Table of Contents
Do we feel the emotions of the animals we eat?
The experience of disgust is an important psychological mechanism influencing the decision to eat certain animals. In fact, disgust is considered one of the core moral emotions. Joy, generally the more empathy you feel for an animal, the more disgusted you are about the idea of eating it.
Why not eating meat is wrong?
Even reducing meat intake has a protective effect. Research shows that people who eat red meat are at an increased risk of death from heart disease, stroke or diabetes. Processed meats also increase the risk of death from these diseases. And what you don’t eat can also harm your health.
What happens to animals when they are butchered?
Different animals are butchered differently. The sheep have their throats cut, right through the vertebrae. It is over before it starts. They feel nothing and are instantly dead.
Is it ever OK to subject animals to suffering?
We can all agree that gratuitously subjecting animals to suffering is a bad thing, and it’s the rare human who could look at unnaturally fat chickens or pigs in cages or crates that barely allow them to move without thinking that we’ve gone terribly wrong somewhere.
Is it ever OK to eat animals that are mindful?
In a series of experiments and surveys, a team led by research psychologist Steve Loughnan of the University of Melbourne confirmed that while people across a broad range of cultures agree that the more mindful an animal is, the less defensible it is to eat it, we have a convenient way of deciding which critters think and which don’t.
Do you eat meat from your local butcher?
And we do eat meat from time to time from our nearby store or local butcher, or from other farm friends. But I don’t want to debate where you get your food, or what you choose to eat. That is all up to you. I want to describe what it is like to be present at butcher day, and what goes into the routine leading up to it.