LilyFestre - how d'you manage to eat those animals after all of that? Not saying you oughtn't to... it's probably much better that you do... but how can you?! It'd be like... eating my dog!

"I would imagine an antelope brought down by a pack of lions 'suffers' as much as a cow at a slaughter house, and probably lives with fear most of the days of its life. I can't make that situation any better."

First: probably not; the antelope definitely wouldn't suffer more than animals at slaughter houses here in India - things are AWFUL here. People actually slit a goat or lamb across its back, and let it run around bleeding, and then slit it again so that it collapses, and then hang it up alive, to let it bleed (and bleat) to death!! That's just too cruel! A couple of friends and I recently screened a video on cow slaughter in school - and now half the school wants to be vegetarian (how many will actually be, I don't know, though :-)

Also - I don't that talking of all the suffering that we can't help justifies causing more suffering! It's obvious to anyone that you can't eliminate suffering from the world... but I wouldn't want to cause more than I can help!

Oh, and btw - I don't kill cockroaches or rats or even mosquitos (no one at home does). And I haven't died of malaria or dengue yet :-)