Not buying "Cruelty free meat" means... I'm not helping the animals??

I don't think there is anything as "Cruelty free meat", regardless of the conditions the animal lives in or how the animal is killed, it's cruel, no questions asked.

For every person who turns vegan/vegetarian there are less and less animals bred each year for human consumption/fashion. So yes, you're definitly helping the animals. If you were to start eating meat again, along with all the other vegans/vegetarians, then more animals will be bought into this world only to be mistreated, tortured then murdered.

You're definitly helping animals =)

See this was my exact argument. By not consuming, I'm decreasing the need for more meat to be bred. Thanks for validating my argument My partner is just very business minded, and... yeah. He loves eating meat, and I think blocks out the whole cruelty part, even though I've told him to watch things like Earthlings. I'm not a preachy vego. I wouldn't make him go vegetarian, because it's a personal choice. But I do want him to be informed, so he can decide for himself. Thanks for the response

why do you think there is always meat advertisements on the television? the meat industry is losing alot of business with people going veg and so they try to combat that with advertisements telling you how much you "NEED" meat.
they don't care about the environment, they don't care about the consumers, the don't care about the animals
all they care about is PROFIT

there is no such thing as cruelty free meat. people need to stop accepting all the bullshit they are fed by the corporations, the media and what is considered the social norm.

I can understand I get this a lot to, cruelty free meat does not exist. I have friends who are like  well i only eat free range so its cruelty free, im helping the animals. That frustrates me the animal still had to die for you to consume it and anyway what the companies consider "free range" isn't great anyway...

regardless of how its slaughterd, its still cruel if an animal has to die way before its meant too.

Hmm, that argument is a lot more common than I would have imagined..because to me (and I would say, all of us on here) it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But I feel it is an argument put forward to try and establish a baseline consensus that meat should be eaten. Once you agree with this argument, you are essentially saying that eating meat is not the issue, it's how they are treated, thereby absolving the omni who poses the argument of any possible guilt about eating animals at all, and instead of blaming an established norm in society (that is, that meat consumption is okay) they can instead blame individuals and companies for their treatment of animals prior to, and during, slaughter.

Really, even from a business perspective it doesn't make a great deal of sense. Whether you buy supposed 'cruelty-free' meat or no meat at all, you are still not paying dollars to the .... erm, I suppose 'cruel' meat producers (this is all getting very paradoxical). Giving dollars to 'cruelty-free' meat producers to show the other producers that you care about animals is like protesting 1 nuclear bomb that kills 50,000 people and injures 100,000, but then not caring when 1 'ordinary' bomb kills 100 people and injures 200. Bombs are still killing devices no matter how many or few they kill or maim. The end result doesn't change.

If  a cruel producer's profits plummet, but they see 'cruelty-free' meat's profits soar, they will never conclude that meat in itself is the problem. But if the profits of all meat producers plummet, it wouldn't take a Mary Kay Ash or Henry Ford to figure out where the profits went.

I guess at the end of it all, instead of trying to argue with reason or logic you could always just resort to the good ol' fashioned 'Nuh'.

A lot of people have put to me a similar argument - "by being vegan you're not actively making the same difference to the industry as you would be if you were purchasing organic/'humane' animal products, as you have just removed yourself as a consumer and put yourself off the industry radar. Therefore you are not sending a message to industry to change the ways they treat animals." etc etc

This is incorrect.

Sure, when someone makes the switch from, say, purchasing cage eggs to free-range eggs, they are sending a message to the industry that the consumer values animal welfare, encouraging them to treat their animals better. No doubt about this at all. By not purchasing animal products at all though, you too are doing the same!

Of course the animal agriculture industry wants to make as much money as possible, and so they need as many people as possible buying their "product."

As they note the building wave of ethically-conscious consumers abstaining completely from animal products, they will attempt to nip this problem in the bud. They will do this by raising the level of animal welfare within their business, encouraging people to think that they don't have to go vegan to have the best interests of animals at heart (of course we all here know different).

So by going vegan not only are we demonstrating to the public how we can live totally cruelty-free lives and ensuring a brighter future for future animals, we are also encouraging the industry to make immediate changes to they ways they treat animals now.

The fight for Animal Liberation has to service and be based around two different generations of animals. For the current generation of animals born into the currently established hell holes, it is out duty to win them any respite we can. For the next generation, is it out duty to ensure they never see the inside of these places. Veganism is the key to unlocking these both.

Sometimes I wonder if people mistake "cruelty free" meat for "free range" or "organic" meat.
essentially, there is no such thing as cruelty free meat, that's just the truth of it.

I agree with JMort, this is a really silly ideal which people argue because it enables the ideology that we should be eating meat.

Removing yourself as a consumer of meat does make a difference. Marketing will clearly show increases and decreases in meat consumption from producers.
Purchasing free range or organic meat is only going to show the producer that you want a different kind of meat, not that you're after a cruelty free kind.


The only 'cruelty free' meat, is the stuff you can buy in the deli section next to tofu - the kind which does not come from an animal!

This is precisely why I raised the question here. Because I'm like minded in the respect that... killing something is cruel. Would I want to die so someone could eat me? Not so much. Someone also tried to tell me that cows aren't aware enough to process "cruelty" to them. I said they were wrong, and gave them a detailed argument as to why. That shut them up. I couldn't believe it.

Then there's the good old... plants get killed too. GAH! Shoot me.

My partner stuck up for me tonight, because a friend of ours found out I was vegetarian at dinner, and proceeded to say "It's one thing to be vegetarian for the environment, but don't even tell me you're vegetarian because you want to SAVE THE ANIMALS." My partner proceeded to politely, but sternly say that if that's someones choice to not eat meat for that reason, they should be allowed to do so... thus he also proceeded to talk to that person about the fact that the animals that are commonly eaten are aware, and have feelings. I was very proud. Sure he ordered a chicken schnitzel for dinner, but he stuck up for me and my beliefs. I didn't have to defend myself for once. Which was lovely.

I guess a lot of people just turn a blind eye to the fact that killing something before it's meant to die, is cruel. That's how we all view it on here. Again, as Earthlings says... if slaughterhouses were made from glass windows... everyone would be vegetarian. We all feel, we have morals, and we don't like seeing things killed/tortured... I highly doubt anyone could turn a blind eye to that kind of thing if they were exposed to it.

Thanks again for all your input. It's been great reading the answers