I personally do not eat meat because of it involves *killing* sentient beings, often, if not always, through painful means. The important thing is not that “life is valuable,” but rather that causing pain and suffering to those beings that have interests and subjective experiences is wrong.

As for the argument (that I think “The Vegetarian Myth” is making) that eating vegetarian is bad when it involves unsustainable methods of procurement like shipping long distances–well, there are multiple concerns when choosing what to eat, and while sustainability is one of them, morals (at least to us vegetarians) is another.

@Emma, the important difference between causing pain and killing sentient animals (e.g., mammals) versus plants is that the animals can feel pain and do not want to die. That is, the animals have interests, and those interests are to *not die.* The same cannot be said about plants.

@Michael, regarding the quote: “They have very very good lives and one very bad day” — would you say that about a human experiencing something similar? Let’s say someone who dies because of a bomb dropped from an airplane; “Oh well, they had a wonderful life but just had one bad day!” I think not.

“American Lambs are raised on natural grasses in lush pastures across the country and are free of artificial growth hormones. Most lamb produced east of the Mississippi River is not grain fed, because producers have access to high-quality natural resources. Some western American Lambs are big enough right off the range, but most lamb produced west of the Mississippi River is finished on a high quality diet of corn and alfalfa. The grain finishing creates a consistent and delicious flavor that American consumers prefer.”

…which leaves me with various contradictory pictures.

I like Joel Salatin’s lines about his pigs: “They have very very good lives and one very bad day.” When you consider the existence of most [h]umanimal
life on the planet, that’s a pretty good trade-off.

Looking forward to seeing Jamie Lionette at the Forum. Without him, I wouldn’t be eating my two pound of pork per month during the winter.

Off to look up the Boston Lamb Takedown…

Yes — responsible carnivorism. Which, I think, necessarily should reject events with names like The Boston Lamb Takedown. (We got an email recently, asking us to promote this.)

@Emma: I hope you weren’t thinking *we’re* buying strawberries in February! And totally agreed that in industrial ag, the victims are just as often humans as they are animals.

Buying a whole cow makes sense to me. Eating a turkey just at Thanksgiving makes sense to me. The Boston Lamb Takedown totally grosses me out.

A couple of things jumped out at me.

We all die. So isn’t it more that farm animals are being raised to be killed? I know I’ve read sentiments like this before, but had never thought about how euphemistic it is. I think a movement to responsible carnivorism rests in part on eliminating euphemisms.

The other thing that jumped out is an old peeve of mine: “the value of life.” Almost invariably, this is used to mean “the value of animal life” or “the value of lives that are like my own.” Of *course* life has value (and is sacred, even); but we eat plant matter with few moral qualms. We even eat *still alive* plant matter on a regular basis. Just another place where euphemism, perhaps, obscures a more complicated picture where some life is okay to consume and other life is not. The question, as always, is where to draw the line.