fees billions of people. But as i said all depends on individual choice.|||While most humans have a more apparent emotional attachment to their own lives and those of their near and dear ones, there is no doubting that all animals equally value their own lives and that of those of their offspring, and others near and dear to them. It's just not so apparent to us, who live in our comfort zones, and aren't as easily accepting of the harsh realities of life. It is for this reason that we should be more compassionate towards our animal brothers and sisters, particularly the mammals who also feed their young with breast-milk, as we do. Intelligence is a moot point. We simply don't understand the ways of higher animals with more peaceful outlooks than ourselves. I get really frustrated when I see someone mention cows as unintelligent, yet defend their cat or dog which they know more intimately. Cows are beautifully intelligent creatures, and can just as easily respond to human interaction and punishment/reward training as any other creature. They can learn to respond to an individual name, learn complicated routines and tasks, very much develop strong bonds with their herds and young ones, have intricate social positions and so on and so on. All animals do, from birds, to fishes, to insects and every living creature who passes on their knowledge to their young, both through DNA inherited and behaviour learned. Physically, the human is not designed to eat animal flesh. We are forced to rapidly decompose it with heat to kill harmful bacteria and to make it digestible, or suffer the risk of severe food poisoning. Heart disease as a result of animal-derived fats is the greatest killer of modern mankind, and the associated diseases such as bowel-cancer is directly attributed to red-meat consumption, no different from how lung cancer is directly attributed to smoking of tobacco. Our digestive system is long and relatively low in acids compared to meat-eating animals who have digested tracts some one-fifth the length of ours in comparison to body size, with stomach acidic levels some ten times stronger. We are more perfectly designed to be gardeners and fruit pickers than we are hunters and carnivores, though no doubt our success in evolution is our ability to adapt to situations where climate forces us to seek our nutrition through a variety of means especially during lean times. We no longer suffer these limitations. Meat production uses ten times the land and ten times the water that vegation production uses, and super-foods such as certain algaes can reduce the land and water usage rate dramatically more, producing far more nutrition than previously imaginable. Even hemp as a super-food is far under-rated, producing the most nutritious oil for human consumption than any other known, with a myriad of other uses which would replace virtually every other resource known to man (eg, building material, clothing, fuel, paint, plastic, paper, food, etc). The thing is, plants benefit from us consuming them (eg, eat a tomato, pass the seeds through, compost your remains, grown numerous tomato plants), yet animals must die unnecessarily for us to consume them, with no benefit to us or to them. Complex B-vitamins can easily be obtained from many other sources, including algaes and bee products such as royal jelly. Veganism is a little extreme in my view, but is an ideal every human should be striving towards. You simply cannot advance spiritually while your body is being used conspiratorially as a disposal system for murdered animals. When you have no choice, survival takes precedence. When you have a choice, compassion must take precedence, or you cannot be a compassionate person. Ask yourself, would it be okay to kill your neighbours and eat them if you had no choice? Well, if you do have a choice, how is killing our fellow earthlings who do not need to die, in any way, a good thing?|||Animals kill each other as often as humans do. The ways that humans go out and kill animals is offensive, but if you hunt and kill the animal yourself it is only natural.|||I believe if we didn't eat meat we could not feed everyone. We already cant feed everyone and the problem would grow worse. Chickens are valuable comodities in 3rd World countries. But yes eating Vegetables only is healthier. We definately should be eating less meat,whatever your views are.