It is as cruel to each one of us to eat a chicken as it is to slice a cucumber and sprinkle salt on its fresh wounds. But then no one is against eating a cucumbers. If you are against eating eggs, how can you eat those thousands of innocent little seeds (pulses, beans, grams)? Plants are living beings (ref JC Bose's theory) after all, and today's environmentally enlightened generation knows plants are our Best Friends.
Does that mean, we shouldn't eat them? Food is extracted from animals in ways which seem cruel to vegetarians. Plants aren't treated kindly either.
These vegetarians don't see anything cruel in slicing a cucumber/ vegetable or a fruit to death, just because they don't cry out loud or express their pains in ways comprehensible to these "friends of animals", or may be because the juices that ooze out are not red like human blood. There are religious superstitions that tell us not to eat non-veg food since it is prepared by killing God's children. Are plants his step children? Animal food is grown on a commercial scale just like plant food. It is not in the least cruel to eat what you yourself produce for eating. we are not killing wild animals or disturbing the ecological balance. So, both "the Saint and the Sinner eat their friends" to survive.
