Not for me. I've never found value in any of the vegetarian/vegan movements. It's all very nice on paper to not want to eat an animal, but it just strikes me as ridiculous. I'm quite positive I'll anger some by having this opinion, but here I go anyway. It seems to me like some people never got over the death of a pet as a child, and as a result, carry around a guilt about killing animals, then rationalize it in any way they can. I grew up on a farm. When I wasn't raising poultry of some sort (usually chickens, ducks, pheasants, but also sometimes peacocks and other animals (we didn't eat peacocks)), I was helping my Uncle with his hog farm. I loved my animals. I had a Rhode Island Red hen that'd sit on my arm while I was feeding the others. I love animals in general. That doesn't mean I'm not going to eat them. Intending to eat them doesn't mean I'm going to be cruel to them. I AM completely against the GMO chickens and all of that (being massively uneducated in that, I don't know the name). I don't like the industrialization of the farm, with overgrown chickens who can't move (animal cruelty, in my opinion) and the grinders that kill and destroy unneeded chicks. I find the use of cattle guns and leaving open holes in the side of cattle intolerably cruel. All of this is very bad. I don't care if an animal is intelligent or not, it shouldn't be the subject of cruelty. I've had to kill animals before eating them before, and I've always done it as quickly and as close to painlessly as possible. I learned to the first time I failed to kill a rooster because I was using a dull blade, and had to suffocate it to put it out of the misery I'd accidentally forced it into. Endangered animals should be protected, and I'd be all for putting restrictions on the incorporation of the farm and moving back to open range farms (all of the farms I've been on have been open range). But when it comes down to it, I'm eating that damn chicken. It's tasty. Morality is great, but to say it should prevent us from eating our prey is fallacy. Every time this discussion comes up, I'm reminded of the lion from Futurama. Sure, you can survive without eating meat, and if you want to do that more power to you, but it's a valuable food source. --- Animals are assholes. I, more than once, saw hogs trample over one another and kill the smaller ones to get to food. They weren't starving, they got fed at least twice a day, and there's constantly food in the trough. They just want it NOW because they hear it. They're not hungry. They hear food, and they want it now. Same way it works anywhere else. Prey = kill. And because of that, they end up trampling and killing the others around them. More than once I saw hogs eat the trampled. Disgusting, right? They don't care. It's food. --- I'm not saying any of this is "right" or even that there is a "right." This is just how I see it. For me, it's more cultural than ethical or moral. Some regions of the world eat cats and serve fish while they're still alive. To me, that'd disgusting. I'm sure some people have the same reaction when I chow down on fried chicken or catfish. I've read Omnivore's Dilemma, and then about six months later had the misfortune of being shoved into a University class revolving around the book. I yawned all the way through it. As for tasty aliens, I think it's laughable to even raise the point. I just don't care. It's a God Argument with no basis in present reality, it only exists to make the reader feel guilty.