I'd have to say on the subject of meat-eating, I don't think the problem is eating meat so much as it is the cruel way that meat animals are treated in factory farming- and dairy and eggs are even worse in terms of factory-farmed conditions.
My own dilemma about meat-eating is that I cannot hunt or fish (It'd just kill me to have to do it) but at the same time I have been advised by more than a few doctors that I need to regularly consume at least a little meat. Humans are omnivorous and we depend on certain things like iron that are quite difficult to obtain in useable forms if we never consume meat. Hunter-gatherer diets are the standard for what humans evolved to eat, and you had no dairy, about 20-30% protein in insects, eggs, and meat, and 70-80% vegetable matter. It is not reasonable to expect the world to live as vegans, as all the vegans I know and the doctors I have talked to about it require a great deal of money and supplements. This is not sustainable or natural. And few people can farm their own animals, even for dairy and eggs.
So what to do...
Well, eating bugs would be the obvious choice- wouldn't solve the problem of pain, but would limit inhumane conditions and unsustainability. Whether due to cultural conditioning or innate taste, I can't seem to bring myself to eat them, however.
I try to limit my meat consumption to the minimum and whenever possible buy free range products for both milk and dairy. However, I know of no system from which to buy products that were not at the slaughter-house, unless one can afford to buy all one's meat at once and deep-freeze it (then one can buy a side of beef from organic ranchers directly, which I can't afford at this time).
It is easy to say the answer is veganism (vegetarianism does not much to move away from factory-farming, since the dairy and egg industries are embroiled in slaughter and inhumane conditions as well). But the cost and unnaturalness of this says otherwise- then it becomes just one more elitist "solution" that is not grounded in reality for most of the world. Yes, we could eat far less meat than the average first-worlder does, and be better for it. But I have seen first hand that trying to cut out meat, especially if you have a naturally high metabolism and are female, results in anemia even if you try to take vitamins and boost your spinach intake.
The way I figure, as a Druid, is that everything consumes everything else on this planet. Plants and insects are no less sentient just because they are so different from us and unable to communicate their pain and suffering to most people directly. The problem is not consumption, but rather over-consumption and inhumane conditions combined with a population of humans that far exceeds natural, sustainable balance. Eventually, if humans do not evolve the consciousness to make use of our technical abilities to limit our own population and come into sustainable balance with the planet, I suspect the planet will take care of the issue and we will be forced into it. However, I'd much prefer to see us take a path of less suffering for all beings and bring ourselves into balance instead of acting like spoilt children waiting for the Earth to discipline us.
