But they have feelings too.

A sympathetic meat-eater wrote this when someone jabbed at the "animals are sentient" line, a popular line amongst non-meat eaters.

it would be nice if more meat-eaters stopped to think about the sentience of the animals they eat.  Yeah, they're not as smart as humans.  Their level of awareness probably doesn't come close to ours. 

Animals are smart for being animals. Animals are nowhere near as smart as humans; in fact they aren't the same besides both being mammals.

But their bodies still feel pain.  Their brains still produce the hormones that cause them to feel fear.  However they experience pain and fear, it's real to them.  And as dumb as they may be compared to humans, they're unfortunately smart enough to know that they're about to be slaughtered.  Their behavior changes completely, and it resembles what humans do when we perceive we are in a hopeless situation and resign ourselves to it.  They feel fear, they know what's coming, they fight for a little bit, and then they give up.  

This sounds familiar. Wait, it does. Like when a LGBT same-sex mirage supporter or sympathizer saying that same-sex attraction to those who have it is "very real to them." 

Westerners have the luxury of not having to mentally confront death every time we eat meat - out of sight, out of mind.  Just like the homeless person begging at our car window.  If we drive down another street, we won't have to feel all this guilt for not feeling any compassion for the less fortunate.  I don't mean to equate the lot of animals to the lot of the homeless, but in some ways, it is similar.  

It's not similar. What I'm getting is if I hunted my own food and "confronted death" every time I ate (like the caveman saying, "I'm sorry, boar, but I have to this." Gets out knife. "Arrrgghh!" Said no caveman) I'd be pondering about its sentience. Hmmm. I have family members who kill pigs for food. They don't give a shit about the animals' sentient nature; sure they do it quickly as possible but they aren't feeling damn sorry about it.

And for me, there's only guilt when I've done something wrong. When a homeless man approaches my car there isn't any guilt. There's hope he'll find some place to stay, but guilt? Nope.

It's kind of appalling to hear meat-eaters revel in their lack of compassion for the animals they're eating.  I'm not saying give up eating meat.  But it is sad somewhat that Americans have forgotten how to have a solemn gratitude for the animal that died for us so that we wouldn't have to.

What's appalling is thinking humans should poke at their chicken dinner and think oh you poor chicken.The poster is alking about animals like they're soldiers who died overseas for their respective country.