Yeah, "befriending" seems to add another ethical dimension--like a predator grooming a child to be abused.

@Wallace that is a fairly twisted way to think about "befriending".

@JeffMurray what part of his comment conveyed that to you???

@HankSherman You can ask him if that's how he meant it, but it read like that to me, clear as day.
The italicized part is what I heard in my head:
"Yeah, 'befriending' an animal you're going to eat seems to add another ethical dimension much worse than just killing and eating it --like a predator grooming a child to be abused."

@JeffMurray I see

Sorry. I am a doctor. Soy protein is very unhealthy and incomplete. A healthy person never puts any soy based food in their body including tofu.

Humans are omnivores not carnivores and meat was originally a very small part of our diet.
Eating too much red meat is detrimental to our health particularly meat from farmed animals which has a high fat percentage.

@Moravian I never said anything about humans being solely carnivores or making a statement on how much meat we should eat. Besides, I have known quite a few women who lived on a vegetarian diet and had problems not having regular menstruation cycles. When they started eating meat again, their flows came back and they felt better

@Heavykevy1985 Human teeth are not designed for eating meat but for grinding nuts grains and roots and are quite different from carnivores teeth. True the digestive system has adapted to cope with meat but too much is unhealthy.
A true vegan diet can be deficient in particularly vitamin B12 and they may need supplaments but I have vegan friends who are among the healthiest people I know.

@Moravian no. We have canines are designed to grip and shred meat. Ever hear of Hunter-gatherers?

@Heavykevy1985 Yes, they had a proportion of meat in their diet but nothing like the percentage that most people in developed countries eat today. Hence the obesity epidemic in many countries.
It is thought that a diet higher in animal protein and fat was instrumental in increasing the brain size of mans early ancestors but this is more likely to be have been from shellfish than animals.
Have you tried eating raw meat with your human canines ?.

@Moravian, @Heavykevy1985 I always find this debate interesting even if it doesn't go anywhere. I do think it's odd that we can digest almost all of an animal, yet we can't digest the most prevalent energy storage method in the plant world, cellulose, at all.

@JeffMurray Good point but it does serve a useful purpose in helping to carry waste through the digestive system.

@Moravian You'll still poop without it. I promise.

@JeffMurray Have you ever smelt the breath of someone on the Atkins diet ?.Yuk.

@Moravian That's a different argument altogether. That is a discussion about not eating carbs causing your body to go into ketosis, instead of not eating vegetables.

@JeffMurray [statnews.com]

Sure ,you can poop alright, with a bit of help

@Moravian Point taken. But we're not exactly bedridden cancer patients easing the pain with tons of opiates either.

@JeffMurray I think the moral of the story is. Don't date a heroin user. Apparently it makes the user constipated but when the effect of the drug wears of the result can be instantaneous and explosive.

@Moravian That is true. Saw it with my own eyes. Plus they'll steal your Magic cards for drug money.

@Moravian the Hunter-gatherers did not eat a lot deep fat fried or processed food with lots of sugar and salt

@Moravian also, those living in the interior did not have as much access to shellfish. The Neanderthal diet was 80% meat, which Europeans trace some of their DNA to

@Heavykevy1985 [psychologytoday.com]

There is obviously a lot of speculation but this article is very interesting, Early hominids probably had a diet similar to chimpanzees with only occasional meat in their diet.I think one of the most interesting comments is about the adaptability of homo sapiens to eat virtually anything. A good example is the Inuit people who happily survived on animals and seafood and are now suffering from ill health due to the increase of processed Western food in their diet.

@Moravian as in processed food. I am sure if the Inuits had access to beef, chicken, pork, etc., probably would not have to hunt and fish so much. Same thing happened in Greece. Do I think that humans should eat less meat and more vegetables? Sure. I think that having a well-rounded diet is important. I usually cook my meals. I try to avoid fast food. Nonetheless, I do think that there are nutritional benefits to eating meat including certain proteins in higher amounts that you cannot obtain from other foods.

@SpikeTalon Neanderthal bones had high amounts of nitrogen in them. That is like due to a high-protein consisting of lots of meat

I agree about eating lab meat.

I'm more concerned with taste. Lab grown meat that tastes like real meat then we can start having a discussion. There are still things you probably can't substitute, like a nice rack of baby back ribs.

I think you are right to make this the point.

Then there is also the mindless consumption of all foods. Many indigenous peoples who hunted a killed for their food made efforts to use every part of the animal and to express gratitude for the sacrifice the animal made.

It makes me so angry when I see these products still on the shelves. And our food is no longer nutrient rich because of these products. It’s so infuriating

I think that Monsanto has now been offloaded to the German competition Bayer because of the weight of claims now being made against them.
[britannica.com]

The following link is of a report by Shane Dowling "Why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge" on his Kangaroo Court newsite written on the subject two years ago.
[kangaroocourtofaustralia.com]

Although I enjoy the occasional steak I always buy from a local butcher. We will soon be seeing imported US beef in our supermarkets along with the chlorinated chicken. Much of the beef from cows raised of feedlots where they never see a blade of grass and are pumped full of antibiotics, No thanks.
Getting protein from cows fed on grass and soya is very inefficient and millions of cows worldwide are producing millions of tons of methane which as we know is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2

@Moravian I'm not sure why, but I think grass-fed beef is gross. Give me the corn packed shit from the farms and let me die of a heart attack ASAP.

@JeffMurray Grass fed beef doesn’t taste as good but it’s a lot better for you health wise. I think if we worked on our breeding programs we could improve the tastes of grass fed beef. I have eaten some grass fed beef that was quite good.

@Trajan61 If I was worried about what was better for me though there's about a million things I wouldn't eat...

Well, don't forget, the farming of vegetables harms animals, too...

Fair enough but to clarify a bit, I was initially asking because of the Asian markets where they eat dog and monkey brains. One person I know was sickened to witness a long table set with what looked like domes at each place setting. At once, all domes were removed. I can’t go on as it is horrific. In any case, the ethics of eating animals includes these instances as well as factory farms that are responsible for not only the abuse of animals but also pollute water and air.

@HelenRoseBuck I see your point. Thanks for sharing.

@HelenRoseBuck I have no problem with people eating various animals that many use for pets. I eat rabbit and have kept rabbits as pets. My objection is the lie of buying a "pet" and claiming you'll make it a pet and then taking it home to eat it or feed it to other animals. That does happen and it is wrong. Intentions matter.

If people want to eat cats or dogs that's fine but don't lie and say you'll make it your pet or steal someone else's pet.

@Gwendolyn2018 so the criteria is: consider living things only with eyes?

The protein in plants is very different and much less bioavailable to us and things like kidney beans and pea protein is not anywhere as healthy. Mammals need protein suitable for animals. Ever see a hungry lion eat soy beans or any plant? Our brain is about 60% fat including about 25% cholesterol. Creating new memory is dependent on cholesterol. Taking a statin cause amnesia in some people by interfering with cholesterol chemistry.

@Healthydoc70 Ever seen a cow eat another cow ?. We did here 20 odd years ago when it was common to feed cows with animal protein. This resulted in the "mad cow disease" epidemic when millions of animals were slaughtered and the practice is now illegal

Possibly the best steak I have had in my life was at the Ruth’s Chris in Hong Kong. Phenomenal. lol

@Moravian Do you have a point? Cows are herbivores, read vegetarians. If you feed them grains or animal proteins they get sick. Herbivores exist to convert the energy in plants to meat and milk to feed omnivores and carnivores. Lions eat meat because they must. You will never see a hungry female lion run into a soy patch and chow down in order to create milk for her young. An Octopus, a squid, a sperm whale, a killer whale and a tuna fish among many others are carnivores and won't eat sea weed no matter how hungry.

@Healthydoc70 not sure if your question was for me. But, the only point I had initially was to ask for others’ to weigh in on the ethics of eating animals. Some great discussion has come of it.

@Healthydoc70 Do I have a point ?. OK I will put it in simpler language. Cows fed on a diet containing animal protein, particularly brains and spinal cords of other cows can develop bovine spongiform encephalitis (mad cow disease) as happened in the UK some 20 years ago. Tens of thousands of cows were destroyed and the practice was made illegal.
There were a few cases of Creutzfeldt Jacob disease in humans which were thought to have been caused by eating infected beef and there was a worry that this would become more common but fortunately this has not materialised.
Cows in feedlots in the USA are fed a diet containing a high proportion of grains including barley,soya,chick peas and also potatoes. As you say this is not the animals natural diet and the cattle suffer ill health. This is controlled by giving the cattle antibiotics.
Under Boris's great trade deal with the USA we are likely to see this meat in our supermarkets soon. I for one will not be buying it.

@Moravian I know all about his. You write with an insulting arrogance. I have an IQ above 30, thank you. You don't know me, so you write down to me.

@Healthydoc70 Well, I tend to respond as I am addressed. Do I have a point etc.

The poultry that I keep seem to enjoy my company. Some prefer to eat from the ground, others prefer to eat from my hand. The duck warble and the drakes hiss, and both gender wag their tails in delight when being hand-fed.

(Hissing in drakes is not aggression. Drakes use quite different signals to indicate aggression, fortunately never aimed at me.)

@K9Kohle789 Their "humane" treatment consists of hanging the animal upside down and opening up an artery to let it bleed out to death. It takes them many minutes to actually die. This is not humane in my opinion,