Cruelty-Free Living
by Vegan? Vegetarian? Is it possible to live a cruelty-free lifestyle?
What is It?
Living as cruelty free as possible is an alternative to becoming a “vegetarian” or “vegan“. It is more than a simple food choice. It recognizes that other animals value their lives as much as we value ours, but that we as humans, are omnivores.
What It is Not?
It is not possible to live entirely cruelty free… so we are simply trying to live less cruelly than other people. Some people might claim they are entirely cruelty free, but by living you are a consumer, every thing we consume comes at the expense of suffering on some level. At some point you stepped on a bug or hit one with your car. Buying any “new” item means environments are destroyed and resources are consumed, and so on. This is not to scare you off, but to give you a realistic thought pattern. Basically, living entirely cruelty free is impossible.
A Cruelty Free Diet
Eating less meat. Obviously less meat means less suffering. Have some meatless meals, and some meatless days. Most people in developed nations eat more meat than they require for a healthy diet. Select the meat you do eat carefully, selecting grass raised beef over factory raised beef, and knowing that one dead cow feeds more people than one dead chicken. As such eating beef may be considered less cruel. Plant a garden so you grow some of your own food.
Veal: Calves are taken from dairy cows at a young age, often crippled by living in restrictive conditions…. I never eat veal, and have reduced my milk intake.
Eggs: you can stop a lot of suffering by eating only free range eggs. Be aware that “free range” means different things depending where you live, it may simply mean the chickens are not packed into tiny cages but rather are kept “loose” in a bigger warehouse. On the other end it means the chickens are actually loose in a yard, nibbling on grass and being able to walk around at will for the day. Both are considerably less cruel than battery hen egg production. Chicken (either for eggs or food, is one of the cruelest raised of all livestock). Even Free Range Eggs are not totally cruelty free, male animals are slaughtered as they are of no use to produce eggs.
Liked it
-
-
-
-
Post CommentAmy
On March 13, 2008 at 2:13 pm
“Massive deforestation has taken place simply to raise vegetables”
People often cite this as soybean acres, for example, have risen dramatically in recent years at the expense of rain forests. But the largest portion of those soybeans (and other new grain growth) is to feed livestock, not to grow vegetables for human appetites. The earth cannot support this level of livestock farming and by association the amount of meat eaten. Eating “wild caught game” occasionally is not going to solve this problem, but going vegetarian will…
B Nelson
On March 17, 2008 at 11:24 pm
NO SOY is raised for “grass based” or “pasture raised” cattle… I am NOT a supporter of “FEEDLOT” raised cattle, and never will be.
If everyone cut down the AMOUNT of meat they ate, we could raise meat with less cruelty.
Tony
On April 14, 2009 at 7:58 am
“….we could raise meat with less cruelty”
…and then slaughter it.
You make a lot of fantastic points but, but however you dress it up, killing’s still killing, and it’s not needed
Anne
On June 4, 2010 at 11:05 am
It is possible to try and live a cruelty free life, your literal definition of it is stupid.
To say you’ve stepped on a bug so you can’t be cruelty free is your easy way out of trying, occasionally we might make a mistake like that but on my part it wasn’t intentional. Its just an excuse to say that and people end up saying well why even bother!
It would be a step in the right direction to buy slightly ‘less’ cruel products like wild game but its still too cruel.
There could be so little cruelty in this world if everybody bought carefully and people weren’t so lazy.
To be honest we could maximize the cruelty free living till their was almost none (except for the odd bug which might be killed by accident) but people don’t want to because they love their materialistic lifestyles with their cars, holidays, iphones, ready meals and make up and want to live in a pretty painted house full of cheap wood furniture and plastic nik naks.
Its true, virtually all of us are guilty of it, but there is really no excuse for it. We are supposed to be the most intelligent species but we don’t act like it!
Also it would be better not to eat meat because food for a few vegetarians might take some land and water, but it takes far more land and much more water to raise animals and grow food for them too!
Alot of the problems with the environment are caused by man messing with the it in the first place and will not be sorted by eating some people eating wild raised game.
Your article needs alot more research, but i guess your telling people what they want to hear. ~ “Do a bit here and there, because theres no point in bothering any more than that!”