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Comment by throwaway_gfsd | Hacker News Reader

  > the only reason for eating meat is taste

I'd rather eat meat than most of the product that passes for protein in many restricted diets. Not just because of the taste.

  > a life of absolute misery.

No. Not all. Some yes, and mistreatment of animals is definitely a problem, but I can't agree with the conclusion that because some animals are mistreated, we shouldn't eat any.

I do know that the majority of the meat (beef) I eat is extremely well treated for its entire life. Yes, they are bred and grown for a purpose. Yes, it lives in a paddock and yes, we eat it. But "enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.

FWIW, I'm not from the USA, and have grown up around farms and farm animals.

(When I say "majority" above, I mean that we also buy some meat from supermarkets and I can't be totally certain of how it has been treated, but in my opinion, the vast majority of farmers treat their animals very well here.)

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    "enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.

Regardless of the day to day treatment of animals (which is only even "acceptable" in a tiny minority of places[1]), they are still bred to meet our needs and killed long before the end of their natural life. You shouldn't be measuring the treatment of the animals you eat relative to awful treatment they experience elsewhere in the world, you should measure it relative to the life the animals would lead naturally [edited from "in the wild"]. Animals killed for meat are usually slaughtered very early on in their life, long before they've lived 10% of what they would live naturally [edited from "in the wild"].

[1] Factory farming is near 99% of all livestock farming in the USA.

This certainly makes me think about things. Many animals in the wild fall victim to predators (a terrible and painful death), and many die prematurely of illness and famine.

The meat I eat doesn't have those problems.

We do indeed slaughter it "as soon as it is ready" rather than at end of natural life though, it's certainly something for me to think more about.

edit: to keep it clear about where my stance comes from: we don't factory farm. The beef I'm talking about is grass reared outside in open paddocks, with additional hay during winter, salt lick, "drenched" for worms, and eaten at approximately 2 years old. They come up to "say hi" if you stand at the fence and wait quietly. They are not really exposed to dogs for rounding up.

The vast majority of farmed animals are only alive at all because they are farmed. Wild animals would not fare well - what is now farmland would be put to different use.

(I don't live in the US, and I grew up in the Irish countryside amongst the many cows in the fields.)

How comfortable is the "natural" life an animal might live? Talk to any hunter and ask what kind of animals they come across in the wild: starved, infected (parasites, bacteria, fungi), horrible injured due to a predator attack, etc.

I'd argue there is probably less suffering for farm raised animals then those in the wild.

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