Is this like a mosh thread?

Kin ave it!

To the non-veggies, the best thing to do is to eat less meat

So it would be better to substitute a bacon sandwich using bacon from a high welfare, certified, local farm with some battery eggs? No thanks. I’ll stick to making informed decisions rather and blanket rule that really doesn’t fit all situations.

If you are giving up meat for moral reasons you should also not milk / cheese / dairy products as you can’t separate the two. Eggs are different but dairy production is linked to meat production.

Yep. Eggs are easy to separate.

🙂

If you drink milk, you should also eat British rose veal. Not least because it’s yummy!

I’m currently eating a bambi pie. Local deer, and very tasty it is too!

*drools*

So it would be better to substitute a bacon sandwich using bacon from a high welfare, certified, local farm with some battery eggs?

No, I didn’t say that. I said “eat less meat”.

If you are giving up meat for moral reasons you should also not milk / cheese / dairy products as you can’t separate the two. Eggs are different but dairy production is linked to meat production.

Or, not.

The issue isn’t so simple, as nickjb noted. Not eating meat causes less animals to be farmed than eating meat. Not eating dairy products would also, but the issue is quite complicated by the problem we have with extreme levels of meat production and customer expectations of low prices for it. Reducing the quantity of meat consumed overall would lead to less intensive farming methods being practiced, well it could do.

And, as I noted earlier, Dairy cattle have a fairly reasonable existence on the whole in the EU. Certainly in comparison to other farmed animals.

Also – you can milk a cow twice*** but you can’t fry a steakboef twice [by which I mean less animals have to die for milk production]

Being Vegan is a step to far for me personally. My ethics are less black and white.

It would be better for everyone if we ate less meat. You and the piggies.

Also, the amount of water required to “grow” meat is spectacular*, certainly in comparison** to to other foodstuffs. Owing to increasing water scarcity it will become far more expensive soon enough.

At the minute developing counties are beginning to aspire to the “Western” diet – meat consumption will be under pressure to increase many hundreds of percent.

*I think it might be several thousand times, in fact I remember it being 10,000 times but as I’m too lazy to find the source you’ll have to find the figure yourself if you care. This may be of more importance in the US than here.
**eqv calories/nutritional value
***or perhaps even more if you do it nicely

If you drink milk, you should also eat British rose veal

Is that Male calf meat?

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I don’t like the taste of cow though.

I’m currently eating a bambi pie. Local deer, and very tasty it is too!

Free range/wild deer that are selectively culled with a rifle to the brainboxboom have a pretty good life too.

Is that Male calf meat?

Yep. Not horrid forced veal like many places in Europe, but properly raised, high quality meat from animals that otherwise would be wasted. Buy from a good butcher, or Waitrose (Good standards for veal) Try it in a really simple schnitzel, coated in seasoned flour, dipped in a beaten egg and then covered in breadcrumbs (with crushed almonds in), fried in shallow, hot oil until golden brown. Serve with anything, really!

There’s nothing wrong with meat if you eat proper meat.

Another thing to consider is transport. Eating beasts are transported to centralised warehouses under horrible conditions and slaughtered on a massive scale.

The transport is required because of factory farming, which is due to quantity of production/customer expectations of price.

Locally raised/slaughtered animals have far less trauma – but because we all eat so much meat that isn’t economically viable in the majority.

Then there’s the issue of the killing.

Local slaughterman – individually killed animals, probably time to use the correct restraint and aim the bolt gun right.

Factory slaugherhouse – horrible crowding, terrified animals all held together [probably shitting on each other] and a lower rate of correct stunning/restraint.

Another issue – feeding/hormones/milk for fast growing meat.
Have you seen a fasttracked chicken? The ones used in KFC or supermarket “value” meat? They’re deformed, and in pain from it. They’ve been bred to grow so fat and so fast.

Now. Please excuse the quantity of typing; I’m really not having a go.

Do as you please.

I suggest you eat less meat. Perhaps none.

That’s all.

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

As always with these threads the ratio of defensive meat-eaters to veggies is about 10:1.

Here’s an idea, what other people eat is not that big of a deal.

If you drink milk, you should also eat British rose veal. Not least because it’s yummy!

Indeed it is.

Most male dairy calves are slaughtered at birth. Very few are required to be grown on to produce diary bulls. Genetics mean it is now getting straightforward to produce only female calves, which I think is cheating and I like a bit of veal now and then.

There are breeds which will produce beef and milk but not on the industrial scale required today. Cattle are bred for either beef or milk.

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

I’m not sure why some people are happy to have veg, fruit, cereals, meat farmed but not fish. Or think that farmed = unsustainable. You might be surprised how little fishmeal / oil goes into some farmed fish and just like any other foodstuff production standards and food quality vary.

I don’t think farmed is unsustainable.

I think many fish farms are cruelly overstocked and fish are not healthy.

What I was trying to get across above is that it’s the farming I really don’t like.

It would be interesting to know where you get your information from gofasterstripes. This is no longer the 1980s.

I feel hungry for chicken after reading this thread.

It would be interesting to know where you get your information from gofasterstripes. This is no longer the 1980s.

Which bit?

where the use of growth hormones is rife (banned in the EU)

Well it is until TTIP comes in, then we’ll end up with the same sort of rubbish going on.

The transport is required because of factory farming

Partially correct, it’s more factory slaughter dictated by Tesco, JS et al. All the meat for one of the chains goes to one or two slaughter houses miles from the catchment area the animals were raised in. Good stock farmers would prefer to locally slaughter but the big chains and UK implementation of hygiene rules for slaughterhouses means most of these were shut in the 90’s. It’s all a race to the bottom so that people can eat value mince 3 or 4 times a week.

FWIW I’m with the eat less but of better quality camp when it comes to meat.

Which bit?

You mentioned overstocking and lack of health. With things like the RSPCA saying 70% of UK salmon farming complies with their Freedom Food standard your suggestions seem a little out of date.

Thanks for the heads-up.

70% is not 100%, and that’s UK and Salmon specifically.

But I will have a look again.

I have been meaning to write an article on eating meat for the website MissStripes made, so I need to be up-to-date with my sources.

Also, I must be wrong about something 🙂 No one can be right all the time and I just wrote lots of IMHO stuff above and didn’t bother to cite, so I must have made a mistake or two somewhere!

Cheers.

You could look at this line of thought and see where it takes you: unhealthy or overstocked fish do not grow and small or unhealthy fish do not get good prices. Good welfare makes good economics.

I see where you’re coming from but I also see: fishcakes and crab sticks; not to mention other animals which are overstocked and yet grow huge [chickens] and then are minced up so no-one knows the difference in the quality.

The exception for fish is that they are often sold from fishmongers/counters where you can see them. Not always though.

And I also have first hand experience of removing a large an unpleasant parasitic worm from the flesh of a piece of Salmon.

Lastly, I have kept fish for years* and worked in a pet shop for a few – animals grow just as big when confined or overcrowded. They’re just miserable and sick.

Anyway.

I’ve said enough, I’ll let someone else talk.

*happy fish – small tropicals in hugely oversized tanks. ie 150L and the biggest is about 5-6cm long.

I enjoy periods of veggie food but not enough to convert totally – as the wonderful fillet stake at Boisdales this lunchtime testifies. Nice and rare too…..mmmm almost mooing on the plate!

But if I am ever eating too much just drive past the local abbatoir and the smell has me reaching for the tofu immediately!!! 😉

Jesus I’m not reading all that.

Vegetable rights and Peace!

No answer on the leather chaps question then? I think we can all draw our own conclusions from that I

Shorter version (simply add ‘and gay’ to the end, which effectively condenses this whole thread to an easily-digested 20 secs. Far less painful!)

[video]http://youtu.be/MFU_mC12mnY[/video]

I read somewhere that veggies kill more animals because of all the animals killed by combine harvesters. Funny as hell if true.

EDIT: Hah found it….buowhahahahah

Has to be asked, did you believe the IFL article/research that you linked is sound because you wish to see vegetarians ‘bested’, or because the science is solid?

Here is one rebuttal to the claims in the article that you linked (read top few comments). If true, it’s quite sad that IFL took down the comments after just one day.

Curious things, humans. Many arguments/’debates’ are fuelled by simply wanting to be right/wanting others to be wrong, rather than wishing to get at the actual facts/further debates of an issue? I might be treading that very line here, but it’s good to have opposing views for comparison?

Why do people get bent out of shape about slaughtering a new born/young cow, but not a full grown cow? it’s all the same isn’t it?

Things have to die for us to live, that’s life. just be glad you’re top of the food chain and stop moaning. 😉

(To be fair, I think if you want to be veggie, good on you if it makes you feel better.)

Ref: decisions about the graduated scale of welfare/cruelty. Colin the chicken looked like a happy little guy 😀
[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V8SjkDq2ZwI[/video]

If you want to give up meat – great, go for it. I had similar thoughts to you when I was early teenager and have not felt the desire to eat meat in any form since – bacon or not.
I’ve often thought that the transport and slaughter process is the worst part of meat production (from a welfare point of view, not an environmental one where water useage / methane production etc are wider issues). I’ve worked on farms in the past (as I grew up wanting to be a vet) and found most farmers to be caring and compassionate towards there livestock – a nervous cow does not give up milk / put on weight easily! However I have to imagine that anyone who works all day slaughtering animals is probably not the same mindset.
I have actually considered at length doing something about this and becoming a vegetarian slaughterman. To my shame though I know I wouldn’t last a day.

Has to be asked, did you believe the IFL article/research that you linked is sound because you wish to see vegetarians ‘bested’, or because the science is solid?

There’s something very peculiar about the veggie/meat-eating debate that unfailingly brings out a horde a meat-eaters to defend their eating habits and belittle the veggies with the age-old taunts about bacon and vegetable rights. I’ve never understood it. I can see that there would be a response if the veggies were getting on their high-horse but I’ve not come across many that do, it’s usually exactly the opposite. Strange.

I have actually considered at length doing something about this and becoming a vegetarian slaughterman.

Many years ago, a friend of mine did exactly this. Didn’t seem to conflict him at all, strangely…

Personally, one of my better decisions was to give up being a vegetarian, based on my experience since that date.

To balance things out, I’m giving up vegetables. I’ve just started my new regime with an enormous sausage, bacon and egg barm 😀

Strange.
To me it’s the veggies, actually more specifically the vegans that make it known and get on their high horse. There aren’t any vids on youtube bragging about meat eating, but boy, there are a shed load of vids by vegans about how good they are and how better they are and how much fitter they are. And annoyingly some keep popping up in my youtube feed, and one is very very inaccurate facts and figures.

Apparently, cows are meat eaters. So all that green stuff that grows in fields must be “meat”. You’d think a vegan would know what green stuff growing in a field is ffs. (edit: yes, that’s the BS from one prominent vegan australian that competes in bike races)

“Binners Gets His Baps Out”, candid pictures on page 4!

The bap part is of course “garnish”, and not supposed to be eaten 😉

but boy, there are a shed load of vids by vegans about how good they are and how better they are and how much fitter they are. And annoyingly some keep popping up in my youtube feed

And there’s the problem. I’m not sure youtube is a reliable indicator of the rights and wrongs of a particular debate. I know loads of vegans, I used to be one myself for a long time, and most of them couldn’t care less what other people eat/do. Sure if prodded they’ll engage you on the subject, and unsurprisingly they can talk at length about it, but my experience on the whole is that they find the subject very boring.

I know several too.
No prodding needed.
As the saying goes… “how can you tell someone’s a vegan?” They’ll tell you.
If the topic of food preference comes up, it will not be due to me saying “oh I love a good steak”.

I have actually considered at length doing something about this and becoming a vegetarian slaughterman.

Many years ago, a friend of mine did exactly this. Didn’t seem to conflict him at all, strangely…

buy that man a beer from me.