When people hear that I am a vegetarian, they always tell me that if animals weren't killed for food then there would be to many animals just roaming around. That the world would be overpopulated with farm animals. And my response is: "Well, not really because they wouldn't be over-bred." Shit, people over-populate the world but we don't kill each other for food. That would be murder, right? So why do people justify meat eating with 'the world would be over-populated if animals weren't slaughtered'? I don't look down on meat eaters at all, I used to be one. But I never once muttered that annoying phrase. It fuckin' drives me crazy when people say that.
I know, people seem to think that the earth cannot balance itself out. I was talking to this kid about hunting deer, and he says, "We have to hunt the deer because the wolves are'nt here to kill them". How does that justify killing deer? If we were'nt eating cow, we woulding have to kill the wolves, and if we did'nt have to kill the wolves, we would'nt have to kill the deer.
No one has told me anything like that, but it does get on my nerves when one of my friends mocks vegetarians who have concern for the animals.
It's a common argument, but it makes no sense and does not stand up to scrutiny. Most factory farm animals' breeding scedules are highly regimented, with a large percentage of them bred by artificial insemination. The modern turkey is no longer even capable of natural mating. It has been bred to have such an overload of meat, it cannot breed and every turkey must be hatched via artificial insemination. If demand for meat went down, producers would simply breed, buy, and auction fewer animals. As far as exasperating comments go, "pigs will take over" is right "up" there with old standards like "you're mean to carrots." But, people don't typically say these things because they truly want to have an intelligent discussion.
So true. It's more a case of "if I make a big enough idiot of myself, I wonder if it will annoy you". Just laugh at them. Reasoning's a waste of time under those circumstances.
I think it probalby is true to say however, that if there were to be a sudden meat boycott, that there would be a lot of meat that would be killed for no good reason. I think if there is to be a large scale societal shift to vegetarian, then it needs to be a gradual process. but prima facie, that argument about the farm animals, is bullshit
I remember one person saying hunting helps the enviroment. I wanted to laugh, does this mean the enviroment was crumbling because humans decided to murder things??
I used to get that all the time. It used to kinda bother me but when I hear that I just let go. I used to eat meat and I had a friend that was a vegatarian and I said that to her. We used to fight about it all the time but now that I no longer eat meat, I totally understand where she was coming from. People are gonna say what they wanna say, its all good though.
I've had that a few times, most recently from a very arrogant aquantance. Not sure which was more annoying, the statement itself or that he didn't let me answer (he's like that over everything) If people didn't insist on raising animals for meat they wouldn't exist in such ridiculous numbers and it wouldn't be problem. In the hypothetical scenario that everyone went veggie, it would be a gradual process. Thus the number of animals would reduce gradually as the demand dropped off. That's my answer and I'm sticking by it
Yeah i get that - some people are genuinley scared that cows will start to dominate the food chain - I feel more soirry for them than anything else. The ones that are just being mean suck though - The ones that feel the need to trivialise any vegetarian argument by making it seem ridiculous. Who knows, maybe they feel that their normalness is threatend...but they suck anyway, you can't even start to have an intelligent conversation with them.
LOL! this over-load of farm animals exists merely because of the reason that humans decided to "produce" tons of meat to cover the entire consumption-induced demand of the western world ... some people just don´t think nature is always in balance, as long as there´s no disturbing interference (and what people fail to acknowledge is that we as humans are part of the cycle as well..you can´t dominate a cycle) which means..if there are enough wolves you don´t need people to slaughter deer...because nature is taking care of itself (the old "live and let die" principle), what is weak or "too much" will be killed, it´s all part of it... it´s not quite the same as human beings acting if they would be "needed" in the *natural* killing of cows, pigs etc ..because the amounts of these animals weren´t *natural* in the first place i´m not against eating meat if you hunt it yourself on a small scale and only take what is necessary (although i think that i wouldn´t do that either, but that´s personal choice), but the way it´s going now.......it´s not even breeding or hunting anymore, the word that comes to mind is PRODUCTION (the same goes actually with domestic animals...think of all the cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits etc that are bred to such an extent that they live a short life that ends with some disease like cancer that´s related to their weak genetics) still...at the same time as i´m writing this rain forest is being cut down to make farmland for cattle somewhere in brazil or chile...to make CAT FOOD for the western world and the people there don´t have enough to eat themselves this "meat problem" goes so much further than just being a 13-year-old girl wanting to rebel against her parents´eating habits and not wanting to eat what was formerly a cute cow with big eyes i´ve read the earth would have enough resources to feed twice the global population we have now (12 billion people!), it´s just a question of distribution and balance...
I find it strange that people - especially ones that have gotten far enough to stop eating meat - still like to generalize the public. I also think it's strange that you would even take the time to endulge such an objection. I mean, it's obvious to me (and it seems to you as well) that someone who said, "there would be too many animals... blah blah blah..." as a rebuttal to vegetarianism - quite frankly - doesn't have a fucking clue. A reply? Hmm... I wouldn't waste the time love. Participate in this moment... what they don't know, won't hurt you. luvin'
Yes people have said this to me. However, even if the world suddenly did become vegetarian / vegan, the animals would not necessarily 'take over', nor would they have to be killed. Surely the animals that were in farms could be kept in seccure places and cared for until they naturally die, but without being allowed to mate. Therefore, the animals in captivity would die out eventually (over the next 20 years or something?) and then the only animals surviving would be those in the wild; and there are not too many animals in the wild, because they are controlled by nature (foodchains and starvation etc).
