Personally, I believe that it's okay to kill things and eat them as long as you fully utilize the carcass as best as you're able and you minimize the animal's suffering during it's life and in the slaughter process.

But I have vegan friends who feel that isn't good enough. To my vegan friends, the very idea of killing an animal for human consumption is unethical. Even the idea of utilizing the animal's products (milk, for example) is unethical in the view of most vegans because they believe that animal will inherently suffer in the process.

Furthermore, they fundamentally reject the hierarchical belief that humans are a species entitled to use other animals for our own benefit. To many vegans, that is the crux of the ethical quandary: they believe all species on this planet are entitled to be let alone and not used for nourishment by humans.

I respectfully disagree. I like salmon and duck and crab and venison, but I'm not a dick about it. I fundamentally reject the ethical stance of my vegan friends that it is wrong to use another animal. As far as I'm concerned, I outrank the coho salmon, the Dungeness crab and the Jersey cow.

They would argue that I do not. I respect their different ethics even though I do not a agree.

I am a vegan and agree that there are many ways to eat meat and animal products sustainably and conscientiously. However those options tend to be going straight to the farm or at a farmer's market where the prices can be a bit steep for a college budget.

I also know myself and I know I won't always make the 'right' choice when it comes to eggs, cheese, ect. I try to buy mainly organic produce from farmers market, and cereals and other nessicities organic, in bulk. However when it comes to putting food on the table every night I'm a very busy disorganized person and I make sacrifices more often than I'd like to admit.

Also there is social awkwardness of refusing food because i'm worried about ways the animals are treated. Every once and a while I could say no big deal but it would come up a lot in my life style. So it's easier to let everyone know I'm vegan. Futhermore when I tell people I'm vegan they ask why and it's a great way to bring up a discussion about the america's agricultural system.

So granted my reasoning isn't always airtight but the other reason for me come from health, habit preference. These are my personal reasons alone.

I think many vegans object to the practices surrounding the production of dairy and eggs. Even if dairy is produced by grass-eating cows in a picturesque setting without the use of antibiotics or milking machines, the production of milk still produces excess calves, and the males are inevitably butchered for meat.

I don't know much about the ethical production of eggs, but I do know that chickens only reliably produce eggs for the first few years of their lives. I can't imagine that chicken farmers don't slaughter chickens once they've passed their productive years. That's a waste of perfectly good money.

I don't like supporting the animal industry. It's incredibly nasty...and often found to be incredibly cruel.

Some people are assuaged by buying "homegrown" beef, pork, chickens, etc. - and I applaud their efforts in supporting those farms that care for their animals properly. But unfortunately, it's pretty expensive to raise animals for sale (as opposed to those you and your family eat) that way and show a profit. Not everyone will or can pay $24 for a whole chicken.

Here's the thing: You'll never be able to grow animals for billions of people and not have that completely fuck the environment. Just can't be done.

First, there is a big difference between being a vegan, and following a vegan diet. Veganism is a philosophy that denotes a lifestyle that includes a vegan diet and excludes the use of all animals and animal products for consumption, or any other purpose. It is not a diet. Additionally, many choose a vegan diet for a myriad of reasons; some for health reasons, some for religious reasons, etc. Vegans do so for moral reasons. We believe that all sentient beings belong to the moral community. There is no morally justifiable reason to exploit nonhuman animals. When considering diet, palate pleasure is not a morally justifiable reason to kill animals for meat. Vegetarianism is equally immoral. There is as much suffering, if not more experienced by animals exploited for milk and eggs as there is for meat. There is no such thing as “humane” exploitation. Therefore, there is no way to conscientiously consume animal products.

There are lots of ethical reasons for reducing the amount of animal products in your diet!

- Animal rights advocates believe that it's wrong to kill animals for food. They don't think humans need to eat/wear them to survive anymore. Some of them also believe that it's wrong to use animals for human pleasure in any way - for example, they may avoid consuming honey.

- Animal welfare advocates believe that it's wrong to cause unnecessary pain or stress to an animal while they are being raised for food or prepared for slaughter. About 99% of the meat produced for food in the US comes from factory farms, which sacrifice animal welfare for massive profit. Typically the vegans in this group are here because they don't trust meat producers to regulate themselves, so labels like "free range" or "pasture raised" are suspicious. They have good reason for this suspicion. Farms are largely allowed to regulate themselves, and there isn't a lot of enforcement for the regulations that do exist. Certified Humane comes the closest that I've seen, and they still allow farmers to raise chickens in cages and clip their beaks.

- Environmentalists may avoid meat products because factory farms produce vast amounts of waste. Methane (animal farts) is a greater contributor to global warming than carbon monoxide (car exhaust). These folks may see eating meat as wasting food as well - rather than eating the animal that eats the grain, why wouldn't you just eat the grain directly?

- Worker's rights advocates would protest the abhorrent conditions of factory farms for workers. Slaughtering animals is one of the more dangerous jobs out there, and pays very poorly. Not to mention the psychological impact of doing nothing but killing animals all day. There's also the bit about agribusiness owning the genetic stock of specific animals raised for food as well as buying up resources that farmers need to survive, so that it's hard (nearly impossible in many parts of the country) for independent farms to remain profitable.

If you're curious about this kind of thing, I'd suggest reading _Eating Animals_ by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I'm not a vegan or vegetarian or whatever but I'm guessing some of them are simply against killing. Unless there were some way to eat an animal without killing it (e.g., waiting until it dies of natural causes?) they might have ethical reasons against it.