I'm an animal lover and I like to believe I keep a fairly open mind. I also know a few vegans and I have listened to their views and concerns, and I have done my own research on the matter, which was lead me to the following thoughts.
Veganism is not altruistic
If vegans are in it to end animal suffering then why do so many of them force a plant based diet on their carnivorous pets? An example of this is a case where a nearly-dead kitten was saved at a North Melbourne animal hospital after it's owners attempted to force it to eat a vegan diet.
Now you might say to yourself "well that's just an isolated case", but this simply isn't true. You can find many articles and how-to's on google about forcing this type of diet on your pet. And PETA, an often mis-guided animal rights group, encourages vegan diets for carnivorous pets, claiming that it is "healthy".
However, an actual doctor of veterinary medicine, Leanne Pinfold, makes it very clear -- carnivores need meat to live.
The truth is veganism is just another ideology, and like most it's spread through lies, deception, and ignoring research and reasoning that does not align.
Vegans use their diet to shame people
If you're a meat eater and you know a vegan, or have met one, then you probably know this all too well.
They often tell you that you're the cause of animal suffering, that you're unhealthy, that you're going to get cancer, or they tell you how much better their life is because they're a vegan.
One of their most popular ways of shaming people is by saying they're living the way humans where "mean't to live."
Not eating meat does not save animals
If you thought you where going to save a few cows by your avoiding the beef section alone then you're wrong -- It would take a mass number of vegans to effect supply, and that isn't happening currently.
The demand for meat will exist weather you buy it or not. There are plenty of people that don't share your views or are simply too poor to do so. Even if the demand for meat dropped in the short term the price would drop also, which would encourage poor people to buy the product, which would fuel new demand. Poor people don't eat things based on morals, they eat things based on need and availability.
You know whats in low demand? Meat from free-range cows. You would do more to end animal suffering if you bought meat from brands that treat animals well, much more so than avoiding meat altogether.
Agriculture is good for society and nature
You're reading this on the internet, right? It's a such a great place to rant about meaningless shit -- and we can thank agriculture for it, along with most everything in a modern society.
You see, back in the old days we didn't have much time to ponder science, math or technology. We where too busy trying to find food to keep us living. Eventually we figured out that if we raise meat animals ourselves then thats a lot less time we have to spend finding them in the wild. That gave us time to create other things, like a modern society.
Agriculture has also saved wild animals from being hunted into extinction. We have eaten meat since the cave man days. Back then we hunted most of the animals we ate, which was ok when there wasn't so many of us. Thankfully we have modern agriculture now, so we replenish the animals we eat.
The animals we farm for meat, like cattle and broiler chickens, are NOT wild animals. In fact if these animals where released to the wild they would die in short order. They exist only because we eat them.
