Sure I can, I have two hands.

On a serious note, we are the most rational species that we know of to date. That will most likely change when we discover extra-solar lifeforms, but for now it is true. On the other hand, we are all slaves to our instincts and emotions. Some more than others, we tend to call these people addicts or emotionally unstable. But even if you are a so-called average person, you are going to struggle against these feelings every day.

I personally struggle with many issues, but I've made a personal choice to not struggle with what my body has been hard-coded to prefer as a food source. We are omnivores, plain and simple, and while some prefer to fight that, I prefer to accept it. I know that every day I live, something will have had to die or have lived on a farm as a production animal, for me to enjoy my food decisions. I do my best to make sure that the animals were compassionately treated and humanely slaughtered, the rest I choose to live with.

I respect that.

I would never eat a pet, but omnivore I am.

@newtboy: Just to be clear, I really appreciate your comments. It's nice to talk to an omnivore who doesn't just respond with "I'LL EAT TWICE AS MUCH MEAT AS YOU DO TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR VEGANISM!" I'm trying to be objective, and I appreciate your attempt as well.

That being said...

I respect the genuine care you give to your animals. I didn't know you or your family (or both) owned such a farm. It does sound like you do, truly, meet their needs as animals. However, (and I hate to bring out the really controversial stuff), I'm sure plenty of slave-owners treated their slaves with genuine humanity. But that doesn't excuse the categorical enslavement of other beings. Despite all care given to those animals, they are still not able to live their natural lives as animals on earth. I don't see why our subjugation, no matter how "humane", can be considered anything less than "inhumane".

Now, the comparison to "most children in the world" is a moot one. Yes, of course everywhere there are going to be worse things happening. But the point is that we are rational, (hopefully) decent, higher-order-understanding-of-the-universe beings. Humans seem to like to cherry-pick when their huge brain is an excuse for greatness, or ignored and "we're just animals after all". So, just because there is suffering outside the scope of our influence, we do all have the ability to stop eating meat. Pretty easily, in fact, since there are tons and tons and tons of other means to get all the nutrition we need (not to mention way, way healthier means).

The point is that we are completely and totally (especially as upper-middle class 1st-world citizens) capable of not eating meat this very moment. You can't, however, change the living conditions in the slums of India by yourself right now.

And explain to me how mentally handicapped humans are not animals. What is the distinction? They are both objectively less intelligent. If anything, animals are more capable of surviving on their own. What makes mentally handicapped people any more special than animals? Just because they're human? That seems arbitrary. True, they should be treated differently because they are different animals, but I mean why should one be treated to our moral consideration and one should not? What makes humans so damn special?

And that "sustenance" argument is really, really misguided. As said above, you can eat an entire vegan diet and be probably even more healthy than an omnivore. And animals are not minimally suffering. Yes, a very cherished, rare group, as your animals are, are "minimally suffering", but many, many, many, many more are being horribly abused for that sustenance that can be gained elsewhere (with suffering of its own, truly. I always hear the "well, there are people given slave wages to pick vegetables in California". But, you'll be eating those vegetables and fruits anyway. That's an entirely other battle that needs to be waged in other ways, not through lack of consumption).

My assumption was not that 100% of farmers treat their animals inhumanely. My assumption was that billions of animals are being treated inhumanely. And the way parents treat their children is a red herring. That's not my argument at all. And again, it's outside the realm of my influence.

And to counter your last argument... my same argument above follows for the "food chain/web" argument. Once and for all:

We are rational, amazing, smart, complex and powerful beings on this planet. We have it within our power (each of us) to not eat meat. This is "against nature". But so is basically OUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION. What makes us truly different from animals is that exact ability. To step back and choose our actions. Are you saying humans not capable of choosing their actions -- those with so much in the 1st world countries? That we're all forced to, by nature, to eat meat? That is the cognitive dissonance I speak of. That we're so special because we are rational beings, but at the same time we must eat meat because we are not rational human beings.

This entire argument was not endorsed by PETA, because they're a bunch of assholes -- but despite being assholes one can't argue that they have brought about change. Change comes from all angles. Grassroots, insane radicals, scientists, humanitarians. They all try to bring change in different ways and succeed influencing different groups. PETA's brazenness is its power. Large corporations, like McDonald's, must respond to such a power. Despite being assholes. Both of them.

--

I want to end on a note of humility -- that I admit to having that same cognitive dissonance when it comes to animals. As a cat owner, I often visualize the mound of turkey carcasses that both of my lovable kittens live on top of. And they truly are carnivores in that they cannot find sustenance outside of meat. How do I rationalize all the turkey deaths (my cats only exclusively eat turkey for some goddamn reason) just so I can have my lovable pets? I can't. And it kills me. Not sure if I'll get cats after they die.

--

Thanks for reading. That was a lot.

I'm sorry, you're wrong.
Not all farms treat their animals badly. Our Turkeys, for instance, had the run of 300 acres, as did our cattle, goats, and sheep. The chickens had a pen for their own protection, but one larger than an average house with a large roost house they had free access to and from. The all had proper veterinary treatments. All in all, they had a much better life than many humans with the exception of the freedom to leave the property.
Most children in the world live in worse conditions than the animals at OUR farm, and have a MUCH more painful, lingering death. The only atrocity about the situation to me is that there are so damn many human children.
And mentally handicapped people aren't animals. It may be true, forcing naked, mentally handicapped (or non-mentally handicapped) children to be outside 24/7 might be considered abuse...doing so with an animal is not.
Beyond that, you are making HUGE mistaken assumptions to make your point, mistaken assumptions about 1) how 100% of farmers treat their animals and 2) how 100% of parents treat their children.

Ahh...and my sustenance is more important to me than another being's minimal suffering....that's how a food web works, and it doesn't make me an asshole, it makes me an omnivore.

I didn't even notice they were butchering the camel until I read the comments. And then I watched it again and I was horrified.

But then I thought about why I was horrified and it really has more to do with the fact that we simply don't see where our meat comes from anymore in society. If I want some turkey for Christmas dinner, I can just head to the grocery store and buy one that's ready to cook (or already cooked). I don't have to go out in the backyard and chop one's head off, bleed it, pluck it, and pull its innards out with my bare hands.

So really, the horror comes from just not seeing it happen everyday (even though I'm guessing millions of animals are butchered for food worldwide every day).

The comments in YouTube suggest this camel was being killed in a Halal fashion (which would require the butchering to be done the way we see in the video--a swift cut to the carotid artery followed by a bleeding out). Turkeys are killed in the same way, I believe (though hung upside down first before having their throat slit).

So to the people who are against this video (or are actually downvoting it) I say: humans are omnivores. It's scientific fact. Most humans eat animals and that usually means killing them first. This video shouldn't be shocking and probably the reason it is to you is that 1) you never thought to eat a camel since you grew up in a country where that wasn't common and/or 2) you've forgotten that animals actually have to be butchered before showing up on your local grocery store shelf and/or 3) you've chosen to be vegetarian (good on you) but forgotten that a large number of other people have chosen to embrace their omnivorism.

(I know omnivorism isn't an actual dictionary word but if vegetarianism can be a word, why not?)

I knew this would happen. Talking to you, too, @oritteropo:

I'm leaving it with just this, because people are attached to their bacon and steaks as tightly as they are tied to religion. Perhaps it's again apples to oranges, but I'm guessing a lot of you are the same folks who rant against religion and wonder why people are so stupid and don't look at logic and science, blah blah blah. This is the perfect time to look in the mirror and see a touch of what you're up against. When you've been indoctrinated with something since you were literally born, you fight against being wrong so hard. So, so hard. Seriously. Take a moment, take a deep breath, and take a little search inside looking at how much of you knows for a fact that eating meat is just fine, and how much of it is cognitive dissonance. How much of it is emotional and how much of it is logical. Look at a video of people going on and on about how Jesus Christ is Lord and another video of people going on and on about how much they love bacon. It's kind of disturbing how zealous bacon-lovers get. Try it. It's fun. It's why I became vegetarian only about 4 or 5 years ago. And I gotta say, getting rid of that cognitive dissonance is very, very relieving and satisfying.

Yes, yes, yes. Loads and loads of vegetarians and vegans are unhealthy. Actually, I would argue that most vegetarians and vegans are wholly less healthy than omnivores since most of them have a high-and-mighty "I'm vegetarians/vegan so I'm automatically healthy" and eat some of the most disgusting, heart-disease-inducing, oily, fatty, un-nutririous, processed shit that's ever been made. Look at some of the fake meat stuff to just have a peek.

No. If you actually watched any of the videos you will see that it's not just being vegan that is important. It's to be a healthy vegan. You know, all that shit you can't ever, ever argue is bad for you. Fruits. Leafy greens. Beans. Lentils. Whole grains, occasionally. But mostly leafy greens and fruit.

And there are loads of studies that control exercise and all sorts of other arguments for "NO NO NO! IT'S NOT MY MEAT! STAY AWAY FROM IT IT'S ANYTHING BUT MY MEAT!". I can think of a specific one that I read/watched about controlling for exercise, and I can find it for you if you'd like, but I'm guessing you aren't really interested. They discovered that very aerobic, exercising, running omnivores were as healthy as lightly walking vegans. He even had a cute graphic for it.

And it's not just this guy, either. Head over to Dr. Fuhrman's website for more of the same. Except Dr. Fuhrman is toting stuff to sell, so that unnerves some people. They claim he's just trying to make a buck. But all the money he makes goes to nutritional research.

The last thing I'll say is this:

I honestly don't give a flying shit about what you eat. I don't really care about the environment at all. I'm not planning on having kids, and I'm sure I'll kick the ol' bucket before antibiotics stop working, water is scarce, the waters rise above NYC, and all the other possible doomsday things that'll probably happen within the next 100 or so years. It's true that I also enjoy not feeling guilty for eating animals who live. It'd make me happy if you stopped eating them because the main thing I believe I'm around for is to minimize suffering in the world. So, that'd be nice if more people didn't eat them.

But if you want to live a nice, long, healthy life where you don't die of a stroke, heart attack, or diabetes by the time you're 65, eat better.

There's a reason why the milk, sugar, meat and pharmaceutical companies pump out study after study about how it's totally fine to eat their shit. They spend so much money on it, it's ridiculous.

Cheers to your health, either way.

These guys can burn down homes but don't bite? Omnivores? Screw that.
One word....
Chlorodane.

EPA can't prove it causes a substantial risk of cancer in humans and it kills everything for 20+years. US still manufactures it for export, banned since 88', but they'll let Monsanto do what the fuck it wants to litigate humans out of what they can grow and what they can or can't use to kill weeds or bugs? Retarded to let it stand.

I'm not sure you can claim that with certainty. Jury's still out on that one.

I'm not saying vegan diets are inherently bad, but we evolved to be omnivores. There's really no concrete evidence to say that a vegan diet is better than one that includes fish, meat and eggs.

It's also bloody hard to find good info on this, simply because almost all the info seems to display an inherent bias (both sides are guilty of this).

Personally, I'm willing to accept a little unhealthiness if it means I can have bacon.

Carnivores, but have the diet of omnivores. Can totally see the canines and the molars for crushing the plants. Cool tongue.

Bears are omnivores, and that was one slow, plump, and juicy-looking bag of flesh. 100,000 years ago, he would have been weeded from the gene pool. Nowadays, just run into the house.

That guy was interviewed after the incident: "I always used to walk and text, but omnivore going to do that again.

Thanks for the promote and the facts!
In reply to this comment by RhesusMonk:
So, a couple of things. First, the domesticated chicken is almost completely flavorless when eaten immediately after slaughter and draining. The flavor we omnivores call "chicken" actually derives from the byproduct of decomposition bacteria that are ever-present in chicken flesh and only begin to grow into large enough numbers for us to taste well after the flesh is dead. This flavor phenomenon is true of many of the meats humans eat.

Second, the Eskimo-Aleut (and I mean the language group here) diet has been rigorously studied and determined to be among the most robust and healthful diets ever established by humans. I'm certainly not saying that eating fermented birds is either tasty or good for you, but the people who thought this up are way better at eating than nearly all of you are.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40315808
http://www.livestrong.com/article/491284-traditional-inuit-aleut-diet/
http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/56/3_suppl/C79.extract
http://www.straightdope.co
m/columns/read/2374/traditionally-eskimos-ate-only-meat-and-fish-why-didnt-they-get-scurvy

P.S.--You wanna call bogus on these facts--which a few have done since the studies in the late '90s--please bring hard evidence.

*promote

So, a couple of things. First, the domesticated chicken is almost completely flavorless when eaten immediately after slaughter and draining. The flavor we omnivores call "chicken" actually derives from the byproduct of decomposition bacteria that are ever-present in chicken flesh and only begin to grow into large enough numbers for us to taste well after the flesh is dead. This flavor phenomenon is true of many of the meats humans eat.

Second, the Eskimo-Aleut (and I mean the language group here) diet has been rigorously studied and determined to be among the most robust and healthful diets ever established by humans. I'm certainly not saying that eating fermented birds is either tasty or good for you, but the people who thought this up are way better at eating than nearly all of you are.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40315808
http://www.livestrong.com/article/491284-traditional-inuit-aleut-diet/
http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/56/3_suppl/C79.extract
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2374/traditionally-eskimos-ate-only-meat-and-fish-why-didnt-they-get-scurvy

P.S.--You wanna call bogus on these facts--which a few have done since the studies in the late '90s--please bring hard evidence.

*promote

>> ^Jinx:

I just kept thinking that when my gut sprung a leak (well, my appendix anyway) the infection I got uncomfortably close to killing me and I needed a little more than spray on disinfectant and a course of antibiotics.
That is a crazy amount of plastic. I assume some of it is undigested plant matter but still. Wow. Poor cow.


As far as I know herbivore stomach contents are a lot less dangerous than omnivores like us. There isn't the same risk to the cow from internal contamination as there would be for a human. Also, remember that when an infected appendix bursts what it's spewing into your body isn't the normal contents of the gut but rather highly infectious matter from the swollen infected appendix.

I'm not a Vet, nor medically trained (I just have a decent background knowledge of biology due to having grown up with an A level biology teacher for a mother) so I'm willing to be shown I'm wrong, but it would be a completely bizarre thing for a vet to do if it there were the same risks. It's obviously had a good dose of local anesthetic and to be fair, it didn't look like it was going to have the best of chances without the surgery!

I'm amazed how much plastic there was, it just didn't look big enough to have that much inside it.

Opposition to the slaughter of animals is an emotional reaction. Either you feel it or you don't. It may be that working in a slaughterhouse for a day would shock people into feeling differently about it. However I don't think we can embrace that as an omnivore hypocrisy test for two reasons.

1) If they stayed at the job for 6 months, they might get over their shock and resume their earlier belief that killing animals for food is perfectly acceptable. There was a time when 95% of the western population had killed an animal for meat, and there was no mass conversion to veganism.

2) More fundamentally, all humans are emotional beings. In a jarring situation, we can all be manipulated into feeling some way that we didn't feel 10 minutes earlier. Go watch some tough guys crying at the end of a romantic comedy. Do they believe Reese Witherspoon has found true love? No, but Hollywood has figured out that if you play swelling violin music, people get emotional, no matter how contrived the story is. I don't think we can consider the reactions to such shocks, particularly as a result of deliberate manipulation, as a true insight into a person's character. Instead, we should see how they feel when they've had time to step back and reflect on the experience.

The video author might decry this as "rationalizing" our emotional failings. However, emotions are beyond our control. It's impossible to feel the wrong way, because there is no choice in the matter. You feel how you feel. It's a good thing that humans have mechanisms to construct their identities apart from their emotional reactions. Otherwise we'd be even more enslaved to them and more easily manipulated than we are now. Is examining and selectively discarding our spur of the moment emotional reactions cognitive dissonance? If so, we should be putting cognitive dissonance in the water supply, like fluoride.
>> ^grinter:

consider what the reaction of Sift omnivores would be if they were forced to slaughter their own meat. Even those claiming they feel no moral imperative to respect the suffering of other animals might wince just a bit as that calf calls for it's mother in its last moments of consciousness.