Hi, I am what I guess you could call an occasional vegetarian. I have to admit, the smell of bacon is one of the hardest things for me to resist. I have a question which has been nagging at me regarding being vegetarian. If everyone turned to this, what would happen to all the livestock? How would we control the population? What do you do with all the hatched chickens? The cows, the goats, the pigs? Mass birth control? Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I am against this choice, it is just that this is an issue, same as with cats, dogs, and all other animals. What are they here for if not for food? What if we all quit eating them, and they in turn overpopulated, and began eating US? Has this issue been raised before, and what is the answer? I love all animals, and if I had to kill it to eat it, I would starve. I really want to understand and know that there is a solution.

Thanks

Julie

Jacqz,



This is a forum for vegetarians or those who are sincerely interested in becoming vegetarian. And yes, your issue has been raised over and over and over and over again. That is why we have a search function.

Hi Julie



Poppy is right- This is a forum for vegetarians or people seriously working toward going vegetarian.



That said, I'll answer your questions because I think a lot of people wonder the same things. I hope my answers help you to seriously consider not eating animals.



The simple answer is that the world will not go vegetarian or vegan in a day and supply and demand will take care of the rest. "Food animals" are bred simply for our consuption. Were we not to eat them, they would not be bred.



As more and more people decide not to support the horrific cruelty done to these beautiful creatures, less and less will be bred to endure a life of endless suffering only to end up between a bun.



Please, consider the life you take when you eat an animal. Consider the suffering of the people who work in these awful conditions and deal with the killing day after day. Opt out. Choose a vegetarian life. Save a life. For your health, the environment, and the animals.



Any other questions, please feel free to ask Hope you're having a wonderful day.

If people didn't eat animals, no-one would breed them for food. It wouldn't happen overnight, people would just be buying less and less meat so farmers would stop producing so much and gradually production would stop altogether.

No one is here "for" anything. But if you want to wonder about questions like that, then try to answer what humans are here "for"?

I'm not sure this is the kind of question that lends itself to easy answers via the search function. What terms to enter, exactly?

cows, overpopulation.

Fact: A lot of firemen don't eat bacon because its smells of burnt human flesh. Does that put you off?






We are animals too you know. How would you feel if you and your family were bred and caged in horrendous conditions solely to be slaughtered and eaten as soon as you were fat enough?






Lamb, pigs, cows, chickens etc are not going to eat humans.

In the first place, it is unlikely that everyone would "change" over night to vegetarianism.



What happens to animals who are not bought to be slaughtered for some reason is probably the same thing that happens to animals who have chicken flu or mad cow disease, or sheep scabies. Most likely they would be horrifically slaughtered and buried in a pit using heavy equipment, or burned. The ranchers would not just let them out of their cages to indiscriminately breed and doing so is possibly a criminal act. These animals are all marked and tagged with serial numbers and I doubt the farmers would want to get fined in addition to losing their livelyhood. Chaos would not ensue.



If more people were to go vegetarian, not all at once but gradually, they would simply breed less animals. They do that now when less people buy a particular type of meat. They have total control over what breeds and with what. They do not throw a bunch of males and females together for a cow orgy, it is done mostly artificially. They also want to be in control of the genetics. Often they get their "seed" to be gentle, through the mail in a refrigerated package from a known stud bull.

If we didn't eat them....what would they be for??? Haha. People in this world, beleive it or not, keep animals like that as pets. My Friend has two cows, three chickens, a goat, and 4 sheep who are all just pets used for 4H, and she doesn't sell them to slaughterhouses.



Plus, if they aren't being eaten, then they prob wouldn't be here. People who breed, will breed and raise specifically for food. So if the demand goes down, so does the supply. Thats the beauty of supply and demand!!

What does occasional vegetarian mean? You sometimes don't eat meat with a meal or you have bursts of pure vegetarianism? Either way, this is not vegetarianism, since you aren't making a lifestyle choice that requires any sacrifice.



These animal population problems would not be an issue unless somehow the whole world turned vegetarian instantly. There would certainly be fewer of these animals in existence, but their species would reach a new equilibrium of supporting themselves, instead of supporting themselves and us.



None of these animals would eat us. They are all herbivores.



As far as what their purpose is, I ask you this: What is our purpose? What is the purpose of any animal? What's the purpose of dogs and cats? What's the purpose of life?

On top of all else said here, "survival of the fittest" comes to mind. theoretically, if every human was vegetarian, then only the carnivorous animals in the wild, or in zoos etc, would eat the animals thus helping to stem a rise in population.

Humans are here for destroying the world around us, of course. Didn't you get the memo?



--Fromper

My thoughts exactly.

Completely OT:






Do you have a source for this? I'm just very curious; I've known quite a bit of firefighters, but never met a vegetarian or even a non-eating bacon one.



Edit: this is again completely off topic but I was doing some research (I literally typed "bacon" and "human flesh" and "firefighters" in google) and found this little gem:



a robot in japan has been programmed to discern the tastes of different foods. Some reporter put his hand for the robot to "sample/taste" and the robot read it as BACON!! Another reporter did the same and the robot read it as PROSCIUTTO.



http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcont...identifie.html

Apologies, since writing my post, I remembered that it wasn't bacon I was talking about, but pork crackling, produced when roasting a joint of pork. Yuck anyway.



Sorry for any confusion!

RUN for your LIFE!!! Here come the carnivorous cows!!!



Sounds like an awesomely bad B movie.

Yeah, I was puzzled by this at first, as I think the smell of bacon comes mostly from the spices in it, not from the flesh itself. I've heard that pork is similar to human flesh, though I have no idea where such a rumor would come from.

Just read my signature

Wow, this is pretty interesting

i wonder if Jacqz will be back?

HA!

Very good.