I’ve just seen something that has left me feeling very upset and shaky

Exactly my thought but I refrained from saying so in my post. I still don't get why that has anything to do with being a vegan. The one I know wouldn't know what inner peace was if it hit her like a brick,

OP, I am so sorry that video upset you. Animal cruelty really is a special kind of horror, and like you, it really would play on my mind.

I am also a vegan, but I know it isn't for everyone. I think the best thing you can do as a meat eater is just think before you buy. As a poster above said, just pay attention to where your food comes from.

Wishing you some cheerier thoughts, OP!

My colleague was a vegan and, whilst she was a lovely lass to work with, you wouldn't want to be downwind of her first thing in a morning. Just sayin.....

chewbacca ?

I have said this before but I only buy grass fed organic free to roam farm animals, whose lifespan is longer than the meat you normally buy, for the very reason that I want to respect the meat I eat. I have even mailed the farmer about how the animals are killed and he replied in graphic detail, but enough detail to allow me the knowledge that the animals are dispatched totally stress free.

The meat is very expensive and we only eat meat every 3 days, but it’s the way I can justify eating meat.

But really in a way what I saw had nothing to do with my meat eating.

Why is the human species so cruel?

This is why my family is vegetarian.

Animal rights are also important

When I highlighted this awful treatment of dogs and cats in China ( in the past on here) I was shouted down by a couple of posters and told this didn’t happen in China anymore.
Yes it does...and is terrible to behold, so I understand how you feel ww it plays in your mind on a continual loop.The memory of it will fade in time, I do think that many things on the Internet shouldn’t be stumbled on accidentally, but that you should have to actually search them out.

Oh Noooo!
I'm a livestock farmer's wife. I'm given to understand that UK abattoirs are the most humane in the world. I eat meat but have no desire to see the animals killed.
I tried a veggie diet but couldn't keep it up.
Its sits uneasily on my mind.

PinkCakes

It may be about the Yulin festival inChina. Every June, they kill and eat about 10,000 dags and cats. They keep them in terrible conditions, then use barbaric methods to kill them - they burn them alive, skin them whilst alive, hang them and blowtorch them. Abhorrent.

Watching something like that would play on my mind as does reading this*PinkCakes*.

Words create images.

It’s appalling and so cruel. I try very hard to not buy any product that is made in China but it’s very difficult. I think the only way to stop this awful cruelty is for countries to refuse to trade with them. The Chinese have no respect for animals domestic or even endangered species but there are charities who are working hard to try to stop this cruelty.

I’m glad of the warning about Yulin. It is so hard to lose an image or video you’ve seen Whitewavemark2.
You can do your best to buy from sources accredited with humane killing and campaign against cruelty without becoming vegan. You wouldn’t say we must stop having children after they’ve seen the appalling cruelty inflicted on some.

If all meat eaters became vegan in the west, it would have no impact on the barbaric way animals are treated in other parts of the world.

It would remove the huge amount of cruelty which is inflicted on animals in the West.

Keep telling yourself it was a film Whitewavemark2.
It may help.

When I lived in China nearly 30 years ago I traveled a lot off the beaten track, people were so very poor, they ate what they could, certainly no meat unless for a celebration.
I too try to avoid Chinese products, even in the middle of the pandemic when I wanted to buy an oxygen tester, thought it was made in Germany in my local chemist’s, only opened the box at home and saw the origin was China.

The west is not ready to switch to a vegan diet.

The rise in popularity of certain foods in the vegan diet has caused great hardship in other parts of the world.

Kenya has had to ban the export of avocados, which are a staple food there. They are particularly valuable for weaning babies and the export of avocados to the higher paying West has led to infant malnutrition.

Quinoa is a staple food in some South American countries and its export, again to the West, has created starvation in the Andes.

These are just two examples of the thoughtlessness with which we in the West pursue our own agendas. Becoming vegan needs to be researched in terms of what can be eaten without causing suffering to other people.

It’s not an easy fix for our consciences.

Mollygo

I’m glad of the warning about Yulin. It is so hard to lose an image or video you’ve seen Whitewavemark2.
You can do your best to buy from sources accredited with humane killing and campaign against cruelty without becoming vegan. You wouldn’t say we must stop having children after they’ve seen the appalling cruelty inflicted on some.

Your analogy with children is not logically valid.

You are tolerating cruelty because you perceive it as lesser cruelty. Maybe lesser cruelty but still cruelty.

Many people have children without any cruelty whatsoever inflicted on the child.

Humane killing. Is that what is called an oxymoron?

It is just a marketing ploy to euphemise cruelty and persuade people that it is alright.

So that people "understand".

I empathise with the original poster, but as the original poster eats what was stated as being eaten, then that is something to think about as to whether to continue to eat it.

Elderly person we’ll just have to agree to differ. You can be vegan and I’ll be a carnivore.

How do you know if a person is vegan, don't worry, they'll soon tell you...........

If you have to share a small office space with them PinkCakes, it will soon become apparent. ??

To be fair aroma of meaty barbecue isn’t exactly fragrant?

Chewbacca Oh dear.... I wouldn't be able to stand it. To each his/her own, but no need to go on about it eh.

Eurgh, quite agree Peasblossom, when it wafts across the garden on a summer's day, it's very unpleasant.

Umm, I was thinking of it a digestive stage or two later ?

Gotcha! ??

I know how you feel WWM2 and I sympathise. Years ago I watched a documentary featuring secret filming at a research establishment called Huntingdon Life Sciences. I was traumatised by what I saw then, and I am still. However, it had the effect of bringing about changes in my thinking which have been to the advantage ever since of any animal which has come my way.

I wasn’t the only one so deeply affected, as the programme led to demonstrations and controversial direct action by animal-rights activists. Perhaps these insights, horrifying as they are, move us forward in the right direction?