[Closed] I think I'm gonna give up eating meat.

The laws of supply and demand suggest that fewer meat eaters means it will be cheaper for the rest of us. Big thumbs up to you.

But... but... Bacon.

If it helps, more animals are killed every year in the production of food crops than are killed to eat...

Scotroutes enjoy. ****

Bacon

meat is just recycled vegetation.

😉

If god didn't mean us to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of food. And they'll only eat each other if we don't do it. They're ...well.... animals

Have a pepperami

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😀

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he wont allow it.....

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[url= http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/i-am-the-greatest-thing-of-all-time-says-bacon-2013030761993 ]The uncomfortable truth[/url]

The laws of supply and demand suggest that fewer meat eaters means it will be cheaper for the rest of us.

Economies of scale suggest it may be more expensive but not factory farmed so he may win if he can persuade enough sheep to follow him 🙁

Even though i'm a meat eater, good on you. I don't eat bacon anymore, can't say i miss it or the following indigestion.

Bacon overrides all arguments no matter how you feel about animal welfare and such.

Besides, QI said once that pigs having no value at all alive but great value dead.

That said, my meat consumption isn't huge as I've gone fairly "Italian" (read - pasta & tomato dishes mostly) and only a little meat in them and often none or seafood instead. Not through what I feel about meat though. Still partial to a bit of bacon from time to time.

More power to you OP. I've thought about it, and barely eat red meat or chicken any more. Fish almost every day though.

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

http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659

I think, bacon aside, if I was allowed fish, I might just - just - be able to survive without meat.

Rockplough - Member

More power to you OP. I've thought about it, and barely eat red meat or chicken any more. Fish almost every day though.

Why the distinction with fish?

OP, don't beat yourself up about it. Take an ethical stand by all means, but it needn't be so black and white. I'm a garden-variety veggie (will eat eggs drink milk) and have leather goods. Any action that you want to take is a step forward.

You won't miss meat anyway. It's not all that 😀

Why the distinction with fish?

Because they're not cute. You're not allowed to eat cute furry things, but ugly things are fair game 😀

If you love animals so much why do you eat their food?

barely eat red meat or chicken any more. Fish almost every day though.

I mainly agree with you but eating and cooking nice meat is one my greatest pleasures in life and I'm too selfish. I am trying to move away from eating any factory farmed meat though - easy when you're cooking for yourself but not so easy when eating out/buying sandwiches etc. I know I could buy vege sandwiches/meals out but I don't, generally.

OP you are gonna have to give up on dairy too though I'm afraid - arguably the animals are worse-treated than those reared for meat. Oh and most soy is probably ethically dodgy too, as is quinoa. It's not as simple as you might think unless you grow/rear most of your own food.

mrkstvnz - Member
I feel to much empathy for the animals.

I don't eat bacon anymore, can't say i miss it or the following indigestion.

It's a shame not to consume pig in all its forms, they put in such a lot of effort for us.

We too though have reduced our meat consumption and are also eating more white than red these days. I buy from a quality butcher who sources his meat from "non-intensive" sources. Yes it's pricier than supermarket stuff - but not by a huge amount and tastes far better.

I do have a cheeky Gregg's bacon butty now and then though (naughty I know, but I would pay extra for "non-intensive" if the choice was there).

I do though share your misgivings about industrialised slaughter. Even if you are going to eat animals, there is no need to mistreat them whilst they are alive. There were moves years ago to make available on-farm mobile slaughter houses which would enormously reduce the stress on animals as well as reducing the cost of transporting livestock. It seemed to come to nothing.

[i]OP you are gonna have to give up on dairy too though I'm afraid - arguably the animals are worse-treated than those reared for meat. Oh and most soy is probably ethically dodgy too, as is quinoa. It's not as simple as you might think unless you grow/rear most of your own food.[/i]

I find the "you have to give-up everything" argument to be one of the most tedious.

btw if all we ever ate was free range happy animals, we'd have ate all the animals to extinction by now! 😆

Empathy for the animals that are getting kicked, punched and stabbed with knives before it reaches your plate.

Slowoldman thanks.

I was going to reply to say expect lots of childish replies with pictures of bacon and stupid comments like 'what about vegetable rights' but I see the STW massive has got there first.

Of course I'm assuming this isn't a troll, which it probably is (been a while since the last [url= http://vegansaurus.com/post/254784826/defensive-omnivore-bingo ]insecure meat-eaters bingo[/url] thread), but if not welcome to the fold. Expect to be asked 'what do you eat' quite a lot, and be ready with a suitably sarcastic answer 🙂

I find the "you have to give-up everything" argument to be one of the most tedious.

Oh I'm sorry for applying logic to people's emotional reactions.

If someone is saying they are giving up meat because of a concern for the animals' welfare is it not reasonable to ask them if they have considered giving up something which is arguably worse in terms of animal welfare?

I reckon not eating dairy but eating a bit of well-looked after/slaughtered meat (not that this is what I do) is probably way more ethical than eating dairy regularly but not any meat.

Eating fish means lots of deaths, one fish for the meal plus the throw backs plus the devastation to the other sea life

plus if it is farmed fish it takes ~three tonnes of wild fish turned into fish food to produce one tonne of farmed fish.

Veggies should think of the billions of insects killed to protect their vegetable crops.

#savetheuncharismaticmegafauna

Grum,

because most folk don't apply such a Kantian philosophical view to life. Most people have a much more Utilitarian outlook (excepting threads on STW about people choosing not to eat meat)

That's why it's tedious

More power to you OP. I've thought about it, and barely eat red meat or chicken any more. Fish almost every day though.

And how quickly and painlessly do you think the fish die?

Grum,

Damn your tedious accuracy!!

Dude, it's Pie Week. Can't you hold off until Monday ?

because most folk don't apply such a Kantian philosophical view to life. Most people have a much more Utilitarian outlook (excepting threads on STW about people choosing not to eat meat)

Huh? Inconsistency is no more a virtue of utilitarianism than of the categorical imperative.

Discussing bull running on a different forum and some people were appalled yet will gladly pick up a plastic packed chunk of meat from an animal 'humanly treated' (pampered, brilliant living conditions? No 'humane' in the most comnercially realistic sense) and then shot in the head with abolt or had its throat slit.

[i] Inconsistency is no more a virtue [/i]

right...'Cos the only choices are of course: [u]All[/u] the lovely things in the supermarket...or nothing at all. 🙄

Agree with all the pies

Plus OD on Bacon. Eat your entire bodyweight in Bacon.

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 [i]tedious[/i].

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]I was just saying that shopping ethically isn't as simple as some people seem to think it is[/i]

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!

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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

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

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!

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?

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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.