[bmitc]

Unless you can invent life that doesn't require the consumption of other life, we're stuck with what we have. As far as I understand, humans have always eaten meat, including before fire was discovered. There's a certain biological component for being omnivores.

Second, I am human too, you know. I'm made up of the same bullshit everyone else is. However, at least I try to question what I do and try and stop things, and I'm not hell bent on actively trying to make other humans' or animals' lives miserable. I'm still ashamed at the amount of waste and suffering I've brought by eating certain things or using certain products.

Part of my point is that there are people in key moments that can say "enough is enough" but they don't. Usually because they know someone else won't say that and will just do it themselves. And so it goes.

So my question, the second one you quoted, is somewhat rhetorical. We humans don't really possess the ability to be okay with enough. If we did, things would have been a lot different a long time ago. I'm a little curious about the reason why we don't though. There's something off about us. I think this is what you get when you give apes enough intelligence to build technology and societies but not enough emotional capacity and development to handle the consequences.

[sweetheart]

The original comment was in reference to animals specifically, not just life, so saying we need to eat life to survive and therefor must eat animals is incoherent.

Also, for how long humans have eaten meat is totally irrelevant: doing something for a long time does not justify it.

Human beings don’t require animal products to thrive, period, so those that eat them anyway engage in unnecessary cruelty against other sentient animals. The unnecessary part is the most crucial.

[bmitc]

> Human beings don’t require animal products to thrive, period

As much as I am in favor of reducing meat consumption of all kinds, is this an accepted fact?

[dundarious]

For some measure of "accepted fact", yes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/

> It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

Eating quite minimal animal products is the norm in societies with the best longevity. A "good" vegan diet is very very healthy and cheap, only requiring supplementation with B12. This specific need for supplementation is more an artifact of modern farming practices -- we clean vegetables of the bacteria that produce B12, because we use fertilizers that must be washed away or else risk disease. Animal products contain B12 because those animals still eat enough bacteria produced B12 -- all animals get B12 from bacteria or from eating animals that get it from bacteria.

There are parts of the world where environment or culture doesn't allow for a "good" vegan diet. If you're in a developed nation and not in a food desert, the environmental aspect doesn't apply.

[sweetheart]

Actually cows do produce some levels of B12 in their bodies, but we still supplement them with the raw ingredients for that B12 so at the end of the day, basically every person living in the developed world is getting their B12 from supplements, one way or another.

Also, it’s not only the American Dietetic Association that believes veganism is healthy for all stages of, it’s the opinion of all the largest ones around the world!

[nefitty]

Sliding into this subthread, this explanation you just gave of where you are is why I commended you upthread. I recognize your embrace of your own self-awareness and moral openness. I like people like that.