However, I don’t think people choosing a vegan DIET as a healthy lifestyle should be discouraged. Obviously, not all vegan food is healthy, but eating a well-planned plant-based diet is a vast improvement over the crap that people are eating today. Some people even choose a vegan diet and lifestyle for environmental concerns. If there are reasons other than animal welfare / suffering, veganism can still be a good choice, and as it alleviates animal suffering as a side-effect, I don’t think it should be scoffed at.

You also need to consider the fact that animals suffer and die for vegan diets as well. Unless you are growing all your own food, you most likely have no idea how many animals suffered and died for what you are eating.
Why do meat-eaters always say this, as though it’s somehow shocking to vegans? As skepticalvegan just pointed out, it’s about eliminating direct cruelty and reducing indirect cruelty as far as possible. We’ll never acheive Utopia, but that’s no excuse for failing to do our best.

And I do have some idea how many animals suffered and died for what I am eating… and it’s a heck of a lot less than what meat-eaters (even consumers of “happy meat’) cause.

But as already said, its not just about suffering, that is a very simplistic way to put it. Utilitarians generally base their arguments on suffering and happiness but it is usually more complex and nuanced. There are various forms of utilitarianism which weight things differently such as preference utilitarianism (to which Peter Singer ascribes) or rule utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is also only one of various philosophical approaches to veganism or animal rights. There are also rights-based approaches such as advocated by Tom Regan or Gary Francione. So for many it is not just about suffering but also about preferences, autonomy and/or inherent rights.

Exploiting and killing humans for profit isn’t much more acceptable when it is done quick and painlessly, humans see murder as an issue far beyond suffering.

“You also need to consider the fact that animals suffer and die for vegan diets as well.”
This issue has been address multiple times on this blog in the comments such as here and here. We are certainly aware of harvesting deaths, though the grain consumed by animals accounts for more land usage than for humans and therefor more field deaths. When you add the veggies that omnivores eat plus the land use and harvesting needs for raising “food animals”, vegans still seem to come out ahead of most omnivores. Its also an issue of avoiding direct harm and pursuing a reduction of indirect harm as much as possible. Ive elsewhere talked about altering types of inputs and harvesting techniques along with other measures to reduce field kills.

I don’t think your prison camp in necessarily the same as a factory farm. Abuse can certainly have gradients, but in the view of animal rights advocates family and factory farm both cross an ethical baseline by exploiting or “using” a sentient being as a instrument of production.

If veganism were ONLY about avoiding animal suffering, it would include animal products, because it is not difficult to find animal products that don’t involve suffering.

We raise sheep and sometimes pigs, as well as various poultry. We have a guy come out and we give the sheep something to eat, and then while they are eating he shoots one in the head at close range and it drops and is dead instantly. And then he cuts it up and then does it again with the next sheep. You can’t argue that the shooting is upsetting to the other sheep, because they don’t even stop eating. Sheep are very difficult to anthropomorphize if you’ve spent any time around them.

Our sheep don’t suffer at all, but if an animal suffers for a few minutes right at the end of its life, I’m ok with that (although it is not ideal). It fits with my personal belief system which is that it’s natural for us to eat animals but not OK for us to cause them to lead lives of prolonged misery. When we raise meat bird chickens I have to drive them to a processing place in crates and the guy there kills them one by one. I’m sure the chickens are uncomfortable for an hour or so while they’re sitting in the crates on his back porch waiting. And again, I’m ok with that because they had great lives–fresh air, pasture, dust baths, sunshine, and etc. (And they taste so much better than store birds). If we’re just killing a couple of chickens we’ll do it here ourselves.

It’s when you get into the large scale industrial slaughtering where people start cutting corners and animals get skinned while they’re still alive and etc. And again I personally believe that the life the animal led is more important than what happens right at the end, but still I would like to see some serious changes in the meat industry in this country.

You also need to consider the fact that animals suffer and die for vegan diets as well. Unless you are growing all your own food, you most likely have no idea how many animals suffered and died for what you are eating. When you eat a sheep you raised yourself, you know that one animal had a good life and died without suffering. To me it is a good feeling.

I didn’t mean to be so long-winded but I hope that answers your question. It’s ok with me if you think my “prison camp” is the same as a factory farm. People believe all kinds of things and there’s nothing I can do about that. LOL

And anyway, I slightly disagree with skepticalvegan: veganism isn’t JUST about avoiding the infliction of suffering. It’s a rights philosophy: animals have a right to their life, and humans don’t have a right to kill and eat them when there is no overriding need to do so.

Ultimately, you’ll not make headway with ethically-based vegans by raising “happy meat” (though I will concede that it’s preferable to factory farming). From our perspective, you’re just tidying up the prison camp.

Kate, the problem with “happy meat” is rather simple. There’s no guarantee that the individual animal you are eating didn’t experience its own suffering at slaughter-time. And what’s more, there’s no way you, as a consumer, could ever know that information with any reasonable degree of certainty. Eating “happy meat” is simply taking on faith the claim that this cow or this pig or this chicken right here on your plate wasn’t still conscious when it was skinned.

I, for one, am unwilling to take that leap of faith.