(1) Industrial factory farmed meat, fed with crops like alfalfa/soy/corn, where the animals are injected with prophylactic antibiotics (because cramped conditions cause disease outbreaks, also a growth enhancer) and growth hormones, and/or genetically modified to promote gigantism (both applications tending to increase disease susceptibility, so more antibiotics). The meat is then processed in meatpacking production lines (highly susceptible to cross contamination, with a consumer portion of ground meat containing parts from hundreds of animals) - hey, why not gamma-irradiate it to kill off bacteria and viruses? Lots of animal torture and needless suffering to top it all off. Fairly cheap end product, however. Note this production system is not a strictly American phenomenon - Mexico's pork-export factories are the same, and there's China's 'Pig Skyscraper'
(2) Essentially nomadic-style animal herding on grassland. This is the traditional method of raising animals - they mostly eat grass, or other kinds of forage, although growing crops for fodder (without use of modern pesticides and herbicides) is often part of the picture. Typical species are cows, sheep and goats. Historically, pigs were raised this way as well (more like wild boars). Chickens can be raised this way, as well. See also kobe beef cattle in Japan. The main issue is this method is low yield and high cost, i.e. the meat is expensive (but healthy, and animal suffering is very minimal, i.e. they lead decent lives up to the point of a quick slaughter). For example:
I have little patience with vegans who refuse to differentiate between these two types of meat production on ethical grounds. However if everything moves to the latter ethical and healthy production system, meat will be more expensive and less of a 'daily staple' - and there's nothing wrong with that dietary switch, it's better for everyone.
As far as lab-grown meat, that'll probably be even more expensive than ethically-farmed meat, and likely use even more resources (electricity for maintaining the vats at precise temperatures, specialized nutrient feedstocks, etc.), so I'm not sure what the point is.
> I have little patience with vegans who refuse to differentiate between these two types of meat production on ethical grounds. However if everything moves to the latter ethical and healthy production system, meat will be more expensive and less of a 'daily staple' - and there's nothing wrong with that dietary switch, it's better for everyone.
As a vegan, myself and most/all of my friends would agree that some hunting is good. For example, where I am deer need to be hunted, b/c humans replaced their natural predators and they are overpopulated, causing issues such as disease etc..
Personally I do not want to be the one hunting deer, but I have no issue with it.
Factory farming is a completely other level from hunting.
If we were only allowed to eat meat we personally caught from wild animals... well, yeah, that'd probably be pretty solid...
The problem is even "ethical" farming is pretty rough on animals and rough on the environment. It isn't "natural" at all, even if you are putting them in a field outside rather than crammed into a barn.
I suspect the pitch would be that in a possible future with sufficient scale, and improvements to process and efficiency, that you would be able to replace the category 1 meat entirely with lab grown meat, allowing folks to maintain their meat consumption at low cost without the horrors of massive scale meat production.
I've got no idea if that's plausible or not.
Either way I'd vastly prefer that we regulate (and stop subsidizing) animal farming to the point that all meat basically falls into category 2.
(1) Industrial factory farmed meat, fed with crops like alfalfa/soy/corn, where the animals are injected with prophylactic antibiotics (because cramped conditions cause disease outbreaks, also a growth enhancer) and growth hormones, and/or genetically modified to promote gigantism (both applications tending to increase disease susceptibility, so more antibiotics). The meat is then processed in meatpacking production lines (highly susceptible to cross contamination, with a consumer portion of ground meat containing parts from hundreds of animals) - hey, why not gamma-irradiate it to kill off bacteria and viruses? Lots of animal torture and needless suffering to top it all off. Fairly cheap end product, however. Note this production system is not a strictly American phenomenon - Mexico's pork-export factories are the same, and there's China's 'Pig Skyscraper'
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-2...
(2) Essentially nomadic-style animal herding on grassland. This is the traditional method of raising animals - they mostly eat grass, or other kinds of forage, although growing crops for fodder (without use of modern pesticides and herbicides) is often part of the picture. Typical species are cows, sheep and goats. Historically, pigs were raised this way as well (more like wild boars). Chickens can be raised this way, as well. See also kobe beef cattle in Japan. The main issue is this method is low yield and high cost, i.e. the meat is expensive (but healthy, and animal suffering is very minimal, i.e. they lead decent lives up to the point of a quick slaughter). For example:
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/10/5ca39ec007e4-feat...
I have little patience with vegans who refuse to differentiate between these two types of meat production on ethical grounds. However if everything moves to the latter ethical and healthy production system, meat will be more expensive and less of a 'daily staple' - and there's nothing wrong with that dietary switch, it's better for everyone.
As far as lab-grown meat, that'll probably be even more expensive than ethically-farmed meat, and likely use even more resources (electricity for maintaining the vats at precise temperatures, specialized nutrient feedstocks, etc.), so I'm not sure what the point is.