[DKSprocket]

I recently switched from a non-veg diet to an almost exclusive veg diet (mostly raw vegan in fact), but my motivation was based purely on nutritional information on how the food affects my body (health, vitality, mental spiritual etc).

I consider the fact that I am no longer supporting cruel animal conditions a definate plus - this was something I did have an a minor issue with earlier (but as most meat-eaters I found it easy to supress it). But again it was not a deciding factor in switching diet.

I agree with the Sikh position that its pretty pointless to argue the morality on whether to not to eat meat at all. I think most of us can agree that animal cruelty is a bad thing, but that's not to say that you necesarily should stay away from ALL meat. And I belive that if you open up that discussion it leads to all sorts of philosophical dead-ends:

If eating meat is wrong does that mean carnivor animals are wrong? (And would we then be justified to kill those animals to save their prey from "cruelty")

Is it ok to eat wild game (or free ranging fish) if we dont overkill and make the killing as quick and painless as possible?

If a farmer breeds and brings up a domesticated animal, treat it well, then kills it in a quick and painless way is the animal then "better off" than if it had never been born at all? (since without the farmer the animal wouldn't have been born in the first place)

If we assume reincarnation then maybe the cow/pig/chicken in the supermarket actually chose the life on the farm. Maybe its part of a life lesson it needs to go through before it can incarnate in a more sophisticated life. (this is a dangerous argument since it could potentially be misused to explain away all kinds of cruelty)

Of course none of the above detracts from the fact that animal cruelty is wrong and that there are many cases where there's no doubt that the animal is suffering.

Rasmus