#and I would rather my flesh be used by someone hungey than have it rot

[alwek]

Alright! So lets go over what I actually said, yeah?

I'm aware that's their lifespan, which is why I said I go out of my way to buy independent meat that waits a bunch more years (typically 8-14 from the farms I go to). Didn't know the cheese thing, though. I thought it was just the milk they used.

I never said I think I'm "saving" them by eating them, I said I think I'm giving the animal a kind of respect it may not have gotten in it's life by using its flesh to prolong mine and my families lives.

I don't buy my meat from grocery stores, I buy from local butchers who can tell me the exact farm that meat came from so I can determine for myself if the farm is worth supporting. Because yes, there is a HUGE difference between the Johnsonville Factory Farms and Old Man Clarences' farm where he doesn't sell the cows till they're over 6 at least, and you can see the large fields they graze and play in.

Meat left on those shelves is also an animal you've let rot and go to waste. Is it really more respectful to kill an animal for nothing, or kill an animal and use its corpse to prolong another life? To use it bones to make tools? To use its skin to make a jacket that lasts generations? Is it really more respectful to kill something for nothing? I don't think so. Not one bit. That is not how you show a life respect, just letting rot and fester and get tossed out so not even the flies can make use of the meat.

The animal was already killed, I can't change that. All I can do is give it my own form or RESPECT by using its needless death to keep myself and my family alive. Also, having worked in multiple grocery stores, I can guarantee that any meat they don't sell gets packed in a garbage bag and thrown out. Grocery stores can only donate non-perishable items to shelters and the like. If you think stores donate their old meat, you have been lied to.

I eat meat. I am neither ashamed nor proud of that. It is simply something I eat. I was rasied to believe that you give an animals life FAR more respect by eating and using it than letting it mold or collect dust in shed. That's just how it is when raised by indigenous beliefs like I was.

Ideally, I'd raise my own meat, even. But I have neither the property nor the money. And so, I buy from farms I know to raise the animals with respect to their natures and well-being.

Lasty, I don't want to convince you to stop being vegan. I don't care. I care about humane farming, and if you think that that doesn't exist, you've been lied to. Also FUCK "vegan leather," that toxic ass, plastic ass, fast fashion ass trash the places like shein and temu love to use and pollute our skies with.

So, to sum up: I don't think I'm "saving" any animals by buying meat from independent farms and butchers, I think I'm giving the animal an amount of respect it may have not gotten in life by utilizing its flesh in my diet. I actively avoid factory farm meat, and my culture has been respecting animals like this for longer than veganism has even existed as a concept.

If you kill it, you use all of it possible. That is how I show my RESPECT to what has been killed. I don't have the stomach to kill it myself, but I'll use whatever I can out of respect for the life that was given to make mine last longer.

(Also, I very strongly disagree that my stomach is as respectful as a resting place as a landfill. That's just a horrible way to think about people in general. Humans are not piles of polluting trash. We are creatures with lives and souls that must be sustained, and to liken ourselves to landfills is such a damaging way to think of humanity)

tumblr as a whole has been more outright actively aggressive towards me being a vegan than all other social media platforms combined and it kinda fucking sucks