Alsatian

The areas of the world that have the biggest problems with food -- that is the most mouths to feed -- typically get the job done by feeding a diet dominated by vegetable products. If you have the choice of feeding vegetable food directly to people or indirectly by feeding an animal and then eating the animal, the direct feeding route is much more efficient. Of course, some animals can be fed on vegetable sources which are undigestible to human beings -- like what deer eat. Anyway, the "how will we feed ourselves if we don't eat meat!" argument isn't too strong.

Notwithstanding, I am not a PETA supporter, and their position seems simply ridiculous. Basically these people do not argue their points on any logical principles; they try to appeal to emotional sympathy with animals and then link that to how these animals are mistreated by humans. The basic logical point is "what is the status of animals versus human beings?" The Bible says something to the effect that man is to have dominion of all of nature. I take this to mean that nature is a means to human life and comfort. It is in our interest to manage our natural resources wisely and as conservators of a beautiful, rich world, but all of these things are ours to use. If you don't accept the Bible as the source of rational principle -- and I'm not tieing myself to it -- you can argue the same point independently. The value of human life is higher than animal life, thus animal life serves human life and comfort. How do I assert this value -- it is asserted by all of us, there is concensus. Except for a few PETA lunatics, if a human being and a dog both jump out from opposite sides of the road and you can miss one or the other of these obstacles but not both, we all choose to miss the human being and hit the dog with our car. Human beings have higher value. Once you pass this point, pretty much the rest follows. Human beings are more important than animals.