Meat eating ethical?

[Confused Ape]

Vegetarians want to base ethics on emotion, instead of reason. They think with their hearts instead of their heads, anthropomorphizing and "imagining" what an animal thinks and feels.

What a vegetarian thinks a domestic pig thinks: "Pain! Pain! Pain!"

What a vegetarian thinks a feral pig thinks: "Free at last! Free at last!"

What a pig really thinks: "Oink. Oink."

Animal welfare impacts of factory farming can include:

Close confinement systems (cages, crates) or lifetime confinement in indoor sheds
Discomfort and injuries caused by inappropriate flooring and housing
Restriction or prevention of normal exercise and most of natural foraging or exploratory behaviour
Restriction or prevention of natural maternal nesting behaviour
Lack of daylight or fresh air and poor air quality in animal sheds
Social stress and injuries caused by overcrowding
Health problems caused by extreme selective breeding and management for fast growth and high productivity
Reduced lifetime (longevity) of breeding animals (dairy cows, breeding sows)
Fast-spreading infections encouraged by crowding and stress in intensive conditions[60]
Debeaking (beak trimming or shortening) in the poultry and egg industry to avoid pecking in overcrowded quarters[61]
Forced and over feeding (by inserting tubes into the throats of ducks) in the production of foie gras[62]

On some farms, chicks may be debeaked when very young, causing pain and shock. Confining hens and pigs in crates no larger than the animal itself may lead to physical problems such as osteoporosis and joint pain, and psychological problems including boredom, depression, and frustration, as shown by repetitive or self-destructive actions.[71]

Source #71 isn't from animals rights groups like PETA.

71 "The Welfare of Intensively Kept Pigs—Report of the Scientific Veterinary Committee—Adopted 30 September 1997, European Commission, and "Opinion of the AHAW Panel related to the welfare aspects of various systems of keeping laying hens", European Food Safety Authority (March 7, 2005)

Overcrowding and appalling conditions leads to disease and using antibiotics on food animals has had an effect on human health.

In the United States, the use of antibiotics in livestock is still prevalent. The FDA reports that 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in 2009 were administered to livestock animals, and that many of these antibiotics are identical or closely related to drugs used for treating illnesses in humans. Consequently, many of these drugs are losing their effectiveness on humans, and the total healthcare costs associated with drug-resistant bacterial infections in the United States are between $16.6 billion and $26 billion annually.[95]

Another source article is from the "Joint scientific report of ECDC, EFSA and EMEA on methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in livestock, companion animals and food". June 16, 2009. Retrieved September 19, 2009.

Staphylococcus aureus can be persistently or intermittently carried by healthy humans (e.g. in the nose, throat, axilla, rectum, perineum or gastrointestinal tract), being a very common cause of minor
skin infections that usually do not require treatment. For patients in hospitals, it is the most common cause of hospital-acquired infections (from trivial to very severe).

In food animals a new clone CC398 has emerged. Carriage of this clone has been found in intensively reared production animals (primarily pigs, but also cattle and poultry) in several countries around the world. CC398 can be transmitted from food producing animals to humans. Animals in food production and their products are therefore a potential source of MRSA for humans.

Not all animal welfare organisations promote vegetarianism, either.

Compassion In World Farming

Compassion in World Farming is a campaigning and lobbying animal welfare organisation. It campaigns against the live export of animals, certain methods of livestock slaughter, and all systems of factory farming. It has received celebrity endorsements and been recognized by BBC Radio 4 for its campaigning.

Peter Roberts, a Hampshire dairy farmer, founded Compassion in World Farming in 1967. After he realized there was public support, Roberts unsuccessfully appealed to contemporary animal welfare groups to campaign against factory farming. Undeterred, Roberts began his own campaign.

Compassion in World Farming does not support violence or threats;[7][8] it campaigns peacefully for the humane treatment of farm animals, which they accept will be killed and eaten.[9] The London Evening Standard has called them "the most rational of the groups that campaign about animal welfare and the environment."[10]

n 2007, the charity won the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Award for the best food campaigner/educator.[32] In 2009, they won the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Use of Interactive for their Chicken Out! website.[33] In 2011, they won a Third Sector Excellence Award for their annual review[34] and The Observer's Ethical Award for Campaigner of the Year.[35]