A friend was patiently explaining to me the reasons he believed meat eating, and therefore hunting, is wrong. He's a deep thinker with impeccable logic, but often hasn't delved too deeply into the issues he's feeling strongly about.
But as for the ethic of meat eating ...
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Non paid support for this, go check it out: https://www.sacredcow.info
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First, there is no option that is less damaging to animals. Industrial mono cropping gave us:
-pesticides-fertilizer from oil
-oil used to transport seeds, prepare for seeding, seeding, weed control, insect control, harvest, transport, preparation from the raw product and refined to the food portion
-very low quality nutrition for humans
-massive quantity of animals killed in the process, from the oil extraction and transport to the other transportation stages to the plowing, insect control, weed control and harvest. Snakes and other small predators, mice, grasshoppers, crickets, slugs, snails, birds, etc; all are killed in the process
-irrigation adds salt to the soil, eventually it will be unfit to grow any plant; although, plant engineers are growing mono crops that are more salt resistant to delay the inevitable
-oil based fertilizers leave the ground unfit to grow anything but mono crops; the fertilizers kill the soil bacteria
-the fertilizer runoff has created a massive dead zone where the Mississippi dumps into the GoM
Summary: industrial mono-cropping is environmental disaster, kills more animals than animal farming and provides food that is of low quality for humans and drives poor health outcomes
CAFO animal husbandry utilizes the products from industrial mono-cropping to feed the animals. The waste from the confined operations is not manageable and becomes toxic. The amount of anti-biotics needed to help cattle tolerate corn based diets makes the cows sick and increases risk of anti biotic resistance. The famous methane cow farts you have heard about result from cattle being fed food that makes them sick whilst being injected with antibiotics to make it possible for them to survive the sickness from the food they are fed (fattening cows with corn is effective and cheap, but very costly in the larger picture)
Economists call these outcome "negative externalities". They are not the point of the system, but they are hand in hand with the system.
The only approach that can generate the food that humans need without negative externalities described above is pastured meat animals. They fertilize the soil, and support the life cycle around herd animal grazing that is natural and sustainable. The carbon impact is not only low – it is inverse, because pastured animals are part of the creation of topsoil which sequesters large amounts of CO2.
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Best books on the topic: Guns Germs and Steel and The Vegetarian Myth
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All animals are made to die to feed either another animal, bacteria or a plant (often all 3). Plant to animal, animal to plant, that’s how life goes. Deer in particular are built to live about 8 years, after which their teeth become so poor they cannot eat enough to survive the winter. A deer will starve of old age, be hit by car or be eaten by a predator. Humans have taken away the predators that would keep the weak and ill out of the herd, and would keep populations stable – over population of deer is bad for deer and their immediate environment due to over browsing. In Maine, the winter kill is estimated to be 30%, and even with that the herd is growing enough that either sex permits are needed to keep the population regulated (lower deer populations help reduce the incidence of Lyme disease).
In studying the remains of cultures at the time they shifted from hunting and gathering to farming, those populations became shorter, had very poor teeth, lived shorter lives and showed more markers of starvation in their bones (including vitamin deficiency diseases).
Summary: humans are omnivores and apex predators. We are engineered to eat meat and meat is far more nutritious for humans than any vegetable products. A deer is essentially a nutrition refinery for a human – they eat high amounts of food you and I could never live on and turn it into complete, perfect human nutrition.
All animals are made to die to feed either another animal, bacteria or a plant (often all 3). Plant to animal, animal to plant, that’s how life goes. Deer in particular are built to live about 8 years, after which their teeth become so poor they cannot eat enough to survive the winter. A deer will starve of old age, be hit by car or be eaten by a predator. Humans have taken away the predators that would keep the weak and ill out of the herd, and would keep populations stable – over population of deer is bad for deer and their immediate environment due to over browsing. In Maine, the winter kill is estimated to be 30%, and even with that the herd is growing enough that either sex permits are needed to keep the population regulated (lower deer populations help reduce the incidence of Lyme disease).
In studying the remains of cultures at the time they shifted from hunting and gathering to farming, those populations became shorter, had very poor teeth, lived shorter lives and showed more markers of starvation in their bones (including vitamin deficiency diseases).
Summary: humans are omnivores and apex predators. We are engineered to eat meat and meat is far more nutritious for humans than any vegetable products. A deer is essentially a nutrition refinery for a human – they eat high amounts of food you and I could never live on and turn it into complete, perfect human nutrition.
Until a few hundred years ago, humans at nose to tail; tongue, eye balls, genitals, internal organs, bones for marrow and soup, and the brains – and the skin and sinews and bones became tools and clothing. We were made to kill and eat large mammals and are at a peak of health when we do.
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