Should we stop eating animals?

Intensive livestock farming causes a great deal of suffering to animals

Intensive livestock farming poses serious environmental problems

Eating animals is bad for humans

Working conditions in slaughterhouses are inhuman

Eating animals means deciding on the lives of beings who have asked for nothing from anyone.

Some animals are considered sacred

Eating animals habituates you to cruelty

Everyone can adopt a plant-based diet

Animal suffering is inevitable in the meat production process

Pro-meat arguments are fake news propagated by industry lobbies

Eating animals is a gustatory pleasure

Eating animals is good for your health

Eating animals is an ancestral practice

Eating animals is the norm in nature

Eating animals is the only way to acknowledge one's animality

Eating animals helps when crops fail

Eliminating ruminant livestock farming could disrupt many ecosystems

Stopping eating animals would destroy some farming activities

Vegan substitutes are often allergenic

Stopping the breeding of certain animals would make them disappear

Eating invasive animal species can be beneficial

Not eating meat causes nutritional deficiencies

Keywords : Veganism, Food, Meat, Animals, Animal suffering, Vegetarianism

To understand the debate

A question that began to emerge with the anti-speciesism movement

Antispeciesism is a movement dating back to the 1970s, which asserts that the species to which an animal belongs is not a relevant criterion for deciding how it should be treated and the moral consideration it should be given.

Veganism increasingly present in society

Veganism is the doctrine that humans should live without exploiting animals, according to the Vegan Society, founded in 1944. It is a way of life based on vegetarianism, which is a very old way of life. Nevertheless, veganism has been gaining in prominence recently, with some well-known public figures going vegan, even if it remains a minority.

Definition of an animal

In classical biology, an animal is a living being that feeds on organic substances. Today, the term "animal" is reserved for complex, multicellular beings.

Understanding animal welfare

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Animal welfare is broken down into five freedoms corresponding to the animal's fundamental needs:

physiological freedom (absence of hunger and thirst),
environmental freedom (absence of discomfort),
Sanitary freedom (freedom from disease and injury),
Behavioral freedom (the right to express normal animal behavior),
psychological freedom (absence of fear and anxiety).

Intensive livestock farming causes a great deal of suffering to animals
Intensive livestock farming poses serious environmental problems
Eating animals is bad for humans
Working conditions in slaughterhouses are inhuman
Eating animals means deciding on the lives of beings who have asked for nothing from anyone.
Some animals are considered sacred
Eating animals habituates you to cruelty
Everyone can adopt a plant-based diet
Animal suffering is inevitable in the meat production process
Pro-meat arguments are fake news propagated by industry lobbies

Eating animals is a gustatory pleasure
Eating animals is good for your health
Eating animals is an ancestral practice
Eating animals is the norm in nature
Eating animals is the only way to acknowledge one's animality
Eating animals helps when crops fail
Eliminating ruminant livestock farming could disrupt many ecosystems
Stopping eating animals would destroy some farming activities
Vegan substitutes are often allergenic
Stopping the breeding of certain animals would make them disappear
Eating invasive animal species can be beneficial
Not eating meat causes nutritional deficiencies

To go further

Bibliography

Jonathan Safran Foer, Faut-il manger les animaux ?, Éditions de l'Olivier, 2011.
Eric Lombard, “Peut-on encore manger de la viande ?”, Ouvertures, 11 juin 2011.
Martin Gibert, Voir son steak comme un animal mort : Véganisme et psychologie morale, Lux Éditeur, Québec, 2015.