Well thought out or cop out?

The season of eating is upon us, and being an avid meat eater but tentative poultry and fish eater (due to less humane methods of killing) I am faced again with the conundrum… do we have the right to eat other animals? I’m a traditionalist, and support British agriculture, but am also too deep a thinker and let myself get bothered by things I perhaps should just accept blindly.

Also I’m not sure that if you think eating animals is wrong that not eating them is enough. If eating animals is wrong, then surely using leather, animal products, keeping them for eggs, milk, keeping them as pets is all wrong too. Layers and dairy cows die the same way as broilers and beef cattle – ok so they didn’t die to produce the foodstuff, but they wouldn’t have been born if the foodstuff wasn’t being produced. So, either you go all the way and adopt a way of life that doesn’t rely on the use of other lifeforms at all, or you continue the way of life that relies upon animal industry but endeavor to make the quality of life of those animals as optimal as possible.

This stems from Christmas turkey. I do have a problem with mass produced birds as they are processed so fast I don’t believe it’s possible to assume 100% of them are processed humanely. Therefore I wanted a turkey this year that was processed by hand and so much more likely to have been dealt with humanely. The other option is not to eat turkey at all, which is a cop out imo, as I’d eat beef or something instead, and an individually cared for turkey (like the one I’m getting) is as humane as beef anyway. That’s just let feelings of guilt get in the way instead.

Tis a puzzling one. I suppose it stems from my belief that humans have no moral superiority over other animals, we’re just another species, with another set of abilities. By chance, our abilities led us to become one of the dominant species of the planet, and also led us to question our place here. My cats don’t question their meal of illogical beef cat food (ever seen a cat kill a cow?). My rabbit doesn’t question her addiction to beef or bbq flavoured pringles. My tomcat doesn’t have moral doubts when he kills mice for fun and eats them.

Meh confusing. I don’t feel particularly guilty and I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, and I have every intention of keeping my own chickens and lambs for food later in life (best way to ensure optimal welfare). I just question the right of our species to do so when we don’t technically have too. We could survive (just about) without relying on other species, however if we had done so throughout history we certainly wouldn’t have got where we are today. Perhaps that’s the ability that led us to be the top species… our ability to exploit other species.

Doesn’t explain ants farming aphids though…