Is it possible to love animals yet eat meat/wear fur, leather...

[pinklilycat]

The mouse?

McJag, you is FUNNY dude!!!! Lame... but sooooooo FUNNY!!!

[xoxo]

i shouldn't have said plastic shoes..i don't want people to think i trek around in those...i mostly end up buying little cloth ones with cane or whatever and then some synthetic-type sandals as well...

as far as the philosophy of it goes, i also think a lot of this has to do with your family, what they think..my mom is vegetarian and loves animals a lot and i'm the way i am mostly because of her...

[deckchick]

Originally Posted by UndercoverGator

yawn, we already had this discussion on this board and all it did was create ill will and lots of grudges between different factions and various members..

Keeping this in mind, I do NOT want to be involved in that ever again, I absolutely love animals, and eat meat. In fact I have moved back to the farm and am in the process of raising goats and chickens and all sorts of animals. I am going all organic and free range, and I will be doing everything as humanely as possible. That being said, I have zero problem with fur, I do hate any practices that causes needless suffering tho, that to me is just not necessary. I also hate the way that Peta and some of the more zealous anti-fur crowd carries on. Any group that practices violence to me is a terrorist.

[crumpet]

I adore animals but do not feel it is immoral to eat meat. We are animals,too, and we are ALL part of the food change. Just as there are someanimals that eat us, we eat some of them. Killing for vanity? Absolutely not. However, I do think that there needs to be a major change in the inhumane treatment of animals farmed for meat. No cow should have to stand there in their own pee while it watches the cow in front of it get its head cut off. That is repulsive and amounts to torture, imo.

[Chilly Willy]

You wouldn't believe the wonderful shoes they make these days that are 100% leather free....

[xoxo]

Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

You wouldn't believe the wonderful shoes they make these days that are 100% leather free....

yes you are so right chilly, i don't know why i mentioned shoes at all..i nearly made it sound as if one must wear ugly shoes in order to love animals and that is hardly the case at all...there are more options these days for shoes and clothes and make-up that are cruelty-free and attractive and nice, etc..

[xoxo]

this is off-topic, but as it was said to me this morning, i also would like to take a moment to say something of the people who respond to vegetarians by saying hitler was vegetarian...this is NOT true and it also also absurd..pwry stated it very well in a random talk thread, here is her quote:

Originally Posted by pwry

Hitler was not a vegetarian although many people like to say he was. (This is usually in response to someone stating "I'm a vegetarian." whereupon someone else will rapidly and rabidly respond, "You know Hitler was a vegetarian!" Does that mean all vegetarians are anti-semites? What exactly is the point of that witty riposte anyway?

sorry to bring this up randomly and use neon purple in this quote but this hitler vegetarian business has been brought up repeatedly and it's inaccurate and never seems to be addressed...i know i am overly passionate about the animals issue but that is because i am deeply saddened by the cruelty in the slaughterhouses, which is why i bring this up.

anyways.

[Picara]

I would like to be a vegetarian, but it's so difficult to get all the protein you need. I do like beef occasionally. Mostly I eat chicken and fish. I feel somewhat guilty about it. Especially after watching Fast Food Nation. I felt so bad for those poor cows. I've never seen them actually slaughtered before. It was very gruesome and I couldn't watch the whole thing.

[sputnik]

Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

You wouldn't believe the wonderful shoes they make these days that are 100% leather free....

yeah but they still don't compare to leather shoes. plus, pleather gives a lot of people blisters (myself included), doesn't age well, doesn't mold to your feet and is rarely not cheap looking. and canvas/cloth shoes aren't practical year round. imo nothing will ever come close to comparing to leather when it comes to shoes and bags and everything from jackets to bound books. and like others have mentioned, it's not like the rest of the animal goes to waste.

[McJag]

xoxo. I admire the way you have done this post in a very non- judgemental way. No one got angered & we have just agreed to disagree with both sides having new things to mull over. I appreciate that!

[Lil]

Originally Posted by crumpet

I do think that there needs to be a major change in the inhumane treatment of animals farmed for meat. No cow should have to stand there in their own pee while it watches the cow in front of it get its head cut off. That is repulsive and amounts to torture, imo.

That's exactly how I feel. I am quite happy to eat meat provided I can be sure the animal lived its life and ended its life in the most humane way possible, and if that means paying more then I pay more.

There was a recent bird flu scare in the UK at a Bernard Matthews turkey 'farm' (factory would have been more accurate) and the film of that hell hole was really disturbing. I hope Bernard Matthews' sales took a big hit from people seeing where their food really came from, rather than the lovely green fields portrayed on the label.

[A*O]

Bernard Matthews (is he still alive?) is/was an asshole. He was on a flight we took once and demanded total silence from all the passengers around him so he could get some sleep. My kids were playing Uno - quietly - and he asked a flight attendant to tell them to shut up. ASSHOLE.

[moomies]

Originally Posted by sputnik

yeah but they still don't compare to leather shoes. plus, pleather gives a lot of people blisters (myself included), doesn't age well, doesn't mold to your feet and is rarely not cheap looking. and canvas/cloth shoes aren't practical year round. imo nothing will ever come close to comparing to leather when it comes to shoes and bags and everything from jackets to bound books. and like others have mentioned, it's not like the rest of the animal goes to waste.

I think it just comes down to individual choice, comfort vs ethics, fashion/looks vs ethic and so on. I agree that whole animal can be used and consumed and it's not being wasted but in most cases pleather is good enough for me. This is not to say that I don't own anything leather but I've had some leather products that didn't measure up to their supposed quality, those were name brands, my Louis Vitton wallet (pink vernis, I think it's made of calf leather) its color faded after some years, it turned orange-ish now, my Gucci leather purse had a great finish but I think my storage was bad, I kept it in a plastic bag instead of cotton cloth bag it came with and the surface got spotty (I could prolly just clean and polish).

I just think it's admirable that people at least try and avoid products as a result of animal cruelty. I feel the same way about environmentalists and people who are into recycling (I love recycling myself). It takes some time and effort but one can find comfortable, fashionable pleather products IMO but each to their own. I think everyone should take up a cause they are interested in. I have a friend who is kinda hardcore about sweatshop manufactured clothes, she'd buy consignment or always makes sure the clothes she's buying isn't made in certain countries. She told me one time that she was boycotting Dole and their canned pineapples, I vaguely remember something about the way their workers are treated...
I actually had a lot of friends like this during uni...a lot of them were social activists and tree-huggers. Another friend of mine was a Marxist and boycotted everything capitalistic... But like I said, each to their own, as long as they aren't harming anyone else.

[xoxo]

Originally Posted by sputnik

yeah but they still don't compare to leather shoes. plus, pleather gives a lot of people blisters (myself included), doesn't age well, doesn't mold to your feet and is rarely not cheap looking. and canvas/cloth shoes aren't practical year round.

you know i adore you pk and we just agree to disagree on this topic..i agree with moomies that each to his/her own as long as you aren't harming anyone else..you are all the way over in europe these days so we cannot converse in person...maybe at christmas i will send you a pleather jacket from burbank or something..or better yet, one day come fly to los angeles and i will meet you and your husband for tea..i will wear a hott pink pleather dress and purple cloth shoes and you will see how amazing they can be...maybe i will even have my own husband by then and he might wear pleather too..you never know

[shedevilang]

hott pink pleather dress and purple shoes this i gotta see post pics lol