Laura Passaglia, the Sonoma County Superior Court judge who presided over the trial, barred Hsiung from showing most evidence of animal cruelty, depriving him of the ability to show his motives for entering the farms.
I hate this but I think the judge is trying to keep the crimes seperate. The trial is not about what illegal things the farm was doing, it was a trial about this person breaking the law when they broke into the farm. I don’t know what the laws are exactly where this is but a lot of the time animals are owned which puts them in the category of property but with special protections. So the judge is looking at it from you broke into someone’s property to take video or whatever of someone treating their property poorly. I hate this because without doing this it’s incredibly hard to get evidence while going through the process legally. It’s usually setup in a way that gives ample opportunity for the offender to hide any wrong doing before inspection or other laws that hinder the animal rights people. If a police officer showed up without a warrant and walked in and collected evidence it probably couldn’t be used to prosecute them in court anyway so this is a bit like that. The judge might take the mitigating factors into consideration but the trial is still about them breaking into property illegally. The whole truth is primarily focused on the break in. Also this is pure speculation and I’m talking out of my ass, so would need someone who actually knows something to varify
California law is supposed to allow a necessity defense, the fact is they knew the farms were abusing animals (they had undercover people find employment with them and see first hand, which is legal and not trespassing) and they found the same abuse on the day.
You’re definitely allowed to break into a car to rescue a baby. You might also be allowed to break into a hot car to save a dog, in which case you should also be allowed to break into a poultry farm to save abused animals.
They didn’t deny they broke in, but said there was good reason. The judge refused to allow the reason to be heard, and furthermore refused to file briefs from legal experts. What’s more, the prosecutors declined to proceed with the various theft charges, instead opting for a misdemeanor trespassing charge and suping that up with a felony conspiracy charge. Making a felony out of a misdemeanor and not allowing the defense to be heard points to a coordinated attempt targeted solely at the leader of this campaign group.
Yeh, that sounds fucked. Thanks for filling me in. Also if I spent half the time reading the article and listening as I do getting carried away and writing a long winded reply I would probably be able to make a better assessment. Thank you again
You don’t get to break into a car and rehome the baby or dog. They trespassed, broke in, and stole property. If they don’t like the practice, laws, or enforcement of existing laws there are legal ways to change those things. Vigilante Justice isn’t the answer and this criminal isn’t innocent of any of the crimes he’s been found guilty of.
You can find the practice of the slaughter house reprehensible and still maintain a life as a functional law abiding citizen while working towards progress at the same time.
And yet, the prosecutors here explicitly dropped the charges for breaking and entering and theft. They only went for trespass.
This is because they successfully argued against the other crimes in other trials, and convinced juries that the animals weren’t actually worth anything because they were dead or half dead.
The prosecution intentionally went for the weakest charge, then inflated it into a federal charge, and the judge intentionally didn’t let them defend against it. That reeks of collusion, and a disgustingly biased judge.
The practice of slaughtering isn’t at issue here. The issue is the welfare of the animals while they’re alive.
this criminal isn’t innocent of any of the crimes he’s been found guilty of.
He did not plead innocent to the crime. He admitted to doing the thing that was a statutory offense. However, in fair court proceedings, you should be allowed to give “special reasons” - that is, you should be allowed to present to the court that it was necessary to cause a lesser harm in order to prevent a greater harm. If the court had considered this and ruled against him, that would be one thing, but they didn’t even allow anyone to listen to that argument. That makes the ruling objectively wrong.
In California, where this happened, it actually does. Did you read the whole article?
DxE had obtained a legal opinion from Hadar Aviram, a professor at UC College of Law, San Francisco, saying that the activists had a valid defense for their actions because California law allows defendants to argue that they were providing aid to suffering animals out of necessity.
Furthermore, motivation is taken into consideration in many other cases across the US. For example, it is acceptable to break into someone’s car to save a baby locked inside. It may even be acceptable to break into a car to save a dog. In which case, it should be acceptable to break into a poultry farm to save abused animals.
The judge here refused to even allow this defense to be considered. She also refused to allow an amicus brief from another legal expert. This was all apparently part of a coordinated plan to slip through an overall unjust conviction and put the leader of this campaign group in jail - the local county is heavily in bed with these farms.
So I stand by my assertion, she is a bitch, and furthermore I think she is grossly unprofessional and should be disrobed.
For those who aren’t necessarily concerned about a factory farm environment, they may not consider these animals as “valuable” enough to care.
However, to appeal to those people on a different level, that is the food you eat. And the people producing it are being very very very very protective about how it is produced. They are doing something to your food that they don’t want you to know about, and it certainly isn’t good that they’re trying to hide it.
Factory farming is a huge reason for disease outbreaks. Bird flu? Mad cow disease? Right here, folks. And they’ll package up your food without a thought other than the money they make from it.
Are you okay with the animals you eat living in conditions that could expose you to health risks? I hope you would be outraged if a food company was potentially putting you at risk because of their concern over their profits.
You act like it’s mutually exclusive, when it just isn’t. And guess what? Not eating meat and consuming less animal produce is significantly easier than fighting injustice that happens in foreign countries.
There’s another aspect to it as well. My grandfather suffered from PTSD from working as a butcher almost his entire adult life - I’ve recently learned that it’s a pretty common thing for people working in abattoirs.
If they don’t care abuot the animals, they might (and that’s a very iffy “might”) care about the people.
I just want to point out that most butchers don’t work on the kill line. I can see PTSD being common there, but it is definitely not common for retail butchers. Most retail butchers don’t even see a carcass anymore.
Factory farming is a huge reason for disease outbreaks.
Yes
And they’ll package up your food without a thought other than the money they make from it.
No. Most people want to do good, they don’t want to hurt others. They don’t care about the lives of the animals, but most farmers, factory farmers included would hate to know that they led to people getting mad cow disease.
Most people want to do good, they don’t want to hurt others
Ordinary people are not rich capitalists who can earn massive profits by cutting corners. That’s not just against animals either, think of the conditions human workers have been subjected to.
Most people want to do good, they don’t want to hurt others.
That’s very… naïvely optimistic when it comes to big business.
I’m sure they’d be upset to know that they’d be losing money if a recall happens, but the vast majority of factory farms WILL cut corners dangerously close to make more money.
“Don’t get caught” is the golden rule for the bottom line.
Producing food is fucking hard work. I have a family farm where I raise my own beef and vegetables. It’s not easy. I grew up hating it because while I was working the garden, the tobacco and feeding cattle, my friends were doing fuck all.
The human race is so disconnected from their food supply it’s disgusting. People have no clue if someone took a dump beside their lettuce in the field or not. (This is how a lot of those vegetables get diseases when they do recalls.)
But, humans are lazy and want things easy. I wish everyone had to grow their own food for five years to see how difficult it is to feed your face, but it’s never gonna happen. People want the benefit of farming without doing any of the work.
I was gonna raise beef and sell it, but I’d rather just feed my family. Despite growing up hating farming, I have a better appreciation for my food and we need that shit everyday.
I think this is important. Being disconnected allows for a more wasteful consumer mindset.
When milk goes bad in the fridge, ehh, spend $3 and get another jug. But, when that jar of goats milk goes bad, or the cheese doesn’t work out from the goat in our backyard, it’s a little more upsetting, that took a lot of work…
My view, and several friends and family members is that if you are unwilling to personally kill an animal to eat it, you shouldn’t be eating meat. Some of these individuals are vegetarians, and others (myself included) are producing our own meat for our families as much as possible.
As soon as you suggest people stop eating meat, suddenly they have no moral standing or their change won’t make a difference. It’s just sad. People will hide behind ‘personal choice’ as if it absolves them of supporting the industry and any wrong doing that comes as a consequence of it. You can’t justify breeding an animal into existence for the sole purpose of killing and eating it when it is entirely unnecessary to do so. It’s probably the biggest example of injustice in the modern world, next to slavery.
It’s not illegal to “expose” animal cruelty in California, and no one has ever been charged with doing so. Animal cruelty is prosecuted all the time in California. The headline is stupid. The headline is wrong.
You an idiot. Read beyond the headline and you’ll see that in California activists are being charged for being attention to deplorable conditions in animal farms yet the farms they exposed have no charges against them.
I was just showing one of many examples from the article that the activists weren’t “being charged for being attention to deplorable conditions in animal farms” but actual other crimes.
The first sentence literally contradicts the headline. Headline says you could get in trouble for “exposing animal cruelty” while the first sentence says an activist is being charged for “rescuing animals.” They did more than just expose cruelty; they took it upon themselves to stop it and in doing so broke the law. That’s what they are being charged for; not the exposure to the cruelty which is only being exposed because these activists are being arrested for trespassing and theft and it made the news.
Juries acquited these activists of theft in previous cases, because they were shown footage of the awful condition the stolen animals were in. Which was why, in this case, the prosecutors dropped the theft charges, put a gag order on the footage, and instead threw a “felony conspiracy to commit trespassing” charge at the leader of the group, who didn’t even participate directly in stealing the animals.
But with animals, the state won’t help them. If a baby was being tortured and the state wouldn’t save them, how could you blame someone for taking it into their own hands?
Juries didn’t view it as wrong in past court cases. This was the first one to land a conviction, and they did it by putting a gag order on all the footage the activists took, which in previous cases was instrumental in swaying juries.
Just like how relevant and true to the topic it was when you called me a nazi, or a clown, or a tick, or schizophrenic (shortly after you chided me for “making fun” of dementia). Or any of the dozen less savory insults you tossed my way out of frustration because you didn’t like what I was saying?
Yes I just wrote this, everything that gets pay today is in fact more than unskilled. Go fuck yourself you retarded clown, you literally entertain me for free and don’t even see the irony in it.
It is weird just how secretive the slaughterhouses are.
I don’t usually discuss this sort of thing very much with carnists IRL, because I tend to find their “arguments” and their positions rather tired and boring and in general completely irrational. The “but where do you get your protein?” type of questions or “I tried being a vegan/vegetarian but it didn’t agree with me because of my special DNA due to my ancestry of northern Europeans or whatever” conspiracy theories are especially fun. It’s usually the carnists that go out of their way to be activists about their choices, not me.
I’ll usually answer direct questions and leave it at that. I find there is a certain type of carnist that get especially defensive (almost always men suffering from toxic masculinity) around the very presence of veg*ns and want to get into arguments, especially while eating.
But there have been times where I’ve asked why slaughterhouses have so much secrecy in some of these “conversations” where the carnist just won’t drop the topic and I’ve noticed that gives them some pause. At least for a small glimmer of time. I think it is because these carnist activists are the ones with the most amount of guilt and they know that most (normal) people don’t want to witness what goes on in slaughterhouses…
Oh, right. I didn’t even mention how the tired old Dad “jokes” get very boring, very fast. Especially when repeated nearly every time, by the same set of people, at almost every meal. That, or they nearly reflexively have to talk about how much they love meat, love to hunt, love to fish, love to grill, yadda yadda. No one brought up vegn anything mind you, it’s just the mere presence of any vegn(s) that seems to cause this…shrug.
I’m vegetarian myself (I’m sorry, but my willpower fails when milk and cheese are involved), and even though it’s way more expensive, I only buy from farms and co-ops that actually treat their cattle well. The one I usually go to is a familly owned farm that does public events where you can actually see the animals, take a tour, etc. At least that way I know I’m significantly reducing the damage (ethically and environmentally) I’m doing.
Sounds like you are doing a lot. I have found the phrase “the personal is political” became a very real thing for me years ago even when I just started cutting out certain meats (!) - when it came to the reactions of others as they found out, and also realizing in a very visceral way, that, with every single meal, there was a very concrete ethical, ecological, economical and health decision to be made.
I quickly found out that you have to “come out” at work (when food is being ordered out, restaurants are being decided on, etc) and for extended family, etc., even though you really don’t want to necessarily answer all the questions, parry all the nonsense in that particular moment. Most people are fine, maybe a small subset groan and roll their eyes, but keep their opinions to themselves, but there is that small percentage that seem to keep harping on it.
I have seen similar reactions to early adopters of hybrid vehicles. Save for EVs later. Or, as a kid, when someone with a legit extreme dairy allergy refused all dairy. It’s like there is a certain type of personality that really gets actually offended when someone decides to deviate from whatever system is handed to them as “the norm”, whether it’s ridiculously high meat and dairy consumption (no matter how harmful it is to themselves, even), or a standard internal combustion engine. Some people seem to really get worked up about it.
Anyway, I do what I can. I have not removed all dairy entirely, nor eggs. I view both as rather harmful to health, given the information we have (and the evidence seems to keep piling up on that), so I don’t make them a central component in any meal. I never drank milk anyway even as an omnivore - it’s been fairly clear that they are marketing that stuff as a “health drink” (lol) for a reason. Sometimes it’s very difficult to assess whether a given food is vegan or even at least vegetarian, but labeling/awareness has grown with time, so that has gotten a bit easier.
I find that so weird and illogical, because what does anyone else’s personal and internal choices have to do with me? The only reason I could care would be if I invited you to dinner I was cooking myself and you waited until serving time to mention you don’t or can’t eat something, and that’s because I’d feel bad not being able to feed you. You are a grown ass man (place hyphen(s) wherever tickles your fancy), and get to make your own decisions and life choices. Plus there’s more for me.
Maybe it’s from growing up in the 90s and 00s, but asking about food allergies, sensitivities, and restrictions should be just another Tuesday for anyone ordering food for a group. But I’d also never expect the group to cater an entire meal around my preferences or restrictions. Grown ass man is successful hunter gatherer.
Now all bets might end up off the table if that respect doesn’t extend both ways though, because again, every grown ass man (everyone regardless of gender and older than 18-21 gets to be a “grown ass man”, with bonus “grown ass man” points if over 80 and a grandmother (Betty White being the ultimate grown ass man and I’ll die on that hill)) gets to make their own decisions and life choices. Now this doesn’t apply if you got local recommendations for ethically raised and delicious food that you’re just passing along because better ingredients make better food. _itarian choices are like religion: follow what you believe, don’t mock and detract others, there is a time and place for mutual debate based on mutual interest, and if you act like a Jehovah’s Witness that showed up at the door then expect to get treated like one.
In my country it’s not a secret how these places operate, I went to a slaughter house as a class trip back in high school + one of our relatives owns a massive chicken and cow farm. The animals’ conditions are vastly different here than what I see from these terrifying documentaries.
I was raised in an agriculture focused community and did the whole FFA thing in highschool. I’ve since moved to another state and am now living the life of a city slicker, so maybe I’ve just become out of touch, but back then none of the “how the sausage is made” stuff was hidden from us. Hell we had a whole field trip to tour a pair of meat processing plants (one for poultry, one for beef).
Have things changed over the last 5-10 years? Is my experience just an outlier?
Not necessarily the slaughtering part, but the living conditions that these animals are stuck in, sometimes for years, is barbaric. Imagine being in a cage where you can’t walk and you have to stand in your own shit for days on end.
The ethics of animal slaughter and how it’s done are almost a separate conversation imo. No living creature deserves to be tortured (and outright torture does occur, see Earthlings or Dominion for the details)
people don’t want to witness what goes on in slaughterhouses
That’s exactly why they’re secretive. It’s also true of many other industries and processes. There are a lot of things we benefit from that have unpleasant origins. When it comes to meat, you can make a relatively easy choice about it.
Are they going to prison for exposing animal cruelty, or is it just committing crimes in service of the goal of exposing animal cruelty? I bet I know which.
Yes, I actually agree that there are laws worth breaking for protest. I just dislike sensational headlines.
It’s the fact that you are willing to face those charges that makes the act powerful. But phrasing it in a way that makes it look like you are in a totalitarian state, and being punished for speech instead of the crime actually committed does the movement a disservice, as you start erecting your own strawman for people to knock down.
I’m not subject to a gag law… I don’t even know what the statement means. I’m also not a journalist, or the subject of a court case, so it’s unlikely to have any impact to post comments on Lemmy.
Sorry, you misunderstood what I meant by “you’re.” I could have said “one is” to better avoid miscommunication. Anyway, look up some info on ag gag laws and then think about your original comment within the context of your new understanding of what is a crime in the USA.
Yeah, that’s what makes her brave. We just don’t say she was arrested for “speaking truth to power” or any other sensational nonsense. We say she was arrested for the crime she committed because it makes you think about why that’s even a crime.
Honestly, I believe the vast majority of effective and meaningful protests will involve a crime. Usually, some form of vandalism/trespassing all the way up to theft. We hope not violence against people but sometimes counter protests force hands.
I just think it’s important to own it (I mean, dont confess and get yourself arrested needlessly LOL) because that’s part of the deal. Things rarely happen when everyone is nice and cordial.
They are stealing sick animals of no commercial value in order to render medical aid. In cases where they have actually gone to trial for theft, they have won, because they show jurors footage of the awful condition these stolen animals were in.
Which was why the prosecutors dropped the theft charges, put a gag order on the footage, and instead threw a “felony conspiracy to commit trespassing” charge at the leader of the group, who didn’t even participate directly in stealing the animals.
The same type of argument can also be made about Israel and Hamas. Yeah there is an enormous point to be made for the Palestinians, a point that should have been fixed like 60-80 decades ago, but that doesn’t take away that Hamas is a horrible organization with horrible people that (as much as I hate death penalties) shoud all be lined up to a wall and shot to make the world a little better. Yes, same should be said about a number of Israeli politicians.
Please keep in mind that it’s possible for both sides to be wrong, and that it’s also possible to be part wrong and part right. Real life isn’t that black and white.
I thought about that analogy, but also thought about climate protestors shutting down traffic and getting arrested for that.
I don’t judge people who eat meat, but I absolutely think factory farming as it exists in the USA is a barbaric system that is in desperate need of reform.
It is, I doubt anyone would disagree with that and the only reason it’s so bad is money. Should be easily fixed with laws but if your politicians are in the pockets of company owners, that becomes difficult.
Extremist? Do you think they people who keep living creatures in 2x2 cages for their entire “lives” (if you can even call it that), pump them full of unnatural hormones, and harvest them for their meat are the normal, well-adjusted ones in this scenario? People wanting animals to be treated ethically are only extremists in a world that normalizes brutality
This is one thing I really don’t understand, how can you think someone should go to jail for beating a dog, but be happy to fund the slaughter of hundreds of animals over your life.
I completely understand your reasoning for opposing the meat industry, but I saw one argument that I’m curious what ethical vegans would think about:
What if there is an animal product that has already been harvested, is it unethical to then utilize it? Like, stealing meat(which would actually hurt the meat industry), or being at an event where there are meat dishes that would otherwise go to waste. Those forms of consumption aren’t supporting the slaughter of the animals.
“Utilize” implies that animals are a resource for consumption instead of living things with their own right to live. As another comment pointed out we don’t “utilize” humans after they have been murdered. A goal of veganism is to stop factory farming but it is not what veganism is. If you consider all animals as having a right to life you then wouldn’t consider their bodies as resources after they were murdered but instead as victims.
As another comment pointed out we don’t “utilize” humans after they have been murdered.
Yes we do. Medical cadavers, organ donation, are the two most obvious ways.
If you consider all animals as having a right to life you then wouldn’t consider their bodies as resources after they were murdered but instead as victims.
I care about my own life, but not my lifeless body once I did.
Medical cadavers and organ donors are, first of all, volunteers not raised for that purpose, and second of all, we do not view them as commodities. There are rituals of respect when working with medical cadavers. I have heard of the families of organ donors visiting the recipients in emotional meetings.
If you consider all animals as having a right to life you then wouldn’t consider their bodies as resources after they were murdered but instead as victims.
This is a nonsensical statement that contradicts itself. If all animals have a right to life, then you wouldn’t see any issue with a lion murdering a gazelle and then feasting on the victim’s body. Alternatively, if you condemn carnivorous animals as murderers, you don’t consider carnivores to have a right to life.
Even if we consider this only applies to humans – what about our pets? Cats are obligate carnivores. How can we feed our pet cats without being complicit in murder and feeding our cats the bodies?
To prevent the reproduction of those who rely on murder. If a person had a genetic disorder where they needed a human heart transplant every year to live do you think they should get it? And even if they do, should they reproduce?
I didn’t realize transplants only came from killing people, your totally applicable and thoughtful analogy has me rethinking my life choices now.
Here’s a thought experiment for you: if you were on an island, with only the vegan section of a grocery store to eat for survival, would you eat the vegan food?
When did I say all transplants require killing someone? I said that a heart transplant required someone with a working heart to die. Just as a lion eating meat requires another animal to die.
Since lions aren’t moral agents (look this up if you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s not only a vegan term) they don’t commit murder when they kill for food. Also, someone dying and donating an organ also isn’t murder.
I didn’t say they committed murder. I said they rely on the death of others. Why should a species that must lead to the suffering of my others continue to persist if you can end it without harming the animal?
Predators in the wild serve a purpose. Getting rid of all the predators would lead to even more suffering as the prey population would grow and lead to destruction of the environment/ecology, and then mass extinction of plant and animal life.
Vegans are still aware of the circle of life and nature’s cycles, we just point out that supermarkets and factory farming have nothing to do with either of those.
Not for cats. There’s a market for vegan cat food, but vets say it doesn’t give them the full nutrition they need.
On top of that, I’m always skeptical of vegan foods that are able to meet more comprehensive nutritional profiles. Not their safety or anything, but if they’re truly vegan. We can’t just synthesize nutrients from chemicals, not en masse. Maybe in a few decades, but for now, those nutrients require incredibly expensive equipment to make from scratch.
Most of the time, the nutrient is extracted, purified, and concentrated from its usual source. Nutrients only found from meat would then need to be extracted from meat, which technically wouldn’t be vegan. I think there’s some nutrients that we’re able to engineer bacteria to produce, which is certainly better from a vegan perspective. Although it begs the question of what vegan ethics around bioengineering bacteria are.
I have to get to work after this, this might be my last response today
not for cats
:::spoiler I gave it a quick google, and while there aren’t many actual studies, the few recent ones I saw seemed to indicate it works fine for cats. Here are three abstracts (click on this sentence to uncollapse them):
Increasing concerns about environmental sustainability, farmed animal welfare and competition for traditional protein sources, are driving considerable development of alternative pet foods. These include raw meat diets, in vitro meat products, and diets based on novel protein sources including terrestrial plants, insects, yeast, fungi and potentially seaweed. To study health outcomes in cats fed vegan diets compared to those fed meat, we surveyed 1,418 cat guardians, asking about one cat living with them, for at least one year. Among 1,380 respondents involved in cat diet decision-making, health and nutrition was the factor considered most important. 1,369 respondents provided information relating to a single cat fed a meat-based (1,242–91%) or vegan (127–9%) diet for at least a year. We examined seven general indicators of illness. After controlling for age, sex, neutering status and primary location via regression models, the following risk reductions were associated with a vegan diet for average cats: increased veterinary visits– 7.3% reduction, medication use– 14.9% reduction, progression onto therapeutic diet– 54.7% reduction, reported veterinary assessment of being unwell– 3.6% reduction, reported veterinary assessment of more severe illness– 7.6% reduction, guardian opinion of more severe illness– 22.8% reduction. Additionally, the number of health disorders per unwell cat decreased by 15.5%. No reductions were statistically significant. We also examined the prevalence of 22 specific health disorders, using reported veterinary assessments. Forty two percent of cats fed meat, and 37% of those fed vegan diets suffered from at least one disorder. Of these 22 disorders, 15 were most common in cats fed meat, and seven in cats fed vegan diets. Only one difference was statistically significant. Considering these results overall, cats fed vegan diets tended to be healthier than cats fed meat-based diets. This trend was clear and consistent. These results largely concur with previous, similar studies.
There has been an increase in vegetarianism and veganism in human populations. This trend also appears to be occurring in companion animals, with guardians preferring to feed their animals in accordance with their own dietary values and choices. However, there has been controversy amongst vets and online commentators about the safety of feeding vegan diets to carnivorous species, such as cats and dogs. In spite of this controversy, to date there has been no systematic evaluation of the evidence on this topic. A systematic search of Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science was performed, identifying 16 studies on the impact of vegan diets on cat and dog health. Studies were appraised for quality using established critical appraisal tools or reporting guidelines. There was considerable heterogeneity in the outcomes measured, and study designs employed, with few studies evaluating key outcomes of interest. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) was utilized for assessment of certainty in the evidence, with the evidence for most outcomes being assessed as low or very low. Whilst the quality and amount of evidence needs to be considered in formulating recommendations, there was no overwhelming evidence of adverse effects arising from use of these diets and there was some evidence of benefits. It is, however, recommended that future high-quality studies, with standardized outcome measures and large sample sizes, be conducted. At the current time, if guardians wish to feed their companion animals vegan diets, a cautious approach should be taken using commercially produced diets which have been formulated considering the nutritional needs of the target species.
Cats, being obligate carnivores, have unique dietary requirements for nutrients most commonly found in dietary ingredients of animal origin. As such, feeding a diet devoid of animal-derived ingredients has been postulated as a possible cause of nutrient imbalances and adverse health outcomes. A small proportion of cat owners feed strictly plant-based diets to the cats in their care, yet the health and wellness of cats fed these diets has not been well documented.
Results
A total of 1325 questionnaires were complete enough for inclusion. The only exclusion criterion was failure to answer all questions. Most cats, 65% (667/1026), represented in the survey were fed a meat-based diet and 18.2% (187/1026) were fed a plant-based diet, with the rest fed either a combination of plant-based with meat-based (69/1026, 6.7%) or indeterminable (103/1026, 10%). Cat age ranged from 4 months to 23 years, with a median of 7 years, and was not associated with diet type. No differences in reported lifespan were detected between diet types. Fewer cats fed plant-based diets reported to have gastrointestinal and hepatic disorders. Cats fed plant-based diets were reported to have more ideal body condition scores than cats fed a meat-based diet. More owners of cats fed plant-based diets reported their cat to be in very good health. :::
Most of the time, the nutrient is extracted, purified, and concentrated from its usual source [meat].
Do you have a source that this is true for vegan food? Also, is this actually necessary to meet nutritional needs?
I think there’s some nutrients that we’re able to engineer bacteria to produce, which is certainly better from a vegan perspective.
I’m not aware of any nutrients that bacteria, yeast, or other cell cultures cannot be engineered to produce, but I could be wrong
Although it begs the question of what vegan ethics around bioengineering bacteria are.
I’m not sure what the angle is here. Microbes are no more sentient than plants.
I’ll have to look at those articles, thanks. It might be that they’ve more recently found formulations that work well as full substitutes. At the very least, it warrants long term study with vets regularly checking vitals and levels.
I don’t know if the extraction is necessarily true for vegan foods, that’s why I’m rather uncertain about their validity. It seems like bioreactors and bacteria might be the vegan way of making them, which is sensible. I’m just not sure that they’d actually use that for vegan pet food, but it’s something for me to check later.
And I didn’t mean to take a dig at you with that last line of mine about ethics, sorry about that. I’m not a vegan but I personally think it slippery to define what life is okay to consume and what life isn’t. It continues to surprise me what we learn about plants. That said, a plant is a far cry from bacteria, so I see your point.
So, I’ve seen this argument before. That humans should never eat meat because we have other options, but it’s ok for animals. Given the opportunity, herbivores will eat meat on occasion. In your opinion, does that mean that humans are morally superior to every other thing on the face of the planet?
Yeah their argument breaks down very quickly. If humans are uniquely responsible for consuming meat but carnivorous animals aren’t, then there’s something special about humans which differentiates us from the carnivorous animals. And if we acknowledge that, that brings up a whole new host of questions. Is it wrong then for an enlightened species like us to give meat to our obligate carnivore pets?
Humans are moral agents, animals are not. The argument is that acknowledging we are different and have higher responsibilities is what obliges us to not eat animals when we don’t need to. The argument doesn’t break down at all, you nearly spelled it out yourself haha
Edit: didn’t realize you were the same person I responded to elsewhere in the thread, but I think this comment has more fleshed out info
Because humans are omnivores, “the flesh of others” is quite literally food for us. Wood, the flesh of trees, is food for fungus. Everything eats something, and you’re on one hell of a superiority binge if you think animals are any more deserving of mercy than plants. Plants can perceive (and communicate!) when they experience damage (link). What’s your floor for intelligence before being allowed to eat something?
Just wanted to say that I think lab grown meat is a bit of a white elephant. Dose it scale, what are the inputs, etc…
It might be viable, but it’s hard to believe anything about it with all the grassroots shills online. VC money is all over this. It’s just another product.
The joke is giving the most obvious and least relevant answer to a simple question, brainlet. Life is life, death is death. In order for something to die, it had to have been alive. Everything that has been alive has died or will die, and you accusing people like me of murder pushes them away from your cause.
Stop being so fucking unpleasant and go watch The Good Place, it might give you a few things to think about.
You jump down my ass for making a dry joke, and I’m the feisty one? I’m not “triggered”, I’m “offended by your stupidity”. You’re just as guilty as I am if you’ve ever eaten anything but rocks, and if you weren’t so fucking malnourished you’d have the capacity to understand that.
Now, if you were making a point about the unethical practices in large-scale farm operations, particularly in the US but also in select locations abroad, you’d have a valid point. But you’re not, you just can’t take a joke and you called me a murderer, so you don’t. I do hope that makes sense.
There are social and intrapersonal reasons to avoid eating meat even if doing so doesn’t lead directly to more animals being slaughtered. It is still treating the dead bodies of animals as a commodity, something we don’t do to the bodies of dead humans. And it will take a cultural shift in how we see animals in order to end their oppression.
And the issue of eating “wasted” (weird way to talk about it as a vegan) meat is more concrete when you are eating meat at a function or the leftovers of a friend. The next function is going to have just as much meat if not more because it all got eaten. Your friend isn’t going to think about reducing their meat consumption because they were left with too much, they might even get more satisfaction from you eating it because of pity. People who regularly consume animal products often think going without them must be suffering.
I don’t agree with freegans, though I also don’t really care what they do. As long as they understand there is a clear distinction between something like dumpster diving and a potluck.
Unlike cats who are obligate carnivores, dogs are “opportunistic carnivores”. They are able to digest plants, and a high quality vegetarian dog food is actually significantly healthier for them than the " grain-free" diets that have become so popular in the last few years and have been linked to increased heart disease.
After looking into it, I seems this is highly disputed by most of veterinary science, but I’ll admit it’s not well studied and maybe you’re right. But we do know meat is okay for dogs. We do not know if a meatless diet isn’t harmful. I can’t imagine why lean animal protein would be bad for an animal bread from wolves.
Agreed, nothing is more natural and human than the squeak of shopping cart wheels and the touch of cool air from the refrigerated section as you hunt for the best prices on plastic wrapped slabs of meat.
The best definition I’ve seen of a “person” is “A being worthy of moral consideration.” (a commonly used concept in moral philosophy). So yeah, that definition can be applied to a cow, unless you believe that no amount of suffering imposed on a cow for any or no reason could ever constitute an immoral act.
Just like those criminals who knew it is against the law to sit in the front of the bus, or those who used whites only bathrooms? They did not fight for freedom but break the law?
Did you just compare black people fighting for civil rights and equality with animal freedom?
I suspect you were just point out that civil disobedience is a valid protest tactic, but I would recommend just saying that next time. Comparing people fighting for equality with animals fighting for freedom is … Not great. At worst, it comes across as racist. At best, tone deaf.
I guess you are a speciesist to get so but hurt about a comparison, you know there is a difference to equation and comparing? How is it tone deaf in a thread about those who fight for those with no voice to say that it is a just cause, just like that I compared it to? Stop supporting animal abuse while acting upset about the logical comparison.
For the sake of argument… if I hear you beating your dog, should I break down the door to stop it?
Yes, I could call 911, but by the time they arrive the sounds would stop and they’d have no probable cause. I could go in and steal the dog or even just record a video right now. What is the ethical thing to do?
Not really an apples to apples comparison (unfortunately). Cows have fewer rights than dogs.
You would be within your rights to do something about the dog scenario, and the law would support you. Cows, on the other hand, are seen as products or machines, so “doing the ethical thing” would be looked at as if you were trying to steal someone’s car.
I agree that it’s not right, but that’s why these activists are arrested, instead of the animal owners.
There’s these people called the police, may be you present it to them, if they don’t do anything may be try getting that changed instead of breaking the law yourself
And when decades of lobbying to change the laws don’t work and the animals are still being abused?
Edit: lol at people downvoting this. Do you think there isn’t physical abuse going on here? The ag gag laws are working I guess, but footage of the abuse is out there
What are people supposed to do besides lobby? Lobbying didn’t work.
Are you against all climate change protests too? Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of climate change, so you probably hate Greta Thunberg, since she commits so many crimes and is always getting arrested, right?
So I SHOULD break in and record it, like the group in this Vox article has done? Your comments seem to be against them, but then you make statements that sound like they’re defending these actions.
This has been true for a long time. Upton Sinclair, writing over 100 years ago about improving working conditions (for humans) ended up missing the mark and the end result was food quality regulations. Now, folks are trying to expose animal cruelty but end up getting stronger protections for corporations 🤡 we just can't seem to care about living things 🙁
The Jungle wasn’t about the animals, it was about the people. He was famously unhappy with the government’s response, and said “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
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