A small victory!

He asked me why I didn’t eat meat after a few of our weekly office lunches. I approached it as telling a person story about my journey from a former hunter, fisherman, and meat eater to abstaining from consuming animal products. I wasn’t trying to sell him on it, at least at the time, just sharing my story. I told him about how I first became concerned about the cruelties of factory farming. I went into a bit of detail there with examples. I also talked about my environmental concerns about large scale animal agriculture and cited examples. I told him that I had decided at that time to only consume free range and humanely treated livestock. He was right there with me at this point and confidently asserted that “free range and cruelty free” were the way to go. I explained that because I couldn’t be sure how animals were treated when at a random restaurant, I simply didn’t get any meat there. I explained that I held this position for a while, but after more serious consideration I came to the conclusion that my position didn’t go far enough. It wasn’t enough for me to simply avoid the cruelest examples. The fact that it is not necessary for me to consume animals products was enough for me to not consume them at all. I told him that I saw unnecessary suffering itself as something we ought to avoid and not just the worst cases. We then discussed how the treatment of animals is viewed through various ethical paradigms. We followed that with a discussion of the practical side of it. He was curious about what I ate, how difficult it was, any downsides I noticed, and any benefits I had actually experienced. That was about it. We probably talked for an hour or so.

/r/vegan Thread Parent