I still think it's wild that people argue about what pet it is ok to eat. I mean, I didn't really quit meat to this day and I don't really care what animal it's from. I care whether it was sourced ethically, at least up to my standards. I mostly refuse meat because of the horrible impact on the climate and because I can't / don't want to afford ethically sourced meat all too often.

[–] threeduck@aussie.zone 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What is the definition of ethical? Can killing something that doesn't want to die be considered ethical? Does "but they're yummy" work as a valid excuse to violating the definition of "ethical"?

[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

For example humanity has decimated predators and now needs to hunt just for population control. I consider every kill to protect the environment and keep populations stable 100% ethical.

That aside: Everything dies and if it's not by getting mauled that's a plus already. For me it depends on what the tradeoff for that is to be considered ethical.

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml -3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think it's wild that people can't differentiate between pets and livestock. It doesn't require a lot of emotional maturity and yet people conflate the two constantly.

[–] authed@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't like dogs, does that mean I can eat them?

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

You can eat dogs even if you do like them, why wouldn't you be able to?

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I dont see any reason why you cant raise some livestock as pets. People already keep pigs as pets.

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can pick a specific animal and raise it as a pet, and in that case you wouldn't eat it. That's always been a thing even before animal husbandry was attempted by humans. I'm kind of surprised you didn't know this.

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I meant that there is nothing inherent to dogs that makes them pets and not for eating, while livestock are for eating. They are both just animals, people should be consistent in either having empathy for all such animals or not at all.

[+] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works -12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Actually, the impact on climate is very very little. If the whole US would go vegan it would only decrease the total carbon emissions of the US by a little over 2%, the methane emissions would stay the same.

I haven’t quit meat, in fact I love it, but I will never support ethically bad living conditions for the animals. I only buy buy meat from animals that live free roaming with access to stables, even though it’s expensive where I live (about $ 20 per pound of cutlet)

[–] CannedLettuce@lemmy.lettucegarden.net 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Where are you getting those numbers from? The EPA has agriculture at 10% of US green house gas emissions. A quarter of that (so close to your 2% number) is from methane emissions alone. If you stop farming animals you're also looking at reduced emissions from not using manure and growing less crops since you don't need to make feed.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#agriculture

[–] fidodo@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

And it's not just the greenhouse gas emissions. 1 oz of beef takes over 100 gallons of water to produce. In comparison broccoli takes about 2 gallons per oz. In terms of calories beef requires 7.25 times more water.

[–] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

I don’t know anymore, sorry. It was some years ago in a study made by some German or Swiss scientists that was locked behind a paywall.
I’ll have a look at the sci-hub and drop the link if I’ll ever find it!

It was a very in-depth study also included mountainous regions where agriculture is not possible, the cows eat that grass and the waste of vegetables like husks and stems and stuff like that.