Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerplunk
I'm trying to find some good articles about the differences between the various digestive systems, and I get half saying we are carnivores and half saying herbivores
|
Humans are omnivores. One of the biggest reasons why humans do so well everywhere actually: we can live on pretty much anything, and our bodies are great at turning things we eat into things our bodies need. However, I've never much cared for biology as a reasons for doing or not doing something. Humans were not "designed" to do anything, we just are, and over time we've made countless decisions to move away from our hunter-gatherer roots in the African savannahs. Just because we can eat meat is not a reason to do it.
One of the most amazing things about humans is how well we have managed to cut out most of violence out of our lives. I know people often think humans are somehow super-violent as a species, but really we're not. We can easily form huge collectives that mostly live quite peacefully internally and without conflict with our neighbours. Violence towards other humans is an exception to our daily lives, not the norm. (To the point where violence is now almost always news when it happens.)
To me it seems that cutting out violence towards animals is a somewhat inevitable next step, for environmental reasons as well as ethical.
As for ethics, for me personally, I don't really care (much) about how the animal has died. I just don't think it really matters that much. I'm sure dying generally sucks. I do however care about how the animals have lived. This is why pretty much all the meat I eat these days (pork and lamb) come from farms I know. Out of the house I'm mostly vegetarian.
Even at home I eat vegeterian probably 50-60% of the time, because it's cheap, tasty and I've noticed that eating less meat is good for my digestion. Less meat means less stomach burns, which then let's me do more of other unhealthy but lovely things such as drinking scotch
