If man's
meat consumption was limited to that which he could capture in the
wild, the title of this node might better reflect an accurate
moral position; but the predominant element of the modern
fast-food-fed Western diet draws from
animals that enjoy no such
fortune in practical reality. The
picturesque farm tableau that might
grace a
restaurant placemat is relegated to
fantasy land. Today's farm is an animal factory, especially when it comes to those two most deeply ingrained and poundingly marketed staple meats,
beef and
chicken.
The
cows are well
corralled, herded about by the hundred-thousand head in solidly-
fenced fields,
healthy and
sickly side by side and knee deep in their own
excrement day in and day out, they have no true opportunity to evade the
butcher's
hook. The mass-produced chickens are worse off even, bred and genetically tinkered with as they have been, they may as well be plants -- biologically incapable of walking more than a few steps on thinned bones under the
weight of absurdly enhanced
breasts and
wings, bodies naked to the
warehouse elements as their ability to grow
feathers even has been engineered out of them. Blinded and debeaked at
birth to keep them docile and harmless, their lives are pain, brought about by
hormone infusions scheduled to artificially hasten their growth to a salable weight, followed by prompt and efficient infliction of death.
And as for the number of plants eaten by a
vegetarian to compensate for the lack of dietary meat, this suggestion is blind to the
vegetable volume needed to plump those cows and chickens to their selling weight. Your
hamburger required that the cow be fed ten times as much to produce that patty as what ends up on the plate. And because
crop growers are economically bound to respond to
competition for the use of their space, more of them are raising food to feed cows and chicken then to feed people directly -- which drives up the cost of other
foods in the chain, especially fruits and vegetables not also raised for animal feed.
To be sure, the economic effects of this system are not limited to what is fed to the animals; the massive
scale of manufacturing for
corn and
wheat for animal feeding has driven those product prices down so that
corn syrup has crept ubiquitously into more processed foods than can be
imagined!! And then, naturally, there are the ever-more aggressive
bacteria bred by the conditions in which cows and chickens are raised (resulting in a
regimen of
chemical treatments for the meats just to stave off those invaders). And there is the massive
methane outpouring and other hazardous wastes generated by an industry that has magnified the presence of the
bovine species to an extent far greater than Earth has ever before witnessed or been called upon to support.
But, on a closing note, lest ye be concerned for the vegetables we would eat in lieu of meat, if you're eating fast food you are getting them anyway. That fast food burger or chicken
nugget or
meatball or chicken
sandwich is a
deception all its own, for its
makers have mixed in all sorts of vegetable matter to heft up the stuff you think is merely meat, anyway.
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I acknowledge that the original author of the node wasn't trying to make a serious argument -- but believe it or not I have in my experience heard people try to earnestly argue things not far off from this sentiment, eg that we may as well eat meat because if not we'd have to farm and eat more veggies!!