Vegetarian?

There are many good reasons for reducing meat in your diet including:

• Meat production, particularly beef, releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, especially methane.
• Meat production uses huge amounts of land.
• Meat production uses huge amounts of energy.
• Meat production uses huge amounts of water.
• Meat production produces more total sewage than people do. By odd legal fluke, it is dumped into rivers untreated.
• A low meat diet reduces risk of heart disease and obesity.
• Usually animals used for meat are mistreated and kept in filthy over-crowded barns or cages.

However, I consider the argument that killing animals is cruel to be bogus. What is the alternative? Letting an animal get old and arthritic with failing kidneys and die slowly? Surely that entails far more suffering that a quick bolt to the brain. The other alternative is to ensure the animal is never born. I would think a free range cow would be happy for a chance to exist, even if life ended suddenly. Vegetarians consider eating meat disgusting. However, the cow does not care what happens to its corpse. The normal thing in nature is for corpses to be eaten. All that matters to the cow is how well it is treated while it is alive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)