Why do some vegetarians say eating meat is wrong?

Question

Why is it wrong for people to eat meat when we are designed dentally to be omnivorous and animals have to eat each other. I grew up near a farm and I like farm animals but I would still eat one. Also what makes it OK to eat plants when they are living things too.

Answer 1

I think there is no problem with eating vegetables, because they do not feel pain and are not conscious things -- as far as we know. Eating fish is more difficult to justify if one does not want to eat other meat for moral reasons. Fish are much simpler animals and perhaps do not cry and scream in the same way as other animals and human do. But, can we say they do not suffer at all? I am not sure. If we allow ourselves fish, then why not very small mammals and big dolphins? And if we can eat them, then how about larger mammals. This is a dangerous progression, and it is not very clear where it should stop. We surely do not want to eat *human* though there are/were validation certain people have done so. Where do we draw the line? Perhaps it is better to not eat any meat is the best excuse.

There is an annoying connection made by many people that the way things are going is necessarily good, and/or inevitable. Perhaps the current trends are bad, and the future will not be as good as it could be. Perhaps things are heading a certain way, but this does not mean that we are powerless to stop them, nor does it mean that we should not try. This argument does not work either. One has to supply actual reason for vegetarianism, and this is not a reason, it is just an excuse at best.

Answer 2

My teeth don't compare at all with a carnivore's.  A lion, for example, has long sharp fangs, where I have puny, relatively blunt canines.  My incisors and canines were designed to pierce the rinds of fruits and vegetables, not to tear raw flesh from my prey.

SOME animals "have to eat each other."  Humans do not.  There is no nutritional requirement whatsoever for animal foods in the human diet.  A lion will die without meat; I will not.  An essential part of what makes us human is the ability to operate within a code of morals and ethics; because I have that ability, I also have that responsibility.  And I cannot ethically justify making another sentient being suffer for the whims of my tastebuds.  If I was an obligate meat eater by nature's design, I would eat meat, but I'm not so I can't justify it.

And if you honestly cannot perceive the difference between animals and plants, please take an elementary biology class.  Animals have brains and central nervous systems which allow them to experience pain and suffering, and have emotional makeups which include fear, anxiety, and sorrow.  Plants have none of this.

Answer 3

The truth is that we are indeed animals, and some people believe that its wrong to eat something that can feel emotion.

Plants, do not have emotions; they only work on sunlight and water, so it has become rationalized to simply eat the species that wont be tortured.

Answer 4

im a vegeterian, n animals deserve 2 live too. i mean how wud u like it if u were just born n u realzied u n ur family have to not only survive nature, but also these "man eating creatures" for no reason. plants.... yes they are alive but they provide food, it's not like i go around pulling roots from the dirt, as long as u just pick the fruit or veggie, the plant will live. i know i'm not very encourgaing, but i wud appreciate any1 who'ld understand that eating animals is practically a sin b/c they're just like u n me

Answer 5

I believe in treating others as I would like to be treated and I certainly don't need meat to survive. I am able to make the conscious decision to treat others (including animals) well and survive without harming another living being. Many animals are not capable of making that decision nor do they have the means to persue that type of life. Most animals have only the mental capacity of a young child although many surpass that level of intelligence.

Dentally I would argue that we are not designed to be omnivorous. We have molars for chewing fibrous plant material like herbivores and unlike carnivores we don't have sharp canines for tearing through meat. But that argument is ALWAYS up for debate.

I also am disgusted by the idea of eating a dead body. I've seen people die and I've seen animals die and both situations are equally as horrifying for me.

In response to your question of why it is okay to eat plants my personal feeling all comes back to the central nervous system. A dog, a child, and a chicken all have the same capacity to feel pain and all will defend themselves or try to escape if you frighten them or threaten them harm.

Recently I was talking with a friend. I've spent a lot of time with rescued dogs and a friend of mine has spent a lot of time with children. I was telling her how to identify an abused dog and after I finished speaking she said that everything I had said was also true for children. Adused children behave exactly the way an abused dog does. ie: lack of eye contact, flinching at quick movement, becoming stiff and rigid when physical contact is made (they are often used to physical contact being negative and they have trouble trusting positive contact), etc...

The more time I spend with animals the more I understand them and the more I see how they are alike us and deserve the same treatment I would give anyone else.

Incidentally I've also realized that the word humane is an oxymoron, humanity commits the most inhumane acts with the knowledge and awareness that we are deliberately causing another one harm.  

Answer 6

To answer your question, they say that because that's what they believe. You expressed what you believe in, so did they. No difference.

Human dentition is neither carnivorous nor herbivorous but omnivorous. Our teeth are not like a lion's nor a cow's but like a pig's which is omnivorous. Paleontologists have often mistaken human teeth for a pig's and vice-versa. Whether we started out as fruit picking herbivores is immaterial. During some time in our history, we evolved into omnivores.  

Answer 7

It's wrong to eat things with thoughts and feelings. Two things plants do not have.

If humans could truly eat meat, we would be able to eat it without being cooked, and we would be able to kill animals using our bare hands. You go out, kill a cow with your fingernails and then eat it right then and there, and they I'll call you an omnivore.

don't care if i get thumbed down, this is the truth.

Answer 8

Humans adapted to be able to digest meat for survival. That survival need no longer exists. Actually, it is now healthier to not eat meat because instead of worrying about starvation, most people worry about disease and heart attacks. Your chances of getting many forms of cancer and certainly heart disease, stroke, and heart attacks are reduced by switching to a vegetarian diet.

Since it is no longer necessary for survival to eat meat, why should we? It is environmentally unsustainable, for one thing. We are using up valuable natural resources to be able to provide land for cattle to graze and to grow food for slaughterhouse animals to eat. This food could go to those who are starving. Instead we spend millions providing food for animals, and then killing them and shipping them across the world. This is not like raising an animal on your own farm and killing it for food. This is a huge industry that is extremely wasteful and harmful to the environment. That is one ethical reason why people should reduce their intake of meat.

Another is the cruelty. Again, if we must kill an animal to survive, I'm OK with that. But that's not the case. We just kill them by the millions in order to have a tasty burger. I don't think that makes sense. That's not how nature intended it.

And, it's just not good for you. Eating meat occasionally is what we were designed for, as a high calorie food source to tide us over in long cold winters. Humans were not designed to be able to digest meat eaten every day or at every meal. It is really hard on your body. Nowadays there are even more health concerns, such as the hormones animals are treated with. Animals store their toxins in their flesh, and in today's polluted world, it's not healthy to be ingesting high concentrations of these toxins. In fact, the amount of these toxins found in a glass of milk is not considered safe for human consumption by the EPA. Eating organically produced meats and dairy helps reducing these toxins, but it cannot completely do so. Reducing your intake is the only way to be safe.

Inevitably, it's up to you whether you wish to become a vegetarian. It's a personal choice. I'm not going to say that it's wrong to eat meat or give anyone a lecture on the subject. But I do think that there are convincing ethical, moral, environmental, and nutritional arguments for why it is a good choice.  

Answer 9

Well..doesn't hair grow..?

then why do u cut it off?

humans have minds which help make choices..

we weren't meant to wear clothes either..but we still dooo..

Being a vegetarian is just one's opinion..

and it is OK to eat plants..

they ARE living..but have no brain, no nervous system..

they do not feel pain..

Fruiting plants accually WANT animals to eat the fruit because it helps them spead seeds!

=D

Answer 10

All of your questions can be answered in the book "Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S, Meat Industry" by Gail Eisnitz.  It's not just a story but an account of her investigations in the field.  

Not only are the animals treated inhumanely by not being stunned properly before being slaughtered, but the workers also have to cope with deplorable conditions where they often get sick or injured.  The job turnover rate in slaughterhouses are very near 100% over just one year...the highest in the USA.

Also the book describes some of the illnesses that people have gotten from contaminated meats.  It's truly sad to read about these accounts.  Six year olds are not supposed to have massive heart attacks.

You'll learn all about the USDA and why the inspectors can't get their jobs done.  Did you know that even when meat is condemned by an inspector, it is often run back down the line to be sold as meat when the inspector leaves? The book also touches on all sorts of horrible things that pass inspection like tumors, abscesses, fecal matter, dirt, hair, urine, acid from erupted gall bladders, blood clots, ingestia, and more.

That's why I believe it's wrong. Seriously, pick up that book.

http://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Sho...

Answer 11

Hello.

Firstly, it seems that you have not done your re-search correctly.

"Why is it wrong for people to eat meat when we are designed dentally to be omnivorous and animals have to eat each other."

Firstly, we are not designed to eat meat. Let me explain you most of the most common factors of why humans were not intended to eat meat:

1. Animals that can eat meat have pointy and very sharp teeth. Such as dogs, wolves, bears, lions etc... So, bear in mind that when you eat meat you don't just do bad to your health but also to your teeth. Your teeth were not meant to bite meet and doing so will harm your teeth. Have you never wondered how yellow can teeth become in humans that don't brush them while dogs, wolves, lions etc... always have white teeth and they never brush them?

2. Animals that were intended to eat meet had the ability to hunt the animal and kill it with their own abilities. Not by using weapons. Explain to me please how a human can hunt a lion down (all by running) then killing it with his sharp teeth and nails. Why do you think that dogs, lions etc... have such nails? In order to kill the animal they have to eat.

3. Animals that were meant to eat me have the ability to eat the meat without it being cooked. For example, they could find a killed animal in the garbage, they could eat it with all the microbes and infections but it would still be ok! Just try to kill an animal even in the cleaner place you can think of then eat it uncooked. As it is there. Yes, I know, you can't. Also, even if you did, you'd probably go to the hospital after a while from all the infections you got from the animal. Animals that can eat meat have the ability to get rid of those infections and microbes without ever hurting themselves.

4. Animals that can eat meat have the ability to excrete what their body does not need after a short while of time. This means that they have a very small and fast digestive system. That thing that our food is being digested to is about 7-14 meters long! So, you eat, then you go to the toilet after maybe hours and hours. Maybe you don't even need to go to the toilet everyday.

5. Animals that can eat meat have the ability to hunt their food anytime of the day. Even at night. They have a very good nightvision. Try switching off all lights in your room and let me know how good you can see things. Yes, you can't see them very good. And you can actually see them cause you know how they are already. Go into the forest at night where it gets all dark, I'd like to know how you'd survive.

We are not meant to eat meat. Our teeth and bodies are similar to cows, sheep, goats, etc... That's why the also eat only plantation.

There are many more scientific reasons of why humans can't eat meat, you could ask your biology teacher.

Now, to answer your second question "Also what makes it OK to eat plants when they are living things too."

Yes, they might be living things, yet our body is meant to eat them. It is simple. Even if dogs, lions etc.. would develop in a much more intelligent way to think and communicate like humans, you would NEVER find a vegetarian dog or lion. If they would even understand that they are killing, it is in their nature. So, even if plants would once develop to understand what's happening, humans would still eat them because we were designed to do so. If you don't like it, then I'm sorry but you can do nothing about it. It's how nature developed all the species. One depends on another.

Also, you should know that plants cannot understand what is happening to them because they have no nervous system. They don't even "know" that they exist. They just... live. When they die they don't even realize it because they don't have the ability too.

By the way, to say something about Vegans, I mean why they don't eat milk and eggs.

That is because that if ever any species was designed to be in need of milk, then it's own parent would be able to provide it. Besides, humans were not meant to eat ANYTHING taken from another animal.

I will never understand why nature developed us to be so intelligent. We should be respectful to nature and, what are we doing it? Destroying it.

Anyway, I hoped I answered your question!

=]

Peace.

=]

Answer 12

The meat comes from factory farms where the animals experience extreme physical and mental torture throughout their entire lives.

If people stop eating meat, the torture and killing will stop.

The fact is that people don't even need meat to live.

People only eat meat because parents keep raising their kids eating it.

Then those kids grow up and do the same thing.

It's a cycle that should have ended many years ago but, unfortunately, is still going.

However, thanks largely to modern technology, people are becoming more intelligent and educated, and more and more of them are discovering the truth about meat.

They're managing to break away from their addiction to meat and they're joining the millions of other people in the fight to break the cycle.

Here's a couple videos that will help you understand what I'm talking about:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=me...

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ea...

In regard to plants:

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Animals suffer .. plants don't.

If you can prove otherwise, I will gladly become a fruitarian.

In regard to our teeth:

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We have teeth that are best suited for eating plant foods.

If you want to see what omnivorous teeth look like, look at a dog's teeth.

If you're referring to the stubby, pointy little teeth next to our incisors .. those are called cuspids (or canines).

We have them because we are primates.

Primates have them for fighting, self defense and grooming.

Gorillas have giant ones and they eat no meat whatsoever.

But that's really not even what matters.

What matters is that we don't need meat to live, and we have the ability to choose to stop eating it.

That's all the reason we should ever need to stop hurting, killing and eating animals.

.

Answer 13

Firstly it has been stated in many different sources that human teeth are actually designed to eat plant food.

and I'm sorry but it really bugs me when meat-eaters say that,  "what makes it OK to eat plants when they are living things too"  umm... maybe the fact that their PLANTS,  they don't have a face, they don't feel pain, they think, feel or bleed, they don't have families etc..    their PLANTS.

Answer 14

Some people (like me) say it's wrong because animals are just humans. It is not fair that we eat them because they don't eat us (most animals don't at least). Hope I helped! :]

Answer 15

there are many people who are vegetarians by birth, culture and religion. so in their context it is wrong to eat meat because it may be offensive to their religion... but if your a non veg by birth then you wont mind...

Answer 16

Actually, we are dentally designed to be herbivores. If you're talking about our canine teeth, well all herbivores have them, and they are shaped just like ours. Omnivores and Carnovires' canine teeth are longer and sharper.

Also, our digestive system is designed like that of Herbivores. Long small intestines, shorter large intestine, among other things. You'll find the opposite in most carnivores and omnivores.

So, we CHOOSE to eat meat, but were designed to be able to survive from the fruit and vegetables we grow.

Do a little more research before asking these questions.