For what it's worth peaps I can understand where you are coming from even if I don't fully agree with all your arguments. I have several vegatarian friends and even tried it myself when I was younger although I came to believe that the actual eating of animals itsself isn't wrong as long as they are treated well whilist alive. I decided that there's really no difference between a gazell roaming around africa before it's eaten by a lion than a sheep on a welsh hillside being eaten at the end of its life. In esscence both animals have some quality of life before they become another animals dinner. Of course my theories have holes, if it's ok for a lion to hunt a gazell for food then it should follow that it's ok for a japannese whaler to hunt whales.
The last point highlights that this whole argument isn't exactly black and white , something not lost on my friends.
With regard to the "hyprocracy" question one friend does feel that it is at least verging on that but he himself doesn't keep pets that eat meat to at least address the issue. He is also aware that the big problem with his lifestyle is dairy products. Eating cheese and drinking milk doesn't in itsself harm animals directly but all those male calfs that go to meat production keep the farms going, and there isn't a good answer as to what would happen to them if they didn't go to beef. It wouldn't be possible to keep them as unproductive creatures, having them put down shortly after birth is also out and people wouldn't like milk from animals that have been mucked about with to not produce males.My friend does try to use soya milk but as he says it's ok in tea but used on cereals it's rank. Compare this hypocracy to carnivors who happily eat meat as long they don't have to think of it as an animal, and how many shy away from a fish with its head still on?
Another thing he has pointed out to me is the irony of vegatarianism. By this he means that if the world went veggy because it cared for animals we'd end up with a world with very few animals in it, most farm animals would have no purpose, dogs and cats would be rare as it would be unacceptable to farm cows just to feed them. Plus it also means we'd have to find a vegatarian slaughterman and butcher!
To be fair even some of my vegetarian friends say that a vegetarian world would be tempoary as a completely vegan world would be the next logical move and animals would become even rarer as it would become unacceptable to even keep them in captivity or zoos just to educate.
On the subject of ownership. This seems to me to be a very human concept. A human slave knows or feels that he is owned or is the property of someone else but do animals have the same concept? Dogs are pack animals and view their "owners" as an alpha male or female, and cats are often said not to be owned but do the owning. Ants farm aphids but do they own them ? They protect them and move them about but ownership or some sort of mutual relationship? It's probably something akin to the latter that many people feel with their pets.
JJ has pointed out that we have veggy sausages and burgers which seems odd but then we have meat and meat products flavoured with spices , garlic and whatever, why not just let it taste of meat. The oddest thing is that years ago meat pies , for example, were bulked out with soya to make them cheaper but nowadays some soya products are sold at a higher cost than meat.
