I did retirement home training and used to think it was a sweet job. Then I got in the business and underestimated how demoralizing it was as they give you the easy elders in training while the others make you, or at least me, really think of the fact the job just amounts to an unkarmic freebie.
Hi! I’m going to pick your brain because this is on my mind tonight.
My family happily eats meat. I’ve never hunted anything but a few fish, rarely and not for decades. So, there’s the background.
Noticed there are LOADS of squirrels around. In my yard, at my camp, in the woods. Thought about harvesting a few. (Turns out I’m too soft, what if I shoot someone’s wife?!, but I thought about it.) My kids were horrified at the notion. “But you’re happy killing chickens and cows for your McDonalds?!”
Kayaking tonight, I ran into a monstrous rookery in the swamp. Egrets I think? Great Herons? Anyway, they seem always in the same place, by the hundreds and hundreds. Thought, “How about bringing a 20-gauge and shooting down dinner?” My wife was horrified. “Birds are not food!” So I brought out a pack of chicken, “Chickens aren’t birds!” (She’s Filipino, something may have got lost in the translation…)
What are your thoughts? I dated a vegan once who couldn’t admit that hunting your own food was morally superior to farm tortured meat. Uh… I don’t get it. If you’re going to eat meat, isn’t harvesting your own the moral choice?
Not who you’re replying too (and not vegetarian/vegan) but I’ve always said that people who eat meat should have to kill and butcher an animal at least once so they learn where it comes from and how it gets into those tidy shrink wrapped packages in their grocery store.
It’s not pleasant and too many people don’t understand it.
But, I grew up quite poor where hunting often determined if we were eating so I have a different experience than many. I’m still a big softie though and, while I will do it, I definitely don’t like it.
No because it is not ethical to murder an animal when it’s not necessary.
My philosophy is that I don’t want to mess with animals simply because I can. It’s that simple.
Just as an example, a lot of vegans will happily eat honey and it never occurred to me in my first year that it could be questionable. I decided on the spot never to consume it again simply because by my logic we’re having to hoard up a bunch of bees and make them produce it for us — only later did I read up on the topic and find all the arguments for/against it — but that didn’t matter to me because I try to keep it that simple.
Hunting is an area I haven’t given much thought. I grew up in a hunting family, shot a deer at five years of age, etc. but never got into it. I know there’s a big debate surrounding it but knowing I don’t want to hunt in the first place I haven’t really read up on it simply because it’s not relevant to me.
Honey is not vegan as it comes from an animal.
Hard agree, but I see vegans arguing that it is vegan all the time.