Vegans and Vegetarians: Would you eat meat if the animals lived in better conditions?

Question

I am all for being nice to animals, but I have a question.

Although this will never happen, would you eat meat if animals lived in good conditions? If they were allowed to roam acres and acres, eat completely natural and organic foods, and they were never killed or slaughtered, they just lead normal lives. If cows weren't forced to produce milk and every animal was always inspected for health problems. No hormones, no steroids, all natural.

Would you still be against eating meat or would you eat it?

Answer 1

Of course I wouldn't eat it!! I'm a vegetarian!

Want more? It wouldn't change the fact that meat is still not a good thing for our bodies. You'd still get all that wonderful long-chain saturated fat and natural trans-fat that clogs our arteries resulting in strokes and heart attacks. Since you seem to indicate that the only source of meat would be animals that died of old age even meat eaters wouldn't be to thrilled about eating these animals since that usually means tough, stringy product. Maybe your idea isn't so bad at all

There are some extreme problems with this concept. Since (per UN data) meat production already uses 30% of all land mass where are you going to be keeping these animals? You're going to be dealing with a LOT more pollution since you'll need a much larger population of animals (since we're waiting for them to die). You're also going to have to drastically ramp up production of grains etc. since these animals will be eating more (longer lives)! Don't forget that per current data animals eat 70% of all crops raised by humans! There's going to be a lot more human starvation with this plan.

This would also mean faster global climate change since more animals lead to higher emissions of methane and NOx.

I'm not picking on you; I just wanted to (hopefully) make you realize that there are many more problems with meat than cruelty! It's a health issue, the major source of water pollution, a major source of air pollution and a ridiculously in-efficient source of 'food'.

Answer 2

Actually a lot fo GOOD organic farms have this opportunity. One organic valley farm I personally visited had 25 cows and over 100 acres of land. The cows were milk cows, and never recieved hormones. A cow naturally produces enough milk to nurse 4 calves and so the calves are allowed to nurse whenever they feel, and the cows are still milked.
However being a vegetarian you make the choice to drink milk.
Vegans do not, no matter the living conditions.
Eatting meat however, I would never do no matter the living conditions. Just as I would not murder a human and chow down I would not do that to an animal.

Answer 3

Good question. I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian but I don't think animals should suffer when farmed. I guess a lot of people who don't eat meat is because of health reasons, so that excludes their opinion. The other half or just dead against killing other animals (do plants have less rights or something?), so they won't eat meat whether the conditions are better or not.

A question worth expoloring though.

Answer 4

Great question!!

First of all, I became a vegetarian for health reasons, the animal welfare issue grew from there.

I am a survivalist, meaning if it came down to eating meat or dying, I would eat meat. I am competitive, and would love to be on a reality program, the Amazing Race to let you know which one would be my first choice. I know they often ask the contestants to eat meat. I wouldn't for the money, but I would to win, that is my competitive nature.

But, do I miss meat, not at all. Would I go back to it if conditions changed, NO NO NO.

Again, I did it for health reasons, but welfare issues do support my decisions. And I have worked to improve conditions of animals in America.

Answer 5

I'm an Octo-vegetarian(still eat cheese and drink milk), and the only way i would eat meat is if I had no other choice. It was my death or the creatures. Pretty much society would have to crumble(i.e., no way of procuring any other food), for me to partake. I would just like to say that these animals though are raised to fuel society, and if these animals were set free they would die quickly from real predators, or they would overpopulate, and kill the environment(deforestation, erosion). also organic foods are not that safe to eat, because many of the chemicals you will be missing were in place to protect against bacteria and viruses that our bodies were not built to protect against. These allow us to live.

Answer 6

The answer to the question is no.
By the way, there's no way to
get meat unless it has been
slaughtered ,unless you're talking
about the laboratory grown meat
that scientists are working on now.
I wouldn't eat that meat either.

Answer 7

Yet another 'good question,' and another 'no,' here.

It'd still look gross. I -- no offence to the meat-eaters -- have never been able to distinguish much between a steak and roadkill, at least not beyond a few sanitation issues.

It smells bad, and the texture looks entirely un-food-like. Again: to me.

Answer 8

No my fiance would still NOT eat meat. He does not care about the animals he just hates the taste of all meat, seriously so he stopped eating meat. He will hunt it, kill it, and/or cook it but he wont eat it himself.

Answer 9

nope, it's still flesh, even if the animals were treated well and died of natural causes. i wouldn't hate the meat & fast food industries as much, but i could never eat meat myself.

Answer 10

i was raised a vegetarian, and choose to stay one. even with these measures, i would continue my way of life cause your still harming the animal, whatever conditions it used to be in, but also cause i just dont really see the point of eating meat, its not necessary for survival