I once stayed off red meat for 1 year and my health improved tremendously, and then returned to it and my health deteriorated in record time. I'm now back off red meat and feeling better than ever. Maybe at one time red meat was good for you, but the way they raise cattle for profits it would not surprise me they are butchering sick animals as well.

Well I don't eat meat at all, and part of the reason is the video on YouTube of the little girl who snuck her pet cow onto her indoor porch and is holding it in her lap and scratching it while it sighs contentedly.

I think people forget that nature is quite brutal. If humans stopped eating meat, millions of animals would still be killed by predators, illness, parasites, old age, accidents, etc.

If cows became intelligent enough to participate in society but we had lab grown beef, I'd eat it.

I wouldn't eat a dog, a monkey, an octopus, a dolphin, a whale, a cat, a parrot, a crow, or a donkey. Pretty much everything else is on the table unless I'm missing something.

I don't think it's entirely to do with intelligence. Pigs for example are apparently of similar intelligence to dogs, but I love eating pork. Obviously the dog has the advantage of a unique domestication where they can read and react to our emotions better than virtually all other animals.

So it's an interesting question you ask. Because while intelligence isn't the primary reason it has to certainly be a motivator because all of those I listed are intelligent animals.

To actually answer your question, they would have to be pretty damn smart for me to stop eating them because they are delicious.

They would have to be able to hold a conversation. Octopi are much, much smarter than cows, I will still happily eat them... though I feel a little guilty about that. Cows, though? No guilt.

That said, there is much tastier red meat to be had, if only we diversified our livestock. Kangaroo and Ostrich, in particular. And both of those animals are cold-blooded killers who deserve to be eaten.

Cows could launch a spaceship past Warp 1 and I would still want a cheeseburger. I could make do with a well marinated portabello burger at the same price.

They'd have to be on one level with pigs, basically.

Smarter than me