Not everyone in the world eats meat, or did historically, either. Most of the world's peoples are too poor to eat much meat, even if they wanted to, because it is too expensive. And many religions and cultures have prohibitions against eating meat, or eating some kinds of meat.
As societies become more affluent they switch to a more Western diet, including meat, and start to suffer increased rates of cancer and heart disease and high blood pressure and diabetes and other diseases related to a high meat intake.
Also, meat production is very, very hard on the environment. The water used to grow meat would be much better spent on providing grains so we could end starvation on the planet.
Of course I would prefer it if animals didn't suffer before they became simply edible flesh. There is a movement towards organic agriculture, but organic meat is extremely expensive. Most people cannot afford it or have no interest. Most are looking for extremely inexpensive meat. The rise of factory farming in the twentieth century is what has made meat inexpensive enough for most people to consume a lot of.
So, practically speaking, even though humane slaughter is an ideal, if meat were produced with enough kindness and healthy food and space and sunlight to give the animals any kind of normal animal life, meat would be unaffordable for most people.
The Europeans are in the process of establishing rules for meat production that are more humane, but it is a long struggle, and the laws that they have already passed will not be in effect for some years to give farmers enough time to adjust to ideas like pigs having rutting materials and all the animals having space to play to alleviate boredom. |
