Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[bennyboy]

You do have a point about the 300 lb "hippos", but I have seen many starving Americans also.

So what do you expect us to do with all the livestock we have now? Send them over sea with the overpopulation of horses, so the other country's can eat them? Or just let them starve to death because farmers won't be able to afford to feed them, let alone able to feed their families?

Well, one of the main arguments for meat-eating is that it is necessary-- i.e. a dietary argument. However, many Americans probably over-eat meat by an order of 5x or 10x what they actually need for dietary reasons. If people actually lived according to the arguments they make, not only would all those starving people have meat, the hippos' health would improve greatly, fewer dollars would be spent on hippo healthcare, and I'll wager there would STILL be a reduction in the number of animals caused to exist, suffer, and be killed. This is the key-- not so much how we deal with the existing animals, but making changes to our food consumption and production that would involve the reduction (or hopefully elimination) of the millions of livestock piled into enclosed, unsanitary conditions IN THE FUTURE.

In the end, the problem is that we have all the successes that come with a big brain, and all the instincts and self-control of masturbating monkeys. This has led to an unsustainable growing human population, to a damaged environment, to wasteful consumption of every available resource, and to a continual worsening (in my opinion) of the human quality of life. And our attitudes toward food are both symptomatic of those excesses and part of the problem.

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If you understood the behavior of animals you would know what I meant. I went to college to learn the science of animal behavior. I'm not making assumptions on this. It is true that animals do not have the same range of emotions as we do.

Neither do babies. That makes it okay to club them in the head and eat them!