Then Why Not?

[Guest guest]

On Saturday, May 31, 2003, at 03:25 AM,

wrote:

 

> Besides, my dog eats poop.

 

Oddly, coprophagia is a survival strategy scavengers have developed, there

being quite a lot of decent nutrients in excrement -- if your system is

designed to handle the e. coli and so on, as dogs' are. Gross but true.

Elephants, for instance, digest only about 30 - 50% of what they eat, so

their poop is actually a good source of food for even humans, when they

are hard pressed. (Yes, I watch too much Discovery Channel.)

 

 

> And other nasties.

 

Being scavengers, dogs have evolved to have the attitude that they'll try

almost anything and if they hork it back up, they might just try it one

more time, just to be sure it's not edible. lol

 

> I am far more worried about what goes in my kids at this point.

 

Believe me, you don't want to know. Not in detail. lol

 

> As you all know by now.

>

> And, I still believe, at least for cats, a meat based diet is still the

> best.

 

In practical terms, cats are going to kill and eat birds and so on, anyway.

However, the nutrition offered by meat can easily be duplicated by any

number of vegetarian strategies that don't involve supporting the meat

industry, which is my major objection. I'm not trying to reform all

carnivores of all species. Rather, i am objecting to the meat industry's

perfidious practices. They simply cannot be trusted to operate in

anything like an ethical way, let alone in a non-cruel, non-sadistic

manner. Beyond all that, even were they all gentle kosher butcheries, I'd

still object on the grounds that we needn't kill to live, so why do it?

 

So I guess it boils down not to the cat, but to the meat and dairy

industries. I can't support them, and so I can no more buy a can of meaty

dog or cat food than I can buy a Whopper or Big Mac. Just not on.

 

And, as I say, if it's just as easy and inexpensive to feed my pets

vegetarian fare, then why ever not?

 

 

 

" In those days the world teemed, the people multiplied, the world bellowed

like a wild bull, and the great god was aroused by the clamour.  Enlil

heard the clamour and he said to the gods in council, 'The uproar of

mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the

babel.'  So the gods agreed to exterminate mankind. "

-- from The Epic of Gilgamesh

[Guest guest]

I am not necesarily disagreeing with you. I abhor the meat industry, for many

reasons. But, remember, I am not against eating meat, I am against the way the

meat industry is run and the fact that Americans as a whole consume an obscene

amount of it. It is my vegetarian child I am doing this for.....

 

And, when one is a) extremely ill and b) feeding three people and three fuzzy

people on slightly more than $10,000 a year, your version of inexpensive and

mine might not be quite the same.

 

In a perfect world, I would be on my own farm, growing my own produce, milking

my own cows and gathering my own eggs from my own chickens. Oh wait, did I

mention my raging germ phobia? I can barely TOUCH eggs.

 

This is why I don't leave the house for weeks at a time. Stuff like this

sometimes makes my head want to explode.

 

All I really wanted was easy recipes my rotten, difficult children will eat!!!

 

<Runs and hides in the closet for a few hours>

 

And Who keeps hiding my emoticons???? I know you are out there- give them back!

Yes, yes I saw the post about attachments, but I think it's really a plot.

 

And, as I say, if it's just as easy and inexpensive to feed my pets

vegetarian fare, then why ever not?

 

 

 

 

Peace,

Starfrog

 

 

 

 

 

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