Dogs can perform tasks such as protecting people, bonding with people to give them joy, helping people (therapy dogs or dogs for blind people), … Some of these require years of effort.
Cows on the other hand can take care of our meadows and mountain pastures, playing a crucial role in the preservation of such ecosystems. They don’t need any training for that, and there’s also much less bonding involved, so they’re easily replaceable.
Most importantly farmers have to sell something, if they wouldn’t sell their cows they couldn’t provide this experience for other cows anymore (only selling their milk just isn’t enough, the milk price is way too low for that), and these ecosystems would collapse (which often are the only ecosystems where many already endangered species still live).
By deciding to eat cows, I decide to support this way of cow-keeping, to support my local farmers on our quest to not become too reliant on other countries for food imports, and especially to support the preservation of critical ecosystems.
It goes without saying that I don’t buy mass produced meat or meat from distant places. Instead of discussing whether or not eating meat can be ethical we should focus on driving more farmers into a sustainable direction (= on getting more people to support such farmers). And yes, it is more expensive, but it’s not like we have to eat meat every day.
If everyone who cares about cows and sustainability switches to veganism, only the people who don’t care and who just buy mass produced meat are left, while the form of farming I’ve described that doesn’t only enable those cows to have a happy life but also is important for preserving our nature declines.
Dogs can perform tasks such as protecting people, bonding with people to give them joy, helping people (therapy dogs or dogs for blind people), … Some of these require years of effort.
Cows on the other hand can take care of our meadows and mountain pastures, playing a crucial role in the preservation of such ecosystems. They don’t need any training for that, and there’s also much less bonding involved, so they’re easily replaceable.
Most importantly farmers have to sell something, if they wouldn’t sell their cows they couldn’t provide this experience for other cows anymore (only selling their milk just isn’t enough, the milk price is way too low for that), and these ecosystems would collapse (which often are the only ecosystems where many already endangered species still live).
By deciding to eat cows, I decide to support this way of cow-keeping, to support my local farmers on our quest to not become too reliant on other countries for food imports, and especially to support the preservation of critical ecosystems.
It goes without saying that I don’t buy mass produced meat or meat from distant places. Instead of discussing whether or not eating meat can be ethical we should focus on driving more farmers into a sustainable direction (= on getting more people to support such farmers). And yes, it is more expensive, but it’s not like we have to eat meat every day.
If everyone who cares about cows and sustainability switches to veganism, only the people who don’t care and who just buy mass produced meat are left, while the form of farming I’ve described that doesn’t only enable those cows to have a happy life but also is important for preserving our nature declines.