Is a fish diet more ethical than plant based diet?

[silva]

I don't see the big issue as being animals lost to farming. I understand eating plants requires more volume on the people side of eating, but eating animals require more deaths on the animal feed side. Even when you argue animals can graze, they require constant rotations of growth. If you argue for free range, pasture grazing, you need to equate that side with a comparable produce farming, which could as easily be verticle growth, home gardens, or greenhouses.
Actually, it isn't farming that impacts animals as much as the decimation of their homes and food sources. Know what is a huge impact? Animal farming as well as factories that produce products for new technology

Humans are the only animals that have sought to live outside of the natural world in a world of their own creation
I remember when I first went vegan with the thought that everyone should turn vegan. I then realized it was going against nature that is the main cause for people to become vegan.
Sure, there are places where eating only plants could be the default, but those who choose to live in the woods, build there houses, plant their gardens, and live amongst the animals. I know many who have grown up hunting and fishing, and would defend their love of animals and nature as deeper than most vegans I'd ever known-because they know their lives. they know their families, their foods, where they drink, where they sleep, the old and the young. they hunt them with intent, in the way animals hunt. they have spent more time ensuring the animal families prosperity far more than they do hunting them for food

I have no need to hunt--no one in my city in the US does. We are fat, exercise intentionally, and a vegan diet is by far the best for our health and environment.

While I don't have too much of an opinion on eating eggs, I don't believe the eggs that replace beans or grains are saving any more lives than if you declined

 

[Graeme M]

I remember when I first went vegan with the thought that everyone should turn vegan. I then realized it was going against nature that is the main cause for people to become vegan.
Sure, there are places where eating only plants could be the default, but those who choose to live in the woods, build there houses, plant their gardens, and live amongst the animals. I know many who have grown up hunting and fishing, and would defend their love of animals and nature as deeper than most vegans I'd ever known-because they know their lives. they know their families, their foods, where they drink, where they sleep, the old and the young. they hunt them with intent, in the way animals hunt. they have spent more time ensuring the animal families prosperity far more than they do hunting them for food

I hope I'm not misunderstanding what you are saying here. I think you are saying the same thing I believe, which is that veganism is a response to our modern condition. Ancient hunter/gatherers were essentially vegan, and a more honest veganism than most of us today. Of course they didn't know about veganism because it was unnecessary, whereas veganism today is trying to restore something of the balance of those times. We can't go back to that way of living now, but we *can* try to restore some balance. And I don't think hunting for food is wrong. thought of in that context.

Although this thread is about fish, I tend to think that eating eggs should "save" more lives than eating beans/grains, IF someone is getting them for free from non-commercial sources. Whether that means anything or not, who knows...

 

[silva]

I hope I'm not misunderstanding what you are saying here. I think you are saying the same thing I believe, which is that veganism is a response to our modern condition. Ancient hunter/gatherers were essentially vegan, and a more honest veganism than most of us today. Of course they didn't know about veganism because it was unnecessary, whereas veganism today is trying to restore something of the balance of those times. We can't go back to that way of living now, but we *can* try to restore some balance. And I don't think hunting for food is wrong. thought of in that context.

Although this thread is about fish, I tend to think that eating eggs should "save" more lives than eating beans/grains, IF someone is getting them for free from non-commercial sources. Whether that means anything or not, who knows...

I do agree that we should evolve as vegans. Those who argue that our ancestors were meat eaters, therefore we should continue, never seen to advocate living in caves, taking turns watching for predators, without heating or cooling, or any means of transport!

What I disagree with you on is accepting animal products in a belief that they assuage some aspect of accidental deaths. How is trading a half cup of cooked beans less ethical than your friends hens eggs? If that's your MO why not roadkill?

 

[Graeme M]

What I disagree with you on is accepting animal products in a belief that they assuage some aspect of accidental deaths. How is trading a half cup of cooked beans less ethical than your friends hens eggs? If that's your MO why not roadkill?

Sure, roadkill would be fine ethically, I'm just not that keen on eating an animal that's been killed on the roads. Besides, all I'd find around here would be kangaroos and wombats. Probably good eating but I'm too squeamish and I suspect there are laws against it anyway. The road toll on native wildlife here is often awful to contemplate.

My view about the eggs - and self-caught fish - is that if it helps to offset demand for crops then that's a good thing. I don't think growing crops is good at all. Yes, a vegan world might reduce the scale of crops, though I'm not sure it would by much, but that still leaves a lot of the world covered in plants that prevent native animals from flourishing. As to the deaths in croplands, it's mostly the pests that are the concern. An awful lot of all sorts of animals are killed and it's hard to see why this is not more of a concern for vegans. We should be at least as concerned by that as animal farming, and MORE concerned about that than some forms of animal farming.

But here's the calculation for the eggs I am given. Zero deaths (OK, not quite because I kill insects driving the 1.5 hours to get them). Plant foods I buy instead would require some non-zero number of animals to be killed.

 

[veganfortheanimalss]

Other animals are not people....

Other animals are not people. If we were to address every matter of animal harm and use in exactly the same way we do with people we would very soon have quite a mess. Whether we are vegan or not, we kill animals and treat them unfairly in huge numbers every day, something we don't so with people. So yours is something of an irrational analogy. It cannot possibly guide us sensibly.

How can you say it's not a good analogy. It shows the difference between the killings. Is accidentally running over a dog with a car the same as intentionally killing it after several days of planning? In both the instance the dog is killed. Are they the same? Even in legal terms the first is an accident while the second is animal cruelty. Just because animals die in different circumstances doesn't make them all equal morally.

OK. I agree. But where do YOU draw the line? Fish are lower in the sentience hierarchy than cows.

The line is drawn at the moving away from the idea that animals are food, least intentional killing, most efficient, least harm, and least ecosystem area disruption, of food production.

I think now you are not making rational statements. Do you really want to argue that cropping - especially the crops we need to grow to feed people a vegan-friendly diet - are biodiverse ecosystems in balance, minimising ecosystem disruption?

Yes they are the least in terms of ecosystem distruption per square area. The amount of food grown in a small area dwarfs the amount of sea you need to cover to catch fish. You are messing up a larger area of ecosystem if you are fishing.

I know you exclude insects, but if we accept insects are animals and they are killed to grow crops, then no - the number of animals killed to grow crops absolutely dwarfs the number of fish killed. However, I am not defending commercial fishing. It's a very bad thing. In the context of the OP's question, if all we were worried about is the scale of killing animals then I have no idea which is better - eat commercially caught fish or commercially grown crops. Both also come with broad related harms. I think on balance from what little I know that commercial fishing is a lot worse though.

Crop farms
#Smaller area of human induced distruption/destruction
#Efficient food generation per square area
#Lesser number of higher sentient animals(boars, rats etc) killed as side effect of protecting the crops. Can be addressed by farm regulations.
#Large number of lower sentient animals(insects) killed as side effect of protecting the crops. Can be addressed by farm regulations.
#The psychological impact. Would take the human appetite away from flesh and into less cruel plant based food. Would make the thought grow that animals aren't food.



Fishing
#Very large area of marine ecosystem getting disrupted by human activity.
#Inefficient food catch/generation per square area.
#Medium sentient animals(fish) killed in large numbers, as the PRIMARY INTENT of killing them and eating them.
#Other higher, medium and lower sentient animals killed due to ecosystem distruption.
#Would de-sensitise humans seeing dead animals on their plate. Not the way forward.

I think Silva is right, at least while few people in the West hunt their own food. Particularly if hunters are helping manage ecosystems by hunting feral/introduced species.

The main invasive species here is the hunter. It's bad enough the ecosystem is rebalancing itself with new species being introduced, but to correct it by doing another bad thing, that is killing it is cruel, and on top of calling it 'caring for the animals' is rubbing salt on the. wound. It's not the fault of the animals which were introduced by humans in those ecosystems. If you really don't want the ecosystem rebalancing and want things to return back to the way they were, then trap them and move them away, or do a trap-neuter-release. This is the reason why humans should allocate a set land for themselves and stay there, and not intrude into others ecosystems, like going out into the sea, catching fish, and messing the marine ecosystem up.