Did you think I was arguing "putting the cheese in the mouth" was the ethical issue? You're right of course, at that point it's just cheese.
But purchasing those things creates the demand that someone somewhere has to put a living being through torture, a horrible life in a warehouse having child after child stripped away. And if you value the capacity for empathy of a whale, it's the same for a cow.
Other animals don't need to have the same concept of sexuality as people in order to be raped, I hope that's clear enough. We have animal cruelty laws against our pets for a reason. It may not be a sexual violation to them, but it is still physical harm. It is exploitation of another being that suffers.
If you did watch the standardized process of how we produce these things, which I've linked twice now, I think that more than sufficiently demonstrates harm. If the harm shocks you, maybe that says something about you, because there's no other way to present it. The machine lines of individual animals having their throats slit, dipped alive into boiling water, the cows struggling in the pens to avoid another bolt shot into their skulls.
And for what? A meat we can mimic with soy or pea protein? A cheese we can mimic with cashews? There's no rationalizing it.
I have a strong feeling you didn't watch it, and I can't make you, but it would give your arguments a lot stronger ground if you have the full knowledge of what you're talking about in the future.
Did you think I was arguing "putting the cheese in the mouth" was the ethical issue? You're right of course, at that point it's just cheese.
But purchasing those things creates the demand that someone somewhere has to put a living being through torture, a horrible life in a warehouse having child after child stripped away. And if you value the capacity for empathy of a whale, it's the same for a cow.
Other animals don't need to have the same concept of sexuality as people in order to be raped, I hope that's clear enough. We have animal cruelty laws against our pets for a reason. It may not be a sexual violation to them, but it is still physical harm. It is exploitation of another being that suffers.
If you did watch the standardized process of how we produce these things, which I've linked twice now, I think that more than sufficiently demonstrates harm. If the harm shocks you, maybe that says something about you, because there's no other way to present it. The machine lines of individual animals having their throats slit, dipped alive into boiling water, the cows struggling in the pens to avoid another bolt shot into their skulls.
And for what? A meat we can mimic with soy or pea protein? A cheese we can mimic with cashews? There's no rationalizing it.
I have a strong feeling you didn't watch it, and I can't make you, but it would give your arguments a lot stronger ground if you have the full knowledge of what you're talking about in the future.