akluis asked: I cannot speak for all vegans, but I can speak for myself.
I asked a question for those Vegetarians who are mainly avoiding red meat/any meat for health reasons, yet some vegetarians still eat some fish in small amounts, or eggs and milk in small amounts. I asked where insects fall on the scale of acceptable, and got this response.
“I would not eat insects. I don’t eat anything that was once living and breathing. They have as much right to be alive as I do and I don’t see the benefit of terminating that life in order for me to eat – especially when I have a lot of plant options to choose from. ”
Okay, obvioulsly, plants are alive. So if you say you will not eat anything that was once living, you are S.O.L and cannot eat ANY food EVER. Apparently, breathing is the key.
In this type of definition what is considered breathing? Is it okay to eat animals without lungs, but eating animals with lungs is wrong? Are lungs where the ‘animal spirit’ or whatever gives animals their rights and emotions reside?
What about animals that resperate without lungs? Frogs breath by absorbing oxygen through their skin, at least when they are underwater. Fish breath through gills, basically like a radiator but you flush water across it and oxygen is abosrbed. Insects have little holes in their torso that lets air in and it runs along a series of thin tubes and gets absorbed…really quite like gills. Plants breath throug little holes in their leaves, and the gasses diffuse passively through the plant.
Yes, some animals like mammals, reptiles, and birds have lungs that actively pull in air and then difuse it into the bloodstream with lungs. But some primitive animals (like insects) passively let it into their system. That’s what plants do too. Fish with their gills are also similar, but of course once they get it, they have systems to spread it around the body.
If ‘Alive and Breathing’ is an important Vegetarian concept for determining what to eat, doesn’t that put mammals, reptiles, and birds on the ‘don’t eat’ side but plants, insects, and fish on the ‘okay to eat’ side?