It bothers me that the person who started this thread has as his avatar a cat poking its head through a really tiny hole from what seems to be a very dark place. Also that he's not yet explained why he asked the question. OP: why did you ask the question?

Oof, that's Ceiling Cat. And Ceiling Cat is always watching you. Plus, that's actually a hole in the wall a cat was peering through, not animal abuse if that's what you're getting at.

Yes, yes, I get that. But that combined with the question really freaks me out.

So doing so so that you have meat that is not genetically engineered nor given antibiotics or hormones or so that it can live a mostly free life is not a good reason? You do realize someone must kill those cattle at the slaughter house right? You think having someone do it for you somehow makes you more civilized?

You think stock yards and slaughter houses and mass production is more classy than going out and finding a moose and taking responsibility for what you eat? I'm sorry but I just don't see that at all.

What makes meat killed by others and wrapped in little see through packages classy pray tell?

Edit: To re-phrase, look up information or videos on the meat industry conditions for animals and then tell me if you still think it's the "classy option".

Dalek, you are so far left of... Wild fauna has had a better life than anything most supermarkets will provide to you. Hunting is still far more humane than 95% 99.5% of what "classy" meat has to experience before it reaches your mouth.

I blame the meat is murder fluff

My cat caught a bird and left it there without killing it. I had to kill the bird, since it couldn't fly anymore and was bleeding... I felt horrible.
I accidentally killed a mouse by stepping on it when my cat was chasing it while I was working in my backyard.

I've seen videos on how the animals are treated before slaughter, which I agree is very inhumane. I also see where you guys are getting at as to say hunting animals in the wild rather than buying them from markets allows them to have a more free life.

What no one is grasping is, it is technically more "humane" to eat an already beaten, slaughtered animal that is in a package at a store than to remove yet ANOTHER animal from existence. The options are take what there is or take something new. Taking something new will have double the negative effect because BOTH animals died. It's not about how they died.

You guys think I'm preaching animal rights, I'm not. I'm saying that it makes more sense to eat something already dead and ready to buy than to kill a new one. That just removes more from existence all together.

There's a very good chance someone is going to buy that packet of mince you didn't.

the pretty blue bow?

Bah, mice are pests that need to be exterminated. Hate the little varmints with a passion and the same goes for rats. Live near a canol and whenever they dredge the thing we get inundated with them no matter how many times I patch things up to keep them out. Just glad the ones near me are susceptible to that rat poison unlike the ones in New York City.

But what you're missing is that, by purchasing and eating an animal that has already been beaten and slaughtered, you are supporting the practice. If everyone stopped buying meat from the store and instead hunted for their own food, the meat industry would no longer be sustainable and would thus stop beating and slaughtering animals. And yes, I think it is about how they died, especially when you're talking about "classy" versus "barbaric" means of killing animals.

I once was fishing with my dad, and he was telling me that I need to set the hook harder (setting the hook is when you jerk the rod upward a bit to get the hook in the fishes mouth).

So, the next time I felt a nibble, I pulled the rod up so hard it yanked the fish out of the water and sent it flying all 20+ feet back onto shore.
Being very young, and therefore not to sympathetic to the poor thing, I laughed so hard my dad had to unhook the fish and put it back for me.

Good times!

Oh yes. I don't do it deliberately by the way O_o



I'm sorry, but your argument is horribly flawed. DISCLAIMER: What I'm about to say is in no way meant as an insult to anyone who buys store bought meat. Nor am I trying to convince people to do anything or to change their purchasing or eating habits. I don't want to start arguments or anything, just put across a point that is going to seem confrontational, for which I apologize.

There is absolutely NOTHING barbaric about choosing to hunt your own meat. I can not in any way ever see how buying meat from stores is a preferable choice. Lets start with the origin. These animals often come from cramped conditions. They are filled with antibiotics and hormones to kill disease and promote growth. They are not allowed to move or act freely and naturally. Animals such as pigs are often confined to tiny crates and are proven to suffer depression and other disorders from being denied social contact. Then there is the case of veal calves. I don't even need to touch on that. From there, they are loaded into transport trucks and may often have to travel for days without food or water. They may also experience injury during transport. From there, they are herded into a slaughterhouse filled with the smell of death, and they are stunned, not killed. From there they have their throats slit and are in many cases skinned alive. There is video documentation of this happening. From there, they are packaged and sent off to supermarkets. Not all parts of the animal are used, and there is a lot of wasted meat that never gets used.

Hunting your own animals for food, however, often involves selecting an animal that has lived freely and naturally, and ending it's life immediately- unless you're a bad aim- then, most hunters will make use of as much meat as possible. Some hunters will waste some parts of the animal, but they have also probably secured enough meat to feed them for a considerable amount of time, reducing the need to continually kill animals for various parts. My father gives any unwanted bits to our dogs, thus reducing waste even further.

And to suggest that anyone could hunt due to laziness makes NO SENSE. Store bought meat entails hopping into your car, walking into a supermarket, selecting a pack of meat, and walking out. Hunting involves carrying a gun and a pack, possibly for quite a distance, for some amount of the day (depending on how populated with game your area is) then having to transport the carcass back to where you will skin and gut it, or skinning and gutting it there and lugging a bleeding carcass back home. Some people use motorbikes or horses to transport animals, some will carry a deer carcass all the way out of the forest. Then there's the act of actually processing the meat yourself into all the various parts that you will keep, or discard.

Now explain to me how the latter could be a lazy option? Which is really barbaric?

The less meat people buy from stores, the less demand there is for mass production of meat. Simple. Food production works on supply and demand. More demand = more supply. Less demand = less supply. Less animals slaughtered in cruel (sorry) conditions, more animals slaughtered swiftly, humanely, having lived naturally. It's also much healthier as you are not consuming the antibiotics and hormones that are often used in non-organic meat.

The thing is, there is nothing anyone can do to officially stop this animal abuse from meat production companies, so we may as well get with the program instead of killing our own stuff.

If a meat company is producing meat and more people start hunting their own food, then that is just double the amount of animals being killed. Like I said, it's not about how they're getting killed, I'm not preaching animal rights. Of course, I'm aware of the fact that they are in horrid conditions but the real question, despite how insensitive or ignorant it may sound, is so what? There is nothing we can do about the harm coming to these animals. The world isn't just going to change it's mind all at once one day and cripple the meat industry. No. It will be around forever and we cannot stop it by hunting our own things. The best we can do is get with the program and eat what they have instead of just adding to the amount of dead animals.

Sure, if you don't buy it, someone else will, but that doesn't go the same for hunting. "If you don't hunt it, someone else will." isn't the same in an economic sense.

Then there are those who can't hunt their own food. Some of you seem to be critiquing those who eat store bought meat. I for one couldn't hunt if I wanted to. I live in suburbia. Not a stretch of flat untame land for miles. What am I gonna do, hunt deer in my backyard, hoping I don't slip into my pool?
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All in all, there is nothing we can do about how the meat is processed and "protesting" it by hunting your own meat won't be any help. It just adds to the list of dead animals. There is no ratio. Just because you hunt 1 deer, doesn't mean the company stops slaughtering 1 deer. If anything, the more you hunt the less the company will have to slaughter, making the demand for meat even HIGHER. But like I said, there's no ratio and this is in overly technical terms which isn't to be argued.

That's a bit defeatist, isn't it? The answer's simple: don't buy factory-farmed meat. "Everyone else is doing it so I may as well go along with them" isn't a good enough excuse if it's something one feels strongly about: that pretty much guarantees that nothing will change, or if it does, that it was in spite of your efforts rather than because of them.

When was the last time an industry was protested against and the entire industry fell?

They still cut down trees.
They still make tobacco.
They still do a lot of things that a lot of people oppose and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Your best argument could probably be Slave Trade. But Slave Trade opposition was backed by entire countries and people of power. You don't see President Obama or the United Kingdom saying "No more tree cutting." and no one is ever going to say "No more meat production."
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This also brings me back to, some people can't hunt their own stuff even if they wanted to. They don't have organic meat markets like they do vegetables and fruits, there aren't giant stretches of woods fit for hunting in every urban area. Do you really think someone living in an apartment in New York or Miami can really go out and hunt a deer just to "oppose the meat industry"? because they don't. The same way people who live on farms and in woods don't go out and buy meat to "oppose animal murder".

There are multiple views on this but you are all being objective saying "produced meat" is unhealthy and inhumane. Again, there is nothing we can do about it. We are an industrialized nation and there just aren't woods with deer and whatever else running around anymore.

If you don't want to do anything that might make a difference then don't: that's your business. Just don't expect everyone to agree with you: in spite of how old and cynical I am, that's a step too far even for me.


Edit: for the record, the UK now has far more trees than it did 100 years ago.

In the end this argument is futile because as demand decreases so will supply in stores and as demand increases so will supply in stores. Those of you hunting your own meat are probably decreasing the amount of meat that is put out into the market by a small margin but instead the animals you kill contribute to the amount of animals killed yearly so in the end roughly (perhaps a bit much roughly but still...) the same amount of animals will be killed regardless of the method, be it by hunting or not.

And as for treating animals more humanely and letting them roam the wild to be hunted instead. That's just not going to work. Our ecosystem simply isn't designed at this moment to support 7+ billion hungry humans who want to eat a balanced variation of meat on a weekly if not daily basis. Sure we might advocate towards better treatment of animals but in the end we still need to temper with them a little and we still need to keep them where we can fetch them for slaughtering at a moments notice rather than having to go on a great hunt for them.

Yes it may be selfish and even cruel of our species to manipulate other animal species in this way but everyone wants to survive and to survive we need food which this planet can't provide unless we genetically enhance our food be it our vegetables our meat or any other source of nutrition that we have. I know someone is going to point at all of the food we waste but even so the fact that we can afford to waste food right now does not mean there would be enough if we did not alter it like we do today.

There are shops that do cater to people who are conscious of what happens to their meat. You can buy free-range meat, wild meat, meat that hasn't been treated with antibiotics... It costs more, but it's a viable option. I still think hunting your meat yourself is the best choice, even though I don't hunt, because your meat has had the opportunity to experience what it was made to experience: a natural life.

The idea that you either have to buy low-grade shop meat or hunt your own meat is a bit too monochromatic. There are shades here.

(And the slave trade has not been abolished, FYI.)


This is a fallacy. You know the GM crops that were being pushed like crazy just a decade ago? Entire African and Eastern countries have decimated their agricultural sector because they bought into it. GM crops don't produce more, they cause more allergic reactions in people, and they tend to be susceptible to diseases and environment in ways that were not foreseen when they were initially created. The same goes for chemically-treated crops.

You don't need to genetically modify food or even chemically treat it to ensure that everyone has some. Richer countries just have to be willing to share with poorer countries -- something they aren't very good at doing, generally.

I killed a rat once with a 4-iron. Stupid cat brought the rat inside and lost interest. Then the stupid rat ran under the stove and and golfclub was the only thing I could use to reach it.

This.

I was just really wanting to post about that since it's not my argument and I agree more with Summer's approach than submitting to the store's.
Killing a moose could probably feed me for months, whereas that packaged meal will last 30minutes before I have to buy another packet.

I've caused the death of many animals before I became vegetarian but as far as I can recall the only animals whose life I have personally ended have been insects, spiders, and rodents. Certainly never deliberately prolonged their suffering