Just remember ...

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... my meanderings take me strange places:

People choose vegetarianism for tons of different reasons. Some for the health benefits, some for the environmental reasons, some just don’t like meat. Some because they don’t want animals to die so that they can eat. Which I could respect if it really meant that animals don’t die so they can eat.

Those who choose vegetarianism for this particular reason are (I hesitate a bit here because I want to respect people and their choices) fooling themselves. Animals die whether you choose to eat their flesh or not.

There is no cushy retirement home for cows who are done milking. For hens who are done laying. For the calves who happen to be bulls instead of heifers. For the chicks who happen to be cockerels instead of pullets.

Those animals are killed. Period. They die. Animals die when a person chooses to eat any animal product. When a person chooses to wear an item made of leather. No matter how you slice it, an animal’s life is used and ended when it is no longer useful.

While taking life, we do our best to honor it. We use every part of the animal we can. I won’t get into detail, but the parts that we don’t eat are given to the Audubon Society for their two rehabilitating birds of prey, our 11 chickens (who are not vegetarians!), and our 2 dogs and 3 cats. We have given the hides to a friend to tan. We compost the rest.

We make more than one meal out of a rabbit. One 3 lb rabbit makes a little over 2 meals for 3 people (one growing boy and two active adults). The rabbit’s one life is taken and it benefits 22.

This post is by a lesbian, living in Portland, OR,. who raises her own meat, and is then taken to task by an activist vegetarian (God, I hate those busy-bodies). Read the whole post, because I think it lays out the most reasoned arguments for eating meat, and raising it yourself.