"You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island, I would need that to survive"
About this Quote
The intent is pragmatic: to normalize meat-eating by anchoring it to the most stripped-down scenario imaginable, the deserted island. That thought experiment is doing heavy lifting. It shifts the debate from systems (factory farming, environmental costs, ethics) to an individual’s emergency narrative, where choices collapse into necessity. In that frame, conscience becomes secondary to metabolism. The subtext is a challenge to hypocrisy: if you accept that life feeds on life in extremis, how confident are you condemning it in comfort?
There’s also a subtle performance of honesty. “People have been doing it forever” isn’t evidence so much as a cultural alibi, an appeal to continuity that casts modern discomfort as a kind of historical amnesia. He pairs “meat” and “fish” like a casual inventory, flattening distinctions in order to keep the moral ledger simple.
Context matters: celebrities get asked to be ethical mascots. Del Toro refuses the role. He opts for a rough, embodied realism that sounds like character work but functions as cultural commentary: the violence in the food chain is real whether you witness it or not.
Quote Details
| Topic | Food |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Toro, Benicio Del. (2026, February 16). You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island, I would need that to survive. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-kill-to-survive-people-have-been-140318/
Chicago Style
Toro, Benicio Del. "You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island, I would need that to survive." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-kill-to-survive-people-have-been-140318/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island, I would need that to survive." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-have-to-kill-to-survive-people-have-been-140318/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.








