This will not satisfy those who oppose consumption of meat. But if like me, you believe that humans are animals and part of a omnivorous food chain that includes other animals as well as plants, and that we also must be ethical and humane within that omnivorous dynamic, a logic can be found.

Author Derrick Jensen, in his powerful and thought provoking book Endgame: The Problem of Civilization, describes it well. He says that humans must come into an ethical relationship with the species upon which they prey. That relationship is based on an exchange. If I am going to eat you hogs, I will care for your species as you support mine. I think that is a fair deal. When we kill to protect ourselves from a threat that we are increasing by our own behaviors, and when we cause any level of suffering as we raise animals to eat them, in my view we are not in right relationship with animals. We have lost touch with our humanity and empathy and the higher calling of our species. I admit this is a very personal and philosophical view, but it is where I stand. I also think it is very good for us to remember we are only animals and as dependent on ecological systems as all other species. In our quest for mechanization of all things, I see danger for us, an inflation of our sense of power to control. Humility, like humus, is great for tending the garden and the quality of life.

Speaking of our affluent world debate, I agree El Dragon. CAFOs are public health disasters regardless of whether or not they spawned H1N1.

http://blog.herbiv.org/post/97788057/rate-of-slaughter-of-chickens-pigs-and-cows-in

Spot on. Additionally, one hopes that, if H1N1 can’t be traced epidemiologically to the Smithfield CAFO, we don’t lose our fury about the astonishing public health catastrophe that the CAFO created in the mountain towns of Veracruz.