Following On From ....

[Kathyw]

I would certainly disagree with the assumtion that because it is 'in this country' and 'strict laws to prevent suffering'.

There have been countless exposes in this country of cruel practises regarding the slaughter of animals and as for halal meat - how can you possibly minimize suffering when the animal is trung up, it's throat slit and it's left to 'bleed out'?

The animal chokes on it's own blood - discounting the terror the poor animal suffers - that alone would make me sick to my stomach.

 

Actually our digestive systems were primarily designed to digest fruit and vegetables - meat came along many, many years later.

 

I will never understand how one can call one animal a pet and another dinner.

[reds]

Actually our digestive systems were primarily designed to digest fruit and vegetables - meat came along many, many years later.

 

Indeed but no-one would use that to justify only eating fruit and vegetables hence the weakness of the argument.

[sproggie14]

I love meat and will continue to eat it along with fish, veg and fruit. Our digestive system is designed to eat meat along with all the others.

 

But it is also perfectly capable of coping without it

 

In this country farmers can't get away with bad farming practices, they get caught out eventually if they do. To get the most money out of an animal used for food you have to take care of them properly, if you don't the milk/meat is poor. Treat milking cows in the wrong way and they stop giving milk so their income has gone. Feed any animal bred for meat wrong, and you don't get the quality of meat so again their income has gone.

 

I'm sorry but I think that's rather naive. I spent a lot of time on a farm as a child and saw some hideous mistreatment of animals there. I never once saw any inspection or any other way in which the animals treatment was checked or regulated. Most animals killed for meat die at a terribly young age. The sad fact is we're so much about getting things cheap we don't look at the quality especially when it's coated in breadcrumbs or in a bun. Just look at the hocks of the chickens in the supermarket. You can often see the burns caused by them sitting in their own excreta. Milking cows don't stop giving milk unless they are starved. Any female mammal is designed to keep producing milk for her offspring unless and until her body is in such a state she is in danger of death. Added to that they are pumped full of hormones to make them produce more milk and I think it very unlikely a cow would stop giving milk. Once her milk lessens she is simply slaughtered anyway.

[Kathyw]

Indeed but no-one would use that to justify only eating fruit and vegetables hence the weakness of the argument.

 

 

I was actually replying to someone saying that our systems are primary designed to eat meat not trying to justify only eating fruit and vegetables..

 

I only eat fruit and vegetables and have done so all my life I feel no need to justify that.

[reds]

I was actually replying to someone saying that our systems are primary designed to eat meat not trying to justify only eating fruit and vegetables..

 

I only eat fruit and vegetables and have done so all my life I feel no need to justify that.

 

 

No Kathy I meant the weakness of the argument for saying that we are desgined to eat meat and so that's what we should eat now. Substitute the 'but' for an 'and' and it might make more sense . I was thinking bread and pasta and soya but that's all veg. too I need to lie down. I meant it's more of a convenient argument than a truthful one.

Edited April 19, 2008 by reds

[Kathyw]

oops - I should have re-read and then perhaps my brain would have understood.

 

You need a lie down - I need a cruise.

[BillyMalc]

Can I just add my support to those who are arguing in favour of a vegan diet. Re. the argument that without farming certain types of cows/pigs/chickens etc wouldn't exist, I want to bet that if you were born as one of those you'd wish that no one had ever come up with the unsavoury idea of farming your species. This variety in farm animal species exist for humans' "need" for the best type of animal for meat or dairy production, not for the benefit of the species itself. The world can do well without the "XYZ cow that produces superior meat", as much as the XYZ cow herself can do without being exploited and killed.

 

As for the argument that eating meat is "natural" besides the fact that our physical make up is designed for eating fruit and vegetables, I always find it rather amusing that this argument is often raised on an internet forum, by someone obviously using a computer and electricity, sat inside a concrete building and possibly having a car out front that takes them to places via tarmac roads. Exactly what part of that is a natural existence?

[Kathyw]

Well said Billy.

 

I think this quote says it as good as I ever could.

 

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men. ~Alice Walker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. ~Albert Einstein

[Mrs Mop]

MrsMop. You're right that other countries are far worse but that doesn't mean that what happens in this country is 'ok'. I've grown up around farmers and the farming community, believe me, things DO go on that you would imagine didn't. The choice to buy more ethically produced meat is my point above terrier - personal limits. Which is afterall, what this whole debate is about.

 

I didn't say it was ok to abuse animals in the way that clip did, but it is also wrong to make a video like that and insinuate it was made in this country. Like you I have grown up in a farming community, in fact spent quite a bit of my childhood on a farm.

 

I would certainly disagree with the assumtion that because it is 'in this country' and 'strict laws to prevent suffering'.

 

There have been countless exposes in this country of cruel practises regarding the slaughter of animals and as for halal meat - how can you possibly minimize suffering when the animal is trung up, it's throat slit and it's left to 'bleed out'?

The animal chokes on it's own blood - discounting the terror the poor animal suffers - that alone would make me sick to my stomach.

 

I never said that the strict laws prevented suffering, there are always people who will make animals suffer no matter what the rules and regulations are. I never said that I agreed with halal meat, go back and read my post.

 

Actually our digestive systems were primarily designed to digest fruit and vegetables - meat came along many, many years later.

 

It evolved over many years to eat meat as well.

 

I will never understand how one can call one animal a pet and another dinner.

 

I can't understand why some people always think that their way is right and anyone who thinks differenly is wrong.

 

I'm sorry but I think that's rather naive. I spent a lot of time on a farm as a child and saw some hideous mistreatment of animals there.

 

Animal welfare has moved on a lot since then. My own view is that anyone who stands by and lets an animal be abused is as bad as the person doing the abuse. Just because you saw mistreatment on a farm doesn't mean that every farm mistreats their animals.

[Mrs Mop]

But it is also perfectly capable of coping without it

 

Why should I do without something I enjoy just because you told me to?

 

Milking cows don't stop giving milk unless they are starved

 

If milking cows are not happy, if they are abused they are not happy and they don't give the milk yield that they would if they were well looked after. No animal gives the same if they are not looked after properly just like any human never gives his best to his/her employer if they are not treated properly.

 

Does nobody read the full posts, from what has been put up on here is seems not. I am being accused of eating factory farm animals when I don't, I will say it again and hope that my full post is read this time.

 

"I prefer to put my energy into getting better conditions and treatment for animals than to stop things altogether". There will alway be people who eat meat, to stop eating meat but allow the bad treatment of animals go one because you no longer buy it isn't good enough.

[Terrier]

Can I just add my support to those who are arguing in favour of a vegan diet. Re. the argument that without farming certain types of cows/pigs/chickens etc wouldn't exist, I want to bet that if you were born as one of those you'd wish that no one had ever come up with the unsavoury idea of farming your species. This variety in farm animal species exist for humans' "need" for the best type of animal for meat or dairy production, not for the benefit of the species itself. The world can do well without the "XYZ cow that produces superior meat", as much as the XYZ cow herself can do without being exploited and killed.

Had I been born as an intensively farmed animal, I'd probably wish exactly that.

 

Had I, on the other hand been born as an animal given food, shelter, medical attention, safety from predation (until a very quick and painless death) AND the freedom to fulfil my own instincts - I'd consider that a pretty good deal.

 

Particularly when you compare their wild counterparts that must compete for every scrap of food, compete for mates (with often, injuries resulting from fights), compete for shelter, no access whatsoever to medical treatment and then dying either from predation (probably the death that involves the least suffering for a wild animal, but even then it's rarely a painless, efficient kill), or starvation, or disease.

 

Which then brings me on to game. An animal that is shot gets probably the least painful death available to it. In turn, the resources that animal would have used up would then be available to other animals.

 

The reason I believe is personal limits. As you say yourself at the end, we already have animals who are produced mainly for slaughter for human consumption. Wo do not need to do this to any other species. How about we just learn to live alongside the animals that are still (albeit just about in some cases) classed as 'wild'.

 

 

MrsMop. You're right that other countries are far worse but that doesn't mean that what happens in this country is 'ok'. I've grown up around farmers and the farming community, believe me, things DO go on that you would imagine didn't. The choice to buy more ethically produced meat is my point above terrier - personal limits. Which is afterall, what this whole debate is about.

I agree that it's about personal limits. I just wondered what those limits are based on.

 

If somebody says (eg) "I won't eat venison because I think it's cruel to kill the deer, so I'll have tofu instead" although I might disagree, that makes sense to me, but "I won't eat venison because I think it's cruel to kill deer, so I'll have pork instead" is a difficult concept for me to grasp.

 

Similarly I can't understand why so many people would be horrified at the thought of eating veal, yet happily eat lamb (unless that horror is based on the incorrect assumption that all veal is white veal produced by the crate method).

 

My personal limits are based upon only buying meat from animals that were kept to high welfare. So I will eat venison, as it is only ever either farmed extensively or culled for population control. I will eat pork from my local smallholder whose welfare standards I can vouch for, but I will not buy it from the supermarket because there is no reliable way (that I know of) to ensure that the welfare of that meat was high enough. etc. (actually, the soil association's organic label is a pretty good indicator, but I can never find that in any of my local supermarkets!!)

 

I could give up meat, but it's a moral choice for me not to. For me, if the animal gets a better deal because of human intervention (ie good husbandry) then I think it is right to support that.

 

I think (eg) the lives of the pigs and poultry kept on the smallholding near me are lives worth living, so I support that (conversely, I believe that the life of the intensively farmed pigs and poultry are so miserable that they are probably not worth living).

 

I won't claim though, to be perfect in all of this, even by my own moral framework. Whilst I can justify purchasing every bit of the meat in my freezer, I have difficulty in justifying the milk in my fridge. It's where my argument falls down, but it's something I'm having great difficulty giving up.

Edited April 19, 2008 by Terrier

[Alison]

More a vegan lifestyle question than a vegan diet one, what would be a vegan approach to parasite control - worms, fleas etc?

[reds]

For me Terrier the issue with deer is that I really feel there has to be a line. If it becomes mainstream practice to eat deer then the next 'exotic' meats will also become mainstream practice in their turn. Then god help the animals of this world quite frankly. Wild animals are already paying the price of holiday 'big gaming', more and more species are finding their way onto the supermarket shelves. Why can't we just be satisfied with those already killed for us? Why should more and more species be farmed (in whatever way) just for the sake of our pallate?

 

Animals that go to slaughter don't arrive after a stress-free journey, then quickly pop into the abatoir to be despatched. They often stay at the abatoir right next to the building for days before it's their turn.

 

I'm not, nor have I ever, said that to eat meat is 'wrong'. What I am trying to say is that it is a 'choice' and indeed everyone is entitled to that choice. There is however NO need to extend the range of species that are killed for human food or pleasure. That to me I'm afraid is greed and abuse.

 

There is nothing at all hard to understand for me about how people can eat some animals and not others. Yourself Terrier I imagine would never eat dog?

Edited April 19, 2008 by reds

[dirtychicken]

Tempers seem to be flaring a little in here Personally, I cannot see any deliberately personal comments/attacks/demands but I can see how it could have been construed. As a vegetarian of many years, I am actually mightily impressed by the well-constructed and reasoned arguments posted by both sides and that is a very rare thing for me to feel - doesn't mean that I'm going to start batting for the other side though

 

Anyway, for the sake of peace and an easy life, for the time being, could a few deep breaths be taken before continuing to post?

[reds]

Absolutely, I don't do stress And I could never displease a dirty chuck.

 

Sorry for the slight raise in temperature