Answer to submitter. Answer: We are not entitled to take the lives of the cows just because they graze

The biologist and pasture inventor Jonas Ericson writes in a submitter That we can eat meat from grazing cows with good conscience because the bait contributes positive natural values. He thus repeats a tough argument used to claim that we must increase meat production in order to restore rich meadows and preserve biodiversity.

The problem with this and related arguments is that they are rarely born out of questions about how we can take care of the earth as when us in the best way, but instead from the question « How can I justify my meat consumption? ». They therefore rarely come alone, often they are followed by a number of claims that we are in different ways dependent on the animal industry or that it is not so harmful.

For example, Ericson tries to conjure away the animal industry’s methane emissions with mental gymnastics and comparisons with a time when animal husbandry looked very different from the intense production we have today. The figures speak their clear language, but it seems to have little impact that Jonas Paulsson in an answer persistently and tirelessly repeats what the research says.

To change For herbal food production is not to « distancing » us from nature. On the contrary, it is a first step towards repairing our broken relationship with nature and to our co -creatures, in parallel to changing the way we use the earth basically. The animal industry is one of the most ecologically destructive industries available. The animals are bred to maximize production at the expense of their health.

The distance between those consumed and those who consume is abyss. The animals are born and die out of sight, their bodies are packaged in plastic packaging and are named with new words so that we do not have to think that what we have on the plate has been a living creature. Choosing Animalies is to break this separation.

What is completely missing from this reasoning is the animal perspective. Conscience is about morality. In order to morally justify meat consumption, and thus eat meat with good conscience, must the argument be based on the central question: is what the animals are exposed to in the food industry ethically justifiable?

If you answer « yes » On that question, one ends up inevitably in moral contradictions. In order to avoid meeting this truth, the meat defenders must find detours around animal rights issues. And that’s when they end up in absurdities that we should meet our entire fat needs with sprayed rapeseed on a plant-based diet as well as palm and soy oil from Pampas.

I get most of my fat intake from nuts and seeds. The second largest source is Tofu (from the EU – soy from Pampas goes primarily to animal feed). I have never heard of soybean oil and have not eaten palm oil since my last ballerina biscuit over ten years ago. The rapeseed oil I buy is organic. But should we make up what oil I use in my hummus or should we speak honestly about what it costs us to close your eyes to the atrocities that happen between the slaughterhouses’ concrete walls?

Ericson thinks we can help but eat pigs and chickens because they do not graze. But it doesn’t matter what they eat, their lives have an intrinsic value just because it means something to themselves. The fact that the cows graze also does not give us the right to take their lives. It is basically a strange logic.

I learned To milk by hand when I worked on a 4H farm. We had two mountain cows: Mother and daughter (when they are allowed they are happy to live out together). I took them out in the pasture every morning, even in winter. We often talk well about the cows now threatened the right to grazing during the summer, but it is also not in the interest of the cows to be trapped all winter.

Mountain cows are one of the country breeds that are today endangered. They are not bred to maximize production and are therefore generally healthier. The modern industrial breeds are in the process of cultural heritage nostalgia and mosaic landscapes. If we are to have grazing cows in nature conservation, we should instead preserve the country breeds as part of this nature conservation.

I have milked a cow, but do not share Ericson’s view that it gives me special authority on the issue, but urges the reader to still significantly evaluate my arguments.

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