[keiferski]

It is mostly just proximity and framing. A hurt wild animal is alive and right in front of you. Meat from the grocery store is a prepackaged product that isn’t mentally associated with the bloody process behind the scenes required to get it there. The commercial aspect is pretty dependent on this distancing.

Case-in-point: I once stayed in a small town in Morocco for a few weeks. There wasn’t a grocery store nearby, just a market, and if you wanted chicken, they killed it in front of you. Needless to say, being directly confronted with the process…I didn’t eat meat the entire time.

[cylemons]

Also a matter of purpose, killing animals for food is more acceptable than killing them for sport or entertainment

[yurishimo]

Exactly this. Meat is a huge source of nutrition. Even though in our modern western society, we might not "need" to eat meat, but it's a hearty, plentiful, accessible protein and fat that stores well and can be easily moved and replicated quickly. It's simply much more practical still to keep eating meat in much of the world. I'm not going to go into the arguments about our biology either, but I think it's safe to say that our bodies are also very finely tuned to eat and process organic (from organisms) meat and use it as fuel. Sure, you can feed your cat a vegan diet or whatever and replace all of the vitamins, but there is no denying that the more "natural" way would be to just eat the meat and be done with it.

Many of the arguments for veganism come alongside ideas for better animal welfare, but the two are not mutually exclusive. The only reason we don't eat grandma after she dies is because it's culturally unacceptable. We can apply more respect and reverence to meat production without stopping entirely or pretending that the benefits of eating meat don't exist.

[throwway120385]

Eating Grandma is actually a really good way to get parasites and prion diseases, so there's more to it than just cultural acceptability. The reason we don't risk parasites from farmed meat is because it's dewormed and treated and inspected and cleaned.

[DonHopkins]

Free Range Grandma is more humane, but has more parasites.

[antonvs]

"Time for your deworming, Granny! I'm hungry!"

[yurishimo]

I mean, sure. But we could do all of those same things to Grandma in 2025 as well.

[cylemons]

Also, culture is shaped by biology, our brains are wired to find meat delicious because it gives us the proteins we need to survive.

[aziaziazi]

One could say the same with slaves: slaves for work are more acceptable than for fun.

[chithanh]

In the developed world and large parts of the developing world, meat is consumed for entirely hedonic reasons (ie. for pleasure). I would not consider this materially different from killing for sports or entertainment.

[cylemons]

It is different tho, atleast eating meat is nutritionally beneficial while killing for sports is a waste of time.

[felurx]

You would spend some time outdoors being active, which is good for you but also entirely possible without killing animals. I'd argue that's the same for meat.

[dotancohen]

  > if you wanted chicken, they killed it in front of you. Needless to say, being directly confronted with the process…I didn’t eat meat the entire time.

The one time I had opportunity to kill a bird with my own hands and eat it, I ate it with far greater respect and less waste than any meat I'd ever even before or since. I wish there were an efficient way to bring the consumer closer to the animal in everyday Western society. I doubt that we would consume less meat, but we would certainly have more respect for it.

[BrandoElFollito]

I live in France in a comfortable place with anything I need to eat and drink.

In that context, if I had to kill the animals I eat I would absolutely turn vegetarian because I like animals very much and the minced meat I get at the store does not stare at me.

I put the context first because such a change would require accrss to varied vegetables etc.

The situation wipes be drastically different in a world where you do not have this access or need to fight for food.

[pegasus]

They would definitely waste less of it, and probably consume less as well.