Eating meat...

[Bekki659]

Yes, this dilemma is mine. It's literally tearing me apart from the inside; its that bad of a conflict to me.

Background:
I've been a vegetarian for a long time. Strict. Nothing with gelatin in it, nothing made with chicken broth or beef broth. That's very limiting.

Recently, I've gone through some pretty life changing events in the past year. One of them is meeting my boyfriend, who has been the first person to convince me that I actually have a good chance of getting married and having kids.
Now, I don't want to raise my kids as vegetarians for the following reasons:
1) I am Scotch-Irish. That's a big part of who I am, and it hardly allows for vegetarianism. I want my kids to experience meat pies, stew, ect.
2) I dont want them to feel like outsiders on my boyfriends side of the family. MY family is very liberal when it comes to cooking. Me and my mom make a point of it to eat food from all over the world, and experience many things... but his family is very traditional. They do a lot of fried chicken and fried stuff in general... they are the typical down home cookin, christian family.
2) I want my kids to experience fine meats. I want them to be able to eat my dad's amazing steaks, and I want to make them the recipes that my grandmother brought back from Panama when they moved to the states.

I personally miss the variety of things that you can do with meat. I used to make fantastic dishes with meat as the centerpiece.

The dilemma:

I don't know if I can do it. Well I KNOW I can do it, but not with a clear conscience. I don't so much have a problem with eating meat... I asked my boyfriend and his family (who I actually have incredible amounts of respect and adoration for) how the Bible dealt with the issue, and I find that comforting.

Its more the way that meat is made these days. I cannot STAND the way slaughter is carried out... it makes me cry to think about it, in addition that I already cry over the thought of eating meat again.

Where you guys come in:
How do justify eating meat? Do you have guilt? Is it different now than what the bible was talking about so many years ago simply because of the new-age mass slaughter process? Does it not matter?

I think... I might go to a local "cruelty free" farmer and buy some chicken. I dont think I would be able to eat beef with a clear conscience yet... what do you guys think of that choice?

I know that it is up to me in the end, but I feel like you guys always bring up such good points and are such an educated bunch of people... it would be nice to have some outside views.

[C-Nub]

I'll miss you when you're dead, Joey.

[Confused]

Fried Chicken. And not bought from the Colonel. Deep fat fried with mashed taters and an ocean of gravy. While you're fixing all that, get the livers fried up beforehand, pass em out while everyone jaws (don't skip the sliced 'maters). A fat, butter-soaked cat-head biscuit, some dipping honey with or without the nest. Some creasy greens, cause that's just the right thing to do. Vidalia onion the size of your fist, sliced thick enough ya gotta smile when ya eat it. And if cole slaw ain't served you got the legal right, and the morals, to walk out in protest. And hush puppies, onion's okay, but if corn chunks are in em look back to the cole slaw rule. And cold beer, obligation here is what ya can afford, it just has to be cold and not have lite, light or anything kin to that writ on it. Half to suitcase per, and some wine coolers for the hens. Sweet tea or buttermilk with the meal, pending how much that suit case traveled. And quit making me sit at the dang kid's table, they take my cold beer.

Dadgum the healthy choices, pick the good ones!

OMG, that is an MI just waiting to happen!

[Goat]

I'll miss you when you're dead, Joey.

With a diet like that.. ..

[JoeyKnothead]

Fried Chicken. And not bought from the Colonel. Deep fat fried with mashed taters and an ocean of gravy. While you're fixing all that, get the livers fried up beforehand, pass em out while everyone jaws (don't skip the sliced 'maters). A fat, butter-soaked cat-head biscuit, some dipping honey with or without the nest. Some creasy greens, cause that's just the right thing to do. Vidalia onion the size of your fist, sliced thick enough ya gotta smile when ya eat it. And if cole slaw ain't served you got the legal right, and the morals, to walk out in protest. And hush puppies, onion's okay, but if corn chunks are in em look back to the cole slaw rule. And cold beer, obligation here is what ya can afford, it just has to be cold and not have lite, light or anything kin to that writ on it. Half to suitcase per, and some wine coolers for the hens. Sweet tea or buttermilk with the meal, pending how much that suit case traveled. And quit making me sit at the dang kid's table, they take my cold beer.

Dadgum the healthy choices, pick the good ones!

OMG, that is an MI just waiting to happen!

Yes ma'am, it's a Major Injoyment. Point being live your life as you see fit. Hug it tight, close, seedy like lust for the 'purdiest' girl in school. Live it reckless, with abandon, with total disregard for what others think. When the wind blows throw caution at it, and when you run out of caution steal someone else's and throw that. Moon the uptight, flick boogers on the strict. Don't take hold of the reins, cut em loose and drop em right there. Don't bother to throw em, just drop em like a hot biscuit. Don't worry about what you might die from, but who you might live for. Breathe every breath as if it's your last. And when it is your last, use it to claim love for all, and for all to love.

[Fallibleone]

[JoeyKnothead]

Don't know if you're laughing at me or with me. Don't care. Life is too short, and too valuable to be tied down by oppressive ideas.

[Fallibleone]

With, with! Your posts are full of character and I like that. It's quite something to be able to tell where someone is from by the way they type.

[Confused]

Fried Chicken. And not bought from the Colonel. Deep fat fried with mashed taters and an ocean of gravy. While you're fixing all that, get the livers fried up beforehand, pass em out while everyone jaws (don't skip the sliced 'maters). A fat, butter-soaked cat-head biscuit, some dipping honey with or without the nest. Some creasy greens, cause that's just the right thing to do. Vidalia onion the size of your fist, sliced thick enough ya gotta smile when ya eat it. And if cole slaw ain't served you got the legal right, and the morals, to walk out in protest. And hush puppies, onion's okay, but if corn chunks are in em look back to the cole slaw rule. And cold beer, obligation here is what ya can afford, it just has to be cold and not have lite, light or anything kin to that writ on it. Half to suitcase per, and some wine coolers for the hens. Sweet tea or buttermilk with the meal, pending how much that suit case traveled. And quit making me sit at the dang kid's table, they take my cold beer.

Dadgum the healthy choices, pick the good ones!

OMG, that is an MI just waiting to happen!

Yes ma'am, it's a Major Injoyment. Point being live your life as you see fit. Hug it tight, close, seedy like lust for the 'purdiest' girl in school. Live it reckless, with abandon, with total disregard for what others think. When the wind blows throw caution at it, and when you run out of caution steal someone else's and throw that. Moon the uptight, flick boogers on the strict. Don't take hold of the reins, cut em loose and drop em right there. Don't bother to throw em, just drop em like a hot biscuit. Don't worry about what you might die from, but who you might live for. Breathe every breath as if it's your last. And when it is your last, use it to claim love for all, and for all to love.

I stand appropriately taken to task. My apologies.

[JoeyKnothead]

Fried Chicken. And not bought from the Colonel. Deep fat fried with mashed taters and an ocean of gravy. While you're fixing all that, get the livers fried up beforehand, pass em out while everyone jaws (don't skip the sliced 'maters). A fat, butter-soaked cat-head biscuit, some dipping honey with or without the nest. Some creasy greens, cause that's just the right thing to do. Vidalia onion the size of your fist, sliced thick enough ya gotta smile when ya eat it. And if cole slaw ain't served you got the legal right, and the morals, to walk out in protest. And hush puppies, onion's okay, but if corn chunks are in em look back to the cole slaw rule. And cold beer, obligation here is what ya can afford, it just has to be cold and not have lite, light or anything kin to that writ on it. Half to suitcase per, and some wine coolers for the hens. Sweet tea or buttermilk with the meal, pending how much that suit case traveled. And quit making me sit at the dang kid's table, they take my cold beer.

Dadgum the healthy choices, pick the good ones!

OMG, that is an MI just waiting to happen!

Yes ma'am, it's a Major Injoyment. Point being live your life as you see fit. Hug it tight, close, seedy like lust for the 'purdiest' girl in school. Live it reckless, with abandon, with total disregard for what others think. When the wind blows throw caution at it, and when you run out of caution steal someone else's and throw that. Moon the uptight, flick boogers on the strict. Don't take hold of the reins, cut em loose and drop em right there. Don't bother to throw em, just drop em like a hot biscuit. Don't worry about what you might die from, but who you might live for. Breathe every breath as if it's your last. And when it is your last, use it to claim love for all, and for all to love.

I stand appropriately taken to task. My apologies.

'Purdy' folk don't gotta apologize, its in the rules. I swear I don't mean nothing but respect.

[FinalEnigma]

I actually have some ethical problems with vegetarians, but that`s probably an (irrational) story for another day.

We are meat-eaters. We have digestive systems designed for fat and flesh intake, and our dietary needs and nutritional requirements as functional beings rely on meat proteins. Not eating meat requires that substitutes be found to maintain the necessary dietary balance to survive and be healthy.

If you accept the biblical version of things, animals are here, placed by God, for us to care for and eat. They have nervous systems, as we`re all well aware, so God clearly wants them to feel pain before they die. They don`t have souls, though, also according to God, so the purpose of this is completely unclear.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the animals are all in competition with each other (including us) and as such, have the ability to feel pain in order to realize when they are in danger and fight or flight accordingly.

In both cases, however, there is no clear immorality in the eating or farming of animals.

I must ask why you have ethical problems with vegetarians. Also, if our digestive system was designed for flesh intake, then why is meat so unhealthy? right around the beginning of this year I became vegan. I have had no health problems resulting from this. I just one day completely dropped meat and animal products from my diet, and have been fine. And I'm not having to take extra sources of fats and such-there are plenty of fats found in vegetables.

as far as the ethical issues with vegetarianism, I have great difficulty with the idea of raising and slaughtering 100 million pigs each year.

At 2 to 3 weeks of age, the piglets are taken away from their mothers, by which time, approximately 15% will have died. The surviving piglets are crowded into pens with metal bars and concrete floors. A headline from National Hog Farmer magazine advises, "Crowding Pigs Pays..." The pigs endure overcrowded confinement buildings for their entire lives -- until they reach a slaughter weight of 250 pounds at 6 months of age.

-http://www.da4a.org/pigs.htm

personally, I have a problem with this. It is not necessary to kill and eat these 100 million pigs each year to survive, and in fact doing so is unhealthy, so we are killing multitudes of living beings for the privilege of killing ourselves faster. I won't judge you for eating meat, and normally I don't preach about it, but this thread brought it up.