By no means am I trying to shoot down vegetarians in any way, because I am a proud veggie myself, but my point is...
How does being a vegetarian really save animals? If you decide not to eat a hamburger at the dinner table, how are you saving an animal? Because even if you decide NOT to eat the meat, the animal is still killed.
If somebody could just clarify that would be nice.
the more people that become veg*n the less demand there is for meat. Not to mention at this point yes the animal will have been killed anyway, but not for my dinner. Let the blood be on someone elses hands. Thats mu opinion on it anyway.
Assuming that you are serious (though I have troll suspicions), it's all about supply and demand. Fewer people eat meat, less demand, eventually less killing. Keep in mind that we raise animals in factory farming conditions just to kill them - and we aren't talking about naturally (i.e., not human-controlled) reproduced animals for the most part. If fewer creatures have to go through that, I'm all for it.
In my house, it's my omni bf and me. He does eat deli meat sandwiches for lunch (which he takes to work). Other than that, we don't purchase meat. If it wasn't for my veg*nism and the fact that I cook all the dinners at home, he'd probably be buying/eating more meat.
When at my parents house, they buy less meat because I am not going to be eating a portion of it.
Again, supply and demand. I'm not creating a demand for meat, so that much less needs to be supplied.
You are not saving any animals. You are preventing MORE animals from being bred to suffer and die for your dinner. If a few less animals have to go through that hell, it's worth it to me.
Not necessarily. If every vegetarian were to start eating meat you don't think more animals would be killed? On an individual level it might not make much of a difference but for most people it's not about "saving" animals, it's about not contributing to the suffering and death of more animals.
It's about two things: The Law of Supply and Demand and the fact that you are not operating in isolation.
The Law of Supply and Demand
Let's say you become vegetarian and stop buying meat. (I realize you already are.) Let's focus on one particular type of meat: Hamburger.
You stop buying hamburger (or your Mom buys hamburger less often because your family is not going through it as fast because you're not eating it.) Let's say the amount you've stopped consuming is 1 pound per week.
The store initially starts out with about one pound more of meat going bad each week.
Loss control at the store determines they should buy 1 pound less of meat each week in order to keep losses down.
This is one less pound of meat needed from the meat distributor, which is one less pound of meat that needs to come from the slaughter house.
What? They can't kill one less pound of cow!!! Unless, you remember that you are not working in isolation.
You are not Operating in Isolation
If enough stores need one less pound of meat, that adds up to one less animal needing to be born just to be slaughtered.
One drop of water does not seem to matter. Ten gallons of water in a bucket is a lot of water and very heavy to lift. There would not be 10 gallons of water in that bucket if every drop weren't there. It takes every drop of water in the bucket in order for there to be 10 gallons.
Think on these examples as far as meat is concerned: Chicken and fish. People do buy entire chickens and entire fish. If you were eating these animals before, and now you don't, that is one less chicken or fish that needs to be bred so it can die for you to eat it.
It's measurable, yet difficult to measure. One way it can be done is asking a large population of people what they ate in the last week (getting a good distribution geographically, economically, and culturally). I suspect that these estimates come from studies done in a similar fashion. You can also look at what places sell, but it is much harder to come up with a good conclusion this way. Of course, my profession requires me to know very little about statistics.
The whole world doesn't have to be vegetarian or vegan you know. One person can make a change in how things are. So, if one less cow is killed or one more restaurant doesn't coat their french fries in beef fat or put chicken stock in their tomato sauce then that's one more victory for us.
It's measurable, yet difficult to measure. One way it can be done is asking a large population of people what they ate in the last week (getting a good distribution geographically, economically, and culturally). I suspect that these estimates come from studies done in a similar fashion. You can also look at what places sell, but it is much harder to come up with a good conclusion this way. Of course, my profession requires me to know very little about statistics.
It seems to me that the best way to determine that would be to divide animal slaughter statistics by the population. So, if you have a U.S. population of 300 million, and 9.5 billion animals are slaughtered per year in the meat business*, then you'd get about 32 animals per year.
Vegetarians and vegans are not a terribly significant fraction of the population, but if you want omnis only, you could multiply the denominator by (1 - veg*n fraction). It might make a difference of... say, one animal per omni.
This has other problems, like the fact that it ignores the difference between a baby's consumption and an adult's consumption.
Still, 32/year is a approximate lowerbound.
* Sunstein, Cass, and Nussbaum, Martha. Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. Copyright 2004 Oxford University Press, New York. Page 206
But how reliable are the statistics of how many vegeterians and vegans there are in a country ? Statistically I'm probably not. I don't think I've ever declared myself one on paper!
But how reliable are the statistics of how many vegeterians and vegans there are in a country ? Statistically I'm probably not. I don't think I've ever declared myself one on paper!
It depends on if the census in your country even asks. I strongly suspect the US census does not. I also suspect that even a census does not manage to cover everyone in a given nation.
It's kind of interesting that Toyota has various billboards showing how many gallons of gas have been saved from people using their hybrid cars. It is a digital sign so the numbers are changing as you watch it.
Would be interesting if there was one for vegetarianism (we it would be approximate).
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