Like most human beings with a conscience, I hate the fact that animals are being tortured in order to feed us. Even though killing animals is part of the food chain (and as many people know, a nasty side effect of harvesting crops), we can still be a lot more humane to our fellow sentients.

However, I would sooner advocate for stronger animal-cruelty laws and better farming standards than I would try to change the system by “voting with my wallet.” Not eating meat altogether won’t change the system.

I tend to buy my meat at a farmer’s market, and I bumume the local farmers adhere to ethical slaughtering practices. But I can’t always know for sure, like when I go to a restaurant. So I’m glad there are hardcore advocates out there helping to shape policy, it’s just not my number one priority.

Overall, I think vegetarians attach too much importance to the ethics of eating meat. If anything, you should feel a twinge of guilt during the act of buying meat, because that’s the point where you’re “supporting” factory farming. The actual consumption of meat — chewing, swallowing, digesting, excreting, smearing the resulting excretions over a loved one’s chest — is not really a moral issue.

Now, some people become veggies because they’re nauseated over the prospect of actually eating something that was once alive. But let’s face it, a lot of those people are 12-year-old girls who are well on the road to anorexia anyway. Avoiding meat is just another way to deny themselves the scourge of food.