As a vegan, I find posts like these both hopeful and frustrating. I don't intend to debate the issue, since I've found if often gets nowhere, and don't want to be attacked on a message board I find welcoming. I do, however, have a question to those that do eat meat (which seems to be most if not all here).
When you eat meat, do you think about the animal that you are eating? That is, do you connect the hamburger or chicken (etc.) with a living breathing being? I don't mean to sound at all accusatory, so I apologize if my post rubs people the wrong way, but this came up at a vegetarian/vegan message board, where we don't hear the views of many omnis, and I'm really interested to hear what others think.
Personally, when I did eat animal products, I almost never thought about the food I was eating as having once been an animal. The longer I go without animal products, the more I empathize with other animals. Flesh is flesh in my mind, no matter whether it comes from a cow or chicken or whatever, and the thought of eating another animal feels almost like cannibalism to me.
(sorry bout the long post)