Don Miguelo, read this article: *http://www.mercola.com/Article/diet/former_vegan.htm*

I will never understand how people can say being vegan is selfish. Sure, it has AMAZING health benefits but its so much more than that, atleast for me. Also, You say we can only help animals by eating them??? Im sorry, but that statememt is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. While eating organic, free range meat is a slightly better alternative to the slaughter house ecoli burgers filling up the shelves, you are still responsible for the death of that animal. I believe, Unless the animal is sick and being put out of its misery.. there is no humane reason/way to slaughter an animal.
PS- I had no clue the spartans were vegans. My grandfather was from Spartsi and in all the stories I heard I never knew that. Very cool!!

I think Georgina put it pretty well into a nutshell for ya Claire. I just wanted to add my own 2 cents. Can I just say that before your post, no one was being a holier than thou vegan? Maybe my 1st post was a little edgy, but I even said I was “not trying o be a jerk”, just refuting suspect information. And a more informed discussion occurred after that, so everybody wins. Now, You said that:

“Vegans aren’t actually helping animals with their selfish behaviour.” That’s an interesting opinion, a little counterintuitive, but ok, I’ll bite. Hey how are vegans selfish by nature?! Ouch!

“Not eating meat means the farmer try to screw every last drop of profit from the animals. This does not lead to better farming or welfare practices.” Farmer? What’s a farmer? Oh you are talking about small farms? Non-meat eaters are talking about CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) primarily. An estimated 54% of livestock in the U.S. are now confined to just 5% of livestock farms.
– http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/rural-heritage/additional-resources/CAFO-Fact-Sheet_Oct08.pdf — But ok you did say Vegans specifically. So you’re talking about at most 1.3% of the US population, and 2% of the UK population (from Wikipedia, topic: Veganism). And somehow that very low number forces CAFOs and local farms, for economic survival reasons, to get all crazy with their processing and hurt the animals more? Like they haven’t already extracted and pushed every boundary possible to maximize profits, it’s Vegans that force them over the edge into inhumane practices? That would certainly be ironic, but it’s simply not probable.

“You want to help the animals you need to eat them but only eat organic meat from farmers who care.” OK eating Organic I can agree with. Pulling that out of your statement was hard because, again, it’s counterintuitive to say that to help something, kill and eat it. Wanna help children? Kill and eat them, that will support the toy industry around them! If you don’t eat kids, people won’t make more and thus will need less toys, which economically hurts the toy industry!! That’s a clearly flawed argument. The term ‘Organic’? That translates into dairy and egg products are required to show that the animals be fed Organic feed, but it doesn’t prohibit cruel treatment such as mutilations without painkillers, intensive confinement or separation of mother and young. But you did say from farmers who care, so if you can find them, that would be slightly better. Yes, vegans think that using animals as a commodity is fundamentaly wrong. So even “better” farming isn’t going to change their minds.

“And don’t start with the we all become vegans rubbish cos that would mean the genocide of domesticated animals. I am sure if they would speak they would say a short happy life is better than no life at all.” That assumes that Vegans (all 1.3% of them) would have the power tell the country what to do with it’s animals, should this magical event happen in which we all suddenly become vegan. Even if they did, I’m certain they would not allow a genocide as you say, it would be a staggered population reduction and a filtering back to normal circle of life patterns. It’s telling to me that you call it genocide if vegans hypothetically destroyed all livestock animals, but when death happens to a large portion of them on a cyclical basis in reality by CAFOs, that’s just us eating them (and somehow not genocide). As georgina pointed out, what’s so ‘happy’ about their short life, exactly? I personaly think it would be better to die free than to live as a product in a cage for 1/4 my normal life span, but that’s just me.

“And Hugh only said he MIGHT become vegan as he was promoting a friends book.” True enough. He is trying to provide a healthy example for his kids, rather than appearing solely carnivorous.

“He admits himself he is a whore and will say and do anything that is required in his job.” I missed that quote but leave Mr. Jackman to defend himself on that. I don’t think he’s exactly Glenn Beck or The Situation about it though, maybe he meant that more tongue in cheek. It’s not like he needs the money, I’m sure.

Claire touched on a critical distinction that was a bit obscured in her original comment but deserves to be expanded on: there is a major difference between personal morality and societal change.

We touch on this enough in fisheries to give it a name – supply side conservation. Consider this – if everyone who cared deeply and passionately about animal welfare and environmental justice took the stance that you must give up meat completely, then all the social and economic pressure to produce organic, sustainable, free-range, well-loved, or whatever criteria you use to define better farming and husbandry practices would disappear. If this was a large enough subset of the population, then it factory farming would cease to exist, but the reality is, there’s significantly less people willing to totally give up meat consumption then there are demanding meat uncritically. That’s what makes it a personal, moral choice. There’s very little valid argument that can be made against an individual giving up meat.

Yet, from the standpoint of someone trying to manifest major societal changes, removing the very people who would be putting pressure on the industry to improve it’s practices is the worst solution. Why? Because while most people aren’t willing to give up meat completely, they are willing to demand animals be treated more humanely. Ask yourself this, what reduces suffering more – 10% of people going vegan, or 50% of people reducing their meat consumption by 20% and demanding more humanely treated meat. These numbers are totally made up, but which do you think is a more likely outcome? Now, you could argue that there’s no such thing as humane meat eating, and that’s an unassailable position to hold, but that’s a personal moral choice, and unless you can get everyone to agree with you, it’s not one that has a significant impact beyond your own well-being.

That may be where the “selfish” comment came from, but there’s nothing wrong with acting in your own self interest on issues. If you think veganism is the right thing for you to do, then kudos and I’ll gladly buy you a wheat beer from the organic brewery up the street, but if you goal is to manifest a major change in your community/country/society, it’s important to realize that telling people they have to go vegan or they’re horrible is not going to work.

Vegan- and vegitarianism, as a movement to change the way farm animals are treated, is essentially a boycott, and boycotts only work with a critical mass participation. The 1.3% and 2% quoted above are simply not adequate.

If you want to read more about supply side conservation as it applies to fisheries, see this: http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=4448