There is a solution to the problem outlined by BB in his post. My spouse and I have been vegan for about twenty years. We still have a wonderful Thanksgiving with all sorts of the usual goodies (pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.), but we prepare the vegan versions of them. This year, we're cooking a Tofurkey roast as well as a similar one from Gardein:
Is the flavor exactly the same as actual turkey meat? No, but the difference isn't huge, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you're not participating in the exploitation of animals.
The best thing you can do to help animals is to go vegan.
One reason to consider no longer breeding these grossly oversized animals would be just to encourage people to lower their portion sizes, given the obesity epidemic..
Eating meat is unethical, but so is the consumption of other animal products (fish, dairy, eggs, leather, wool, etc.). There is more cruelty in a glass of milk than there is in a steak.
Dairy cows are treated quite horribly and are "raped" in a way that's analogous to the procedure you described for turkeys. And the dairy cows are eventually sent to slaughter. Calculating the specific cruelty involved is somewhat arbitrary and subject to interpretation.
While it does NOT mean that the dairy industry is overall less cruel I definitely assert that there is far more cruelty in a meal of chicken than in a glass of milk. Like orders of magnitude more.
I think it is super important to recognize that different animal products are correlated with different amount of harm. Sure, we cannot reach a perfect precision in such matter, but we can say way more than "it is arbitrary, everyone can put their own interpretation.
(I think the author already wrote on the topic; I also remember an academic article trying to quantify it according to different moral systems)
Yes, I agree that they're treated quite badly. But over the course of a person's life, they'll eat many times more cows worth of beef than dairy, meaning they cause in total less cruelty.
And there is a critical aspect here: they are so massively productive in terms of animal protein that there is much room for improvement of their life conditions without puting the product out of reach for the consumers.
Eggs can be morally immaculate (in a way dairy cannot be: you need to sacrifice the calf), but moral eggs are bound to be extremely expensive. Dairy can be affordable and not very cruel.
I find it disturbing that Peter Singer would willingly participate in the brutalization that he described in his book. Yes, it's disturbing but not particularly surprising, given the problems with Singer's views on animals. See, for example:
I was referring to the horrible acts that Singer described in his earlier book, "The Way We Eat" (from 2006), when he spent time working on a turkey farm. In any case, the larger point is that Singer has all sorts of very problematic views on animals. It's a mystery to me why he seems to be regarded as "the father of animal rights".
There is a solution to the problem outlined by BB in his post. My spouse and I have been vegan for about twenty years. We still have a wonderful Thanksgiving with all sorts of the usual goodies (pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.), but we prepare the vegan versions of them. This year, we're cooking a Tofurkey roast as well as a similar one from Gardein:
https://www.gardein.com/chickn-and-turky/classics/turky-roast
Is the flavor exactly the same as actual turkey meat? No, but the difference isn't huge, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you're not participating in the exploitation of animals.
The best thing you can do to help animals is to go vegan.
One reason to consider no longer breeding these grossly oversized animals would be just to encourage people to lower their portion sizes, given the obesity epidemic..
Not only is eating meat unhealthy, it’s also unethical.
Correction: not only is eating meat unethical, it’s also unhealthy.
You’re right.
Eating meat is unethical, but so is the consumption of other animal products (fish, dairy, eggs, leather, wool, etc.). There is more cruelty in a glass of milk than there is in a steak.
I think eggs are worse than steak but dairy is better because cows produce a lot of milk, so the marginal contribution is less great.
Dairy cows are treated quite horribly and are "raped" in a way that's analogous to the procedure you described for turkeys. And the dairy cows are eventually sent to slaughter. Calculating the specific cruelty involved is somewhat arbitrary and subject to interpretation.
We can definitely make some non-arbitrary and informed estimation.
For example, the killing of one broiler chicken leads to an amount of meat that can be consumed in one meal ; whereas it is estimated that one cow produces 200 000 cups of milk (https://thehumaneleague.org/article/how-much-milk-does-a-cow-produce) in a lifetime.
While it does NOT mean that the dairy industry is overall less cruel I definitely assert that there is far more cruelty in a meal of chicken than in a glass of milk. Like orders of magnitude more.
I think it is super important to recognize that different animal products are correlated with different amount of harm. Sure, we cannot reach a perfect precision in such matter, but we can say way more than "it is arbitrary, everyone can put their own interpretation.
(I think the author already wrote on the topic; I also remember an academic article trying to quantify it according to different moral systems)
The article I was talking about.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-012-9402-x
Yes, I agree that they're treated quite badly. But over the course of a person's life, they'll eat many times more cows worth of beef than dairy, meaning they cause in total less cruelty.
And there is a critical aspect here: they are so massively productive in terms of animal protein that there is much room for improvement of their life conditions without puting the product out of reach for the consumers.
Eggs can be morally immaculate (in a way dairy cannot be: you need to sacrifice the calf), but moral eggs are bound to be extremely expensive. Dairy can be affordable and not very cruel.
I find it disturbing that Peter Singer would willingly participate in the brutalization that he described in his book. Yes, it's disturbing but not particularly surprising, given the problems with Singer's views on animals. See, for example:
https://x.com/garylfrancione/status/1722467615522664808
The sort of thing Singer discussed there was very different from the things he discussed in his book.
I was referring to the horrible acts that Singer described in his earlier book, "The Way We Eat" (from 2006), when he spent time working on a turkey farm. In any case, the larger point is that Singer has all sorts of very problematic views on animals. It's a mystery to me why he seems to be regarded as "the father of animal rights".
Perhaps because he largely kickstarted the animal rights movement.
He doesn't believe in rights.
He believes in legal rights!
More eye-opening information about Peter Singer: https://www.abolitionistapproach.com/media/pdf/abolitionist-online-200607.pdf