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But
the vegetarians kill the poor innocent plants!
I just like the taste of meat.
Vegetarian products are way too expensive!
But fishes are no real animals.
Fishes do not feel pain.
Don't you kill spiders in your room?
Isn't it enough for a compromise to eat less meat?
If you don't eat meat, you take destroy the
jobs of farmers, butchers etc.!
More Counterarguments and information
Definition:
The scientific definition for vegetarianism is "Way of living with avoiding
every form of killing animals". However, today this definition has changed
a bit. Basically every vegetarian eats no meat, but there are differences.
Ovo-lacto-pisce vegetarians eat no meat, but fish and ovo-lacto vegetarians
eat no fish and no meat. That is the most common form. Lacto vegetarians
eat additional no eggs and Ovo vegetarians eat besides meat and fish no
milk and milk products. Vegans avoid every animal ingredient and also
leather, fur and so on. Most vegetarian who became one for ethical or
moral reasons avoid also leather and fur without being a complete vegan.
Our
position:
Not everybody from us is vegetarian, but we all believe that animals should
not be tortured unnecessary, if there exist "necessary" torture at all.
We all are against animal tests and vivisection, animal transports and
mass livestock breeding and we advocate the welfare of animals. Some oppose
every form of killing animals, be it for meat, for fun (fishing) or for
fur and leather. Others avoid also animal ingredients, because they believe
that even livestock breeding is torture. Even since not everybody from
us lives exactly this position, we distribute these arguments, because
at least everybody supports the position.
Argument:
Alone I cannot save animals at all!
Counterargument: Oh yes, you can! One example: the average American
eats up to his 75th year about 11 cattle, 3 lambs and sheep, 23 pork,
45 turkeys, 1100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish. Even if some people
guaranteed eat less than that, a lot of animals still would be saved.
Certainly every American family had for Thanksgiving a turkey. If every
family member would agree not to have a turkey, you would save at least
one animal.
Argument:
But the animals get slaughtered anyway.
Counterargument: Sure, the animals who lay in the freezer in the
grocery store are dead, but as everybody knows the demand for something
regulates the supply. If nobody would buy meat, no animals would have
to be slaughtered to fill up the freezer.
Argument:
For certain occasions it is just tradition to eat meat.
Counterargument: A lot of families in Europe eat for Christmas
a goose or for New Year's Eve a carp or trout. Or in the USA every Thanksgiving
thousand of turkeys get eaten. But still in the beginning of this century
it was there "tradition" too that women had no right to vote and even
the slavery is not too long ago. In Europe they did cut out the tongues
from liars and in the middle of the 18th century a lot of red-haired women
were accused to be witches and therefore burned. Some years ago it was
still legal in Spain to throw one time a year for a religious ceremony
a goat out of a church tower! It is forbidden today, but in some areas
still practiced. Want somebody seriously claim that these traditions are
worth it to keep? So why not renounce the goose or the turkey?
Argument:
But animals eat other animals too!
Counterargument: So you want to compare yourself with predacious
animals like lions and tigers? "Unfortunately" our ancestors are the anthropoid
apes that are mostly plain plant eater what means vegetarians. We have
neither the tooth nor the claws to tear an animal into pieces. No, more
the opposite because our teeth are for the grind of wheat and other plants
really predestined.
It is scientifically proved that the length of the intestines is decisive
for the digestion. Our relatively long intestines of plant eaters are
as unfit for the digestion of fast rot meat as the short intestines of
tigers for the digestion of a grain bar. Another fact is that animals
hunt their animals by themselves. Would you still eat cows if you would
have to see in their eyes and then stab the cow with a knife and listen
to the death screams while the blood squirt out of the sore?
Besides that it makes us wonder that exactly the people for who the humans
are on a higher level than the animals compare themselves with predacious
animals and therefore go down to the same level again. If the humans are
different from animals due to the intelligence (?), why should not he
realize that meat is not necessary for the daily life and abandon it?
Every human is a free personality that can think and act independently
upon a certain age. Eating meat just because some animals do is not a
good example for the cultural and social development of the humans. On
the one hand some people try to justify their meat diet with being more
progressive, developed etc., but on the other hand they want refering
to the animal world, because they do it the same way. Some animals wallow
in the mud or others eat worms. Just because they do, we do not have to
do it too!
Furthermore do not eat all animals other animals. The dominating part
consists of herbivores, that means they are living vegetarian. And even
carnivores only eat herbivores anew, without them they could not even
exist. The other way around it would be possible.
We want to add that carnivores have no other opportunity than eating meat.
First, because their environment may not supply enough plants and second,
because their digestive system is not made for it and they could not digest
the nutrients of the plants. If people say the human is an omnivore that
might be true. He can eat everything, but he does not have to. Humans
developed in a way that does not need animal ingredients. More to that
in the next counterargument.
Argument:
Humans always ate meat!
Counterargument: Like already disapproved above our ancestors are
the (mostly) vegetarian anthropoid apes. Most people talk about the time
when the humans hunted mammoths. But such an animal got caught only once
in a while and a hunt could take up to some month. Besides was it sometimes,
especially in the winter and some regions just not possible to find always
plants. That is also one of the reasons for the low life expectation of
20 to 25 years. Do you call that desirable? Today the technique and science
is so far that we have again the possibility to live without meat. The
evolution does not stop and who wants to develop backwards and hunt again
with a bearskin?
It was an invention of humans to catch animals, to tame and domesticate
them, to breed them, so that there is always plenty of meat available.
But it was also an invention to build hothouses in which plants can grow
every time of the year. Or the grow of more productive types of grain
and the invention of the "three fields economy" (Dreifelderwirtschaft)
and later the mechanical cultivation helped to get higher returns from
the same field. Like we have learned to digest meat and to make it eatable
we have learned to produce vegetable food in a way that they are everywhere
in the world available and consists enough nutrients. Stop eating meat
and change to pure vegetable food would not be a retrogression, on the
contrary it would be a part of the culturell development of the humans.
Humans passed laws for the protection of animals that say that it is illegal
to superfluously maltreat an animal. If we are capable of living vegetarian,
is not the killing of an animal superfluously maltreatment? By the way,
the "Animal Welfare Act" of the United States Department of Agriculture,
passed by the US Congress "specifically excludes animals raised for food
or fiber." That means it is a protection against our vegetarian counterargument
that it would be illegal to maltreat animals. They just said, if you kill
an "animal for food or fiber" it is not illegal to maltreat them. But
if you beat your pet? Where is the justice?
Argument:
I do not kill the animals by myself!
Counterargument: Ordered murder is just as bad. If oyu pay a person
money to kill a human the person will be persecuted as the murderer him-
or herself. So why this should not be applicable for animals? The point
is: If a meat eater excuses his or her eating habits with the argument
that he/her did not kill the animal itself and this could it the animal,
the argument cannot be accepted. It is not about who killed the animal
but that the animal was killed in the first place. Another counterquestion
would be: Could you kill the animals yourself? Meaning not the
skills but the crossing of a moral line. Anybody that could not kill a
sweet little rabbit this confesses indirectly that there must be something
wrong morally. Plus to be honest: Anybody that would not have a problem
with that seems suspect to us.
With your purchase of meat you kind of give the order to kill another
animals to fill up the shelves again.
Argument:
But have not the vegetarians a lack of nutrients?
Counterargument: How many nutrients can you name that are contained
in meat? Surely not many for there are not many. The muscle meat of animals
for slaughter contains an average of 3-30% fat, 21% protein, 1% mineral
salts (e.g. table salt, calcium, phosphoric acid), 0,5% carbohydrates
and 70-75% water, and vitamins. The fat, the protein and the carbohydrates
can be substituted without problems with vegetable food. Pork meat e.g.
contains only traces of carbohydrates, but rice almost 75% and potatoes
20%. Besides that are animal fats contrary to vegetable fat highly concentrated.
That is why meat eating people often get too much protein that strains
among others the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible of producing the
enzyme for the protein digestion and counteracts the beginning of cancer.
A lot of protein is contained in all kinds of nuts, grain and soybean
flour. Fat is available in vegetable oil (for instance margarine).Mineral
nutrients are contained sufficiently in vegetable food too. Calcium is
available in tofu four times more than in cow milk and can also be found
in nuts or dried fruits. Vitamin A, B1, B2, C, E and K are contained in
fruits and vegetables (spinach, carrots), sometimes also in grain more
than sufficient. Our body can produce vitamin D itself under the influence
of sunlight, but is also available in enriched foods like margarine. The
supply with vitamin B12 could cause some troubles. But the body only needs
very few amounts of it and is capable of storing it for a long period
of time. Bacteria in the small intestine can produce it too. The natural
source are microorganisms, though they get killed by the chemical agriculture.
That is why fruits and vegetables coming from organic farming should be
preferred.
Even a lack of iodine does not have to be feared in this times due to
the increasing use of salt containing iodine. An example shall summarize
it all: Compared with 100 gram of pork meat soybean flour contains 25
gram more carbohydrates (pork meat has only traces), the same amount of
fat, twice as much protein, a bit more calories, five times more mineral
nutrients, 15 milligram more vitamin A (pork meat has only traces), a
bit more vitamin B1 and twice as much vitamin B2.
Besides prove the millions of living vegetarians the opposite every day
and it is scientifically proved that they have a longer life expectation.
Also consider that with the feed of wheat and grain to livestock about
90% of protein, almost all carbohydrates and all fiber are wasted.
Argument:
You got to eat meat to stay healthy (...or to become big and strong)
Counterargument: It is surprising how many times this argument
appears, because due to many studies it should be already established
that meat is because of the high percentage of fat in it is one of the
main reasons for heart attacks, high blood pressure and weight problems.
Every cancer institutions will approve that vegetarians have a much lower
rate of cancer. Considering that 55% of all medications sold in the USA
are used for livestock you should start thinking. Besides it is proves
now that some people are already immune against some medications, in which
are substances that are given to animals to keep them calm before the
slaughter.
Argument:
The animals get killed fast and without pain.
Counterargument: Then why must so many cows be brought with electric
shocks to the slaughter if the procedure is painless? DO you seriously
believe that the animals do not feel pain when they got killed? How do
you explain then their screams? Is that supposed to be a "Hallelujah"?
And even is the slaughter procedure would be relatively short what is
not always the case, after this follows the death. If you could choose
between a short and painless death and life, what would you choose?
Argument:
Cows are just raised to be slaughtered!
Counterargument: In the earlier days people bought slaves just
to let them work. Is that an argument? In some countries in Asia they
raise dogs and cats and in Europe sometimes horse to be slaughtered. Would
you eat dogs, cats or horses? In some religions is the cow holy, so they
do not eat cows.
Argument:
If we would not eat cows and pigs, they would become too many.
Counterargument: As dumb as this argument sounds, some people still
argue with that. They seem to forget that, if nobody would eat animals,
we would not have to raise them anymore.
Argument:
But the vegetarians kill the poor innocent plants!
Counterargument: This argument mostly is brought up when the person
does not know what to say anymore and tries to attack the vegetarians
verbally. Nobody really believes that plants feel pain what is scientifically
proved too, because they do not have nerve cells that could transmit the
pain. Who makes fun about vegetarians with "Save the soy beans!" or "Save
the baby peas!" seems to forget that they have to eat fruits and vegetables
daily also! Nobody can survive without vegetables, fruits and grain, but
everybody can live without meat.
Argument:
I just like the taste of meat.
Counterargument: There are many vegetarian products, which taste
due to good seasoning exactly like meat. So who wants to feel sometimes
the taste of a hot dog, can do that vegetarian too. With tofu hot dogs
you do not even have to cancel your barbecue.
Argument:
Vegetarian products are way too expensive!
Counterargument: Sometimes this might be true, but one of the reasons
is that there are still not enough vegetarians. Due to the law of demand
and supply the prices would decrease if more people become vegetarians,
because then they can produce in bigger amounts. In contrast to this meat
is only this cheap because of the animal factories and the automatically
appearing cruelty. So called bio-meat from farmers with small farms is
much more expensive.
Argument:
But fishes are no real animals.
Counterargument: No? So what are they? In which category would
you put them: humans, animals or plants?
Argument:
Fishes do not feel pain.
Counterargument: Only because fishes cannot scream that does not
mean that they cannot feel pain. They have nerve cells like any other
animal too. Besides get a lot of dolphins, whales, turtles, see birds
and so on killed while catching fishes with big nets. And 50% of the eels
from fish farms die before the slaughter. For every eel bought, two had
to die!
Argument:
Don't you kill spiders and insects in your room?
Counterargument: There are two possibilities. Either you really
try not to kill insects and other small animals. Then the answer to the
argument is fairly easy. Surely it can happen sometimes, but then it was
not intended and therefore somehow excusable. That happens to others as
well. If I kill animals in self-defense it is justified for me too, because
I appreciate my own life without any egoism more than that of an animal.
Sometimes there is the version of the argument: "If you had the choice
between saving a human or an animal, what would you choose?" Here I say
"the human" without much thinking, because "members of the same species"
to use the biological words help each other more than other species. This
is just logical, but is used against me by meat-eaters, because I hold
the opinion that humans and animals are on the same level.
Another way for people who are afraid of spiders and thus kill them is
this: Nobody can be 100% perfect, not even you. If you have the choice
between killing all spiders and pigs, cows, fishes and so on or ONLY kill
spiders, so the killing of only spiders isn't "as bad" as the other choice,
is it? Only because you cannot do everything the right way that does not
mean you can change at least a little bit. It is better to be a vegetarian
and spider killer than a meat eater and spider killer. When people tell
you "You kill spiders, you can eat meat then as well..." you can say:
"But you eat cow meat, so you can eat horse meat or dog eat too..." Some
people then say that they really would do that but there have to come
other counteragruments to work. Besides, it is in general only said as
a act of defiance.
Argument:
Isn't it enough for a compromise to eat less meat?
Counterargument: Not for the animals that get killed nevertheless.
It is clear that a change of diet cannot happen overnight. But who cannot
justify the killing of innocent animals won't be satisfied with reducing
his or her share of meat.
Argument:
If you don't eat meat, you take destroy the jobs of farmers, butchers
etc.!
Counterargument: Not all farmers sell exclusively meat and meat
products. They can change their farms after a while without problems to
vegetable productions. Furthermore the jobs won't be destroyed, they just
get shifted. People do not starve, they only eat something different.
With this line of argumentation you could justify wars as well so soldiers
and weapon producers have something to work. "But they kill people..."
Butcher kill animals... and so on.
More
Counterarguments and information:
How to win an argument with a meat-eater
101
reasons why I am a vegetarian
PeTA -
Factsheets vegetarianism
Animal Defense
League
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