Animal welfare and passive aggression (skip if not important to you)
“We are evolved to eat meat”
We have evolved to be able to eat animals. But does that mean it’s good for us? And the planet? We could exist by eating only puffins but would we be healthy? Equally we can live perfectly happily on plants.
“Drinking cows’ milk is unnatural”
We can only consume our own species?
“I only eat animals that have been looked after”
But does it matter? You’re still slaughtering and eating them. Is this for your benefit or the animal?
“I’m an animal lover [but I’m not a vegan]”
How can you love animals and eat any of them? You love consuming animals? You love some animals and eat the rest?
“I just want to help the [endagered] animals [but I’m not a vegan]”
You just want to help them into your belly!
“I eat cows but eating dogs is wrong”
What’s acceptable to eat is, of course, completely arbitrary and driven by culture and religion.
Is it size? I don’t think so: cows are good (unless you’re Hindu), horses bad.
Is it intelligence? No. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs.
Is it scarcity? Still no. Tigers bad, cod fine.
Is it cuteness? Absolutely not. We eat tonnes of lamb but foxes go untouched bar the hunting.
“Animals are there for us to eat”
For survival, perhaps. But we grow plants to mass produce animals. If they’re ours to eat why stop at one level of indirection? Why not fell forests to grow soy to raise cattle to rear crocodiles and then eat the crocodiles? Perhaps soy-fed cow crocs are tastier than grass-fed cattle?
Or we could just eat the soy and live perfectly healthy lives without killing anything.