BY now all the ridiculus excuses for eating meat are so repetitive and evidence the white privilege of rich coutry citizens who still have a long way to go regarding “digesting opression”.

the way to win people over to the cause is to expose the risks of factory farming within cool and mostly analytical format (as food inc aimed to do). doing so will more successfully push consumers towards preferring sustainably grown and safely processed meat. i know you care about this deeply, but your fervor is undermining your goal (if your goal is conversion, that is!).

that said, i agree that we need to encourage a change in our current factory farming system. but the shift won’t be from factory farms to no meat farms whatsoever (the first commenter gets at this, too); it will be a shift from disgusting factory farms to less disgusting factory farms and also to smaller meat producers and processors. this is a good read: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/pubs/reports/wheres-the-local-beef

follow me on twitter: @jaredmast

I have not been vegetarian for 10 years now and in that time I have not purchased any irresponsibly raised/butchered meat. I refuse to shop in the grocery store for industrial meat and I do not even see that as food. Nowadays I raise my own heritage breed chickens and turkeys (which CAN reproduce on their own as they are not the hybrid varieties) and keep my own laying hens. My husband and I do a cow-share each year and buy our beef from a local family who raises their beef organically and on grass. We harvest our own salmon from the Copper River in Alaska. I am proud to day that 100% of the meat and fish I consume is local and responsibly raised/harvested. I think these things should come into consideration when the meat no-meat debate comes up.

Please (this is aimed at everyone) take a look at what else you are serving for Thanksgiving and where the ingredients come from. Simply because the meal is vegetarian does not mean that it is 100% sustainable or free from industrial foods and animal-cruelty.

You also seem to suggest that all turkeys are “genetically modified” (artificial insemination is not gentitically modified), to the point that they can’t have sex, when all heritage breeds, like the ones that local and organic farms raise, naturally reproduce.

I agree with your objection to factory farms and respect your choice to be vegetarian, but please do not write as if not eating meat were THE alternative to factory farming.

One day we may all have to answer for our sins and even the most fervent biblest would reject thinking that dominion over the animals means that we can inflict needless cruelty on them, or alter their genetics to the point where they can not self-sustain. Where are the good Republican Christians when you need them?

The problem is, people like to eat meat. It’s what humans do. I don’t believe we will ever come to a point where every person is vegetarian. But I would like to see a world where those hwo choose to eat meat also make teh choice to eat animals that lived an animal-life, not an industrial one. And the only way that will happen is if we buy meat from those farms. I’m paying $65 for a 14lb turkey, but to me, it’s worth every penny.