right…’Cos the only choices are of course: All the lovely things in the supermarket…or nothing at all.

That’s pretty poor straw man. How tedious.

I was just saying that shopping ethically isn’t as simple as some people seem to think it is, and requires a bit (or even a lot) more thought than just going with one’s gut emotional reactions.

I think if you are going to make a reasonably significant lifestyle change it’s probably a good idea to critically analyse why you are doing it and what the evidence is that has led you there, and whether there are alternative ways of looking at it. It’s not safe to assume that not eating meat will be any more ethical than eating meat if it then means you eat more of other problematic foods.

Don’t even try. The Knights Who Say ‘Ner ner ner ner’ will torture your ears forever.

i’m a meat eater, but i also read the guardian, and listen to radi04, so am vaguely aware of animal warefare.

rather than cutting out meat, i try (i really do) to buy stuff that claims to have it’s origins in high welfare farming.

i figure that i’ll have more impact spending my money encouraging an improvement, than just backing out of the market completely.

the benefit of this is that i still get to eat meat, lots of lovely meat.

I was just saying that shopping ethically isn’t as simple as some people seem to think it is

Yeah, course that’s what you meant 🙄

People are allowed to make decisions along a graduated spectrum of harms. It doesn’t have to be a process that starts and ends with “all my eating HAS to be as ethical as it can be from now on”. One can, for instance take a view that animals have a right to life…ergo, not eating them is a step in the right direction.

Mleh, old ground.

You’ll wear the 🙄 smiley out nick!

OP good for you, two of my 3 kids gave up meat for the same reason. They are somewhat appalled by their father’s love of fois gras but there you go.

Grum, is it really correct that dairy animals are treated worse? I have worked on a dairy farm and having seen quite a few facilities in Ireland I am not sure I agree.

probably more appropriate 😆

Yeah, course that’s what you meant

Actually, I think that was what Grum sincerely meant. I don’t think he was being critical.

Yeah, course that’s what you meant

That’s exactly what I meant. Stop reading things into what I said based on your prejudices.

People are allowed to make decisions along a graduated spectrum of harms. It doesn’t have to be a process that starts and ends with “all my eating HAS to be as ethical as it can be from now on”.

People are allowed to do what they want, for whatever reasons they want – and I’m allowed to say what I think about them. 🙄

One can, for instance take a view that animals have a right to life…ergo, not eating them is a step in the right direction.

Of course they can – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can assume they have taken a morally superior position which no-one is allowed to question without them getting all shirty about it.

Grum, is it really correct that dairy animals are treated worse? I have worked on a dairy farm and having seen quite a few facilities in Ireland I am not sure I agree.

I’ve heard the argument made – not sure what the evidence is, I’ll try and find some. Dairy cows and meat cows all end up slaughtered/as meat anyway I think so I think the point is that the meat cows get to graze in fields while the dairy cows are worked extremely hard/kept indoors and get lots of sores/diseases etc.

im a vegetarian and have been for almost 10 years. i love animals and hate the way many are treated. believe everyone has the freedom to make a choice.

for me, its all a further extension of my cycling, enjoyment of nature and being respectful to everything we share the planet with. yup, that sounds hippy and it is.

i read a book years ago about father yod and the source family (hippy jesus cult and great psych band) that ran a veggie restaurant in san franciso in the early 70s. one quote ‘nothing needs to die for me to live’ and i instantly thought – well thats that then.

for me, the way animals are treated with intensive farming etc is very removed from many folks understanding, the fact it ends up tasting good is a poor excuse. ill leave it there…

good on the op.

Not eaten meat or fish all your until yesterday when I succumbed to a sausage roll… and felt as sick as a pike.

Back on the waggon now.

*edit

You will also get patronised and questioned with ‘gotchas’ before being roundly accused of being holier than them, not to mention preachy. Your irony intake will improve, at least. Mrs MR is a vegan, I know how hard it can be, even when operating undercover – it’s like a thought crime in Middle England. You’ll be confronted by many reactions – from outright confusion, through light scoffing and eyeball-swivelling bawl-outs.

Don’t even bother getting yr facts right, don’t get pulled into it. Just eat with a sheet over yr head, and never, ever eat out.

dairy these days is possibly one of the most humane parts of animal farming.
clever cows that dine all day (which they would have done anyway), and “know” when they need milking, so wander off on their own accord to be milked (and if they don’t, they die).

and chickens aren’t going to just stop laying an egg once a day.

the most inhumane part of farming of livestock is the prices farmers get for production.

now fruit production… stealing all their offspring for food so they can’t reproduce naturally with genetic diversity, then chop limbs off and graft to other bits of tree so they can mass produce more of the same flavour fruit!

dairy these days is possibly one of the most humane parts of animal farming.

I have to ask, what happens to the calves? Serious question, I know a cheese lover who misses cheese for this perception.

Hard to find unbiased soured of evidence but:

http://www.ciwf.org.uk/farm-animals/cows/dairy-cows/welfare-issues/
http://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/farm/dairy/keyissues

See also:

The most common justification I hear for vegetarianism is “It’s wrong to kill an animal for food.” Of course there are other motivations, such as health, religion, environmentalism, preventing suffering, and trying to score with liberal chicks — but the moral wrongness of killing an animal for food is the probably the most common, at least in my experience.

Consequently, I’ve found it surprising that people so rarely acknowledge that vegetarians do kill millions of animals for food. If you buy eggs or milk or cheese, it’s true in theory that the dairy cows and laying hens don’t have to be killed in order to supply you with those products, but in practice, they are. A modern factory farm isn’t just going to let their animals die of old age; they kill them at whatever point the farm considers to be the most profit-maximizing. For dairy cows, that’s usually at age 3-5, out of a natural 20-25 year lifespan. For egg-laying hens, it’s usually after one or two laying cycles. And since the males of the laying species are useless to the egg farmer, they’re killed right after they hatch.

But surely eating a vegetarian diet must kill far fewer animals than an omnivore diet, right? Well… sort of. I’m sure that a typical vegetarian kills fewer animals than a typical omnivore. But it’s certainly possible to be a vegetarian and kill more animals than an omnivore, and in fact, I’m confident that many vegetarians fall into that category.

The culprit is eggs. While you only need to kill one single steer to get about 450 pounds (405,000 calories) worth of meat, you’d need to kill about 20 chickens to get enough eggs to match that number of calories. So if you’re a vegetarian who eats a lot of omelets, you’re likely responsible for more animal deaths than someone who chows down on burgers and steaks but doesn’t like eggs.

http://measureofdoubt.com/2011/06/22/why-a-vegetarian-might-kill-more-animals-than-an-omnivore/

The egss issue is a real one.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/hatched-discarded-gassed-what-happens-to-male-chicks-in-the-uk-10088509.html

Dairy animals have a pretty good life.

TBF I think a fair few of the concerns over dairy animals are more focussed on the US/Canada and Australia where the use of growth hormones is rife (banned in the EU). I still don’t think you can make unqualified statements like ‘dairy animals have a pretty good life’ though.

MissStripes’ father – R+D/senior in Agrifirm NL, specialisations in development of Dairy feedstuffs and health.

It’s a pretty good source.

I’m pescetarian, tending to veggie, myself.

Does this mean that a cheese Toastie is more of a threat to animal welfare than a kebab?

I’m really confused now

And where does this leave the sausage and egg Mcmuffin?

Would it be ok without the egg? Christ! It’s a minefield!

Weird.

And where does this leave the sausage and egg Mcmuffin?

It’s McDonalds – everyone know its not real meat so you’ll be fine.

mmmmm bacon
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTq6aME3Tf8[/video]

My dad owned a butcher shop when I was young. One of my earliest memories is the sight (but mostly the sound) of a boning knife scrapping against a pigs eye socket. I worked in a slaughterhouse as a summer job a few times. My father in law farms sheep and cattle. I’ve seen and done it all and am happy to say nothing would stop me eating meat, but each to their own.

I have a feeling I know the answer to this but anyway, can someone more knowledgeable than me confirm what happens to the male dairy calves? My understanding is they are a different breed to meat cows so are not raised but are slaughtered at a very early age, is that correct?

Veal.

incorrect (well kind of).

some dairy calves go to become beef (eventually). some go to become dairy (eventually).

a small number go to become veal (but not quite to the extent that they used to for the French dinner plate, who like 6 day old veal that has only been fed on its mother’s milk)

I’ve done work on water quality in sewage treatment plants. I can safely say nothing would stop me taking a shit but each to their own.

You could slice a good few burgers from a cow before it missed them.

🙂

Fantastic…!

some go to become dairy

Not sure I’m ready to drink milk from male dairy calves but each to their own

pretty sure the dairy livestock needs an eventual daddy cow 😉

MissStripes’ father – R+D/senior in Agrifirm NL, specialisations in development of Dairy feedstuffs and health.

It’s a pretty good source.

Umm.. has it occurred to you that there may be an element of bias involved there?

Why is it that veggies need to bang on about not eating meat.

Oi Morrissey shut up and stuff a carrot in it!

Oi Morrissey shut up and stuff a carrot in it!

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZXtx2oRMuU[/video]

Why the distinction with fish?

Distinction? I just eat more fish than any other meat. Haven’t cut anything out.

Never mind that! Would a vegetarian wear a pair of leather chaps?! Or a bikers cap with chains? I think they should answer that! Would you? Eh veggies?

Yes, and no.

I know him well enough, and I’ve talked to him plenty about it (what with him eating all meat and us not).

Maybe I didn’t make it very clear, he worked developing feedstuffs to increase the welfare of the cattle.

Before that he worked on farms, his family has for a long time. They still live in a farmhouse, surrounded by farms.

They live surrounded by dairy cows and he still works on the farm down the road sometimes.

He is very passionate about animal welfare.

I should have qualified it somewhat, yes, they lead a very good life for a farmed animal.

The reason I east some fish (sustainable fish, as advised by msc/fishonline) is because they’re not farmed.

To the non-veggies, the best thing to do is to eat less meat. You don’t need to eat meat every day, let alone more than once a day.

Channeling Douglas Adams here…..

The fact that pig fat is the tastiest thing in the entire world is clearly an evolutionary strategy by said pigs, they deliberately taste nice so we will eat them.

I argue that there are at this point in time more pigs in the world than there would be if we did not eat them.

Look at Tigers, no one wants to eat them and they will be gone in fifty years.

By eating pigs we are contributing to the continued survival of the pig species, though it may be a bit rough on the individual pig.

Ergo; vegetarianism is a crime against piggery.

right…’Cos the only choices are of course: All the lovely things in the supermarket…or nothing at all.

I was questioning your philosophy, not your eating habits.