[brapper]

http://www.tribeofheart.org/pk.htm

I just watched this film in my Qualitative Research Methods course, and let me tell you, it had an effect. Basically, it shows a lot of how animals are treated in slaughter houses, and does a fantastic job of anthropomorphizing (..is that a word) the animals with characteristics we can all identify with. But more so, it did a fantastic job of dealing with the issue of many people shutting themselves down to any sense of compassion for livestock.

Now I'm a vegetarian, but I don't make a point of stressing that fact to others, nor do I like or make a habit of preaching my ways to them. I also don't argue that humans naturally progressed towards eating meat and that for a long time it was necessary.

But honestly, having watched this movie, I can't imagine desiring to eat meat. The girl next to me was actually crying, and I'm sure she wasn't the only one. I'm not going to lie, if I was shaken. I think everyone in the class was sickened by what they saw.

Anyway, I think this is the furthest I've ever gone towards preaching vegetarianism. But, honestly, if you have the chance to see this film, do so. It may not change your diet, but it will definitely make you think about it.

And really, thinking about your actions is never a bad thing.

[olePigeon]

Which is why organic, freerange livestock is the best way to go if you wanna eat meat.

[RAILhead]

I think about it all the time.

[brapper]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Which is why organic, freerange livestock is the best way to go if you wanna eat meat.

[brapper]

Even I can't help but find that amusing...it the "wow, that's sick" kind of way.

[Kerrigan]

Animals often kill each other using very gruesome and macabre methods, such as the wasp which paralyzes its prey and then lays an egg inside of it which eventually hatches and lives inside the paralyzed animal while it eats it alive.

Lions have been known to bring fawns into their pack, and the fawn has no milk to sustain itself and it is terrified of the lions' presence, after a week or so it eventually dies, and the lions leave it.

The animal kingdom is a tough place, **** happens and then you get eaten. There's no point in trying to make things like cows or chickens happy, it's not like they are self-aware.

[outsourced]

Damn. When I saw the topic title, I thought it was discussion of the song on RUSH's Vapor Trails album, which -- IMHO -- is the best RUSH album to-date.

I'm a carnivore; so, I like to eat meat BTW.

[sek929]

I'm a level 7 vegan, I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

[outsourced]

Originally Posted by sek929

I'm a level 7 vegan, I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

So...you only eat mushrooms?

Really. I don't know what a L7 vegan is.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by outsourced

So...you only eat mushrooms?

Really. I don't know what a L7 vegan is.

Heh, its a secret.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by outsourced

So...you only eat mushrooms?

And the occasional groundhog.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

And the occasional groundhog.

Hell, on an overcast day he could eat anything. I guess that helps explain San Francisco.

[JustAnOl'Broad]

Originally Posted by sek929

I'm a level 7 vegan, I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

I thought Spock was a Vegan.....oh no
he was a Vulcan

Neverrrmind.

[Cubeoid]

I'm an animal. Are you going to eat me?

[ghporter]

I am an omnivore and glad of it. But I do have compassion for animals, so I am very interested in humane treatment of all animals, even livestock. But note that there is a special term for animals raised for food: "livestock." That's because they are different-they are NOT pets, they are a product. You don't give them names, you don't even try to tell one from the other except by their ear tags, you just take care of them so they grow properly.

I am particularly interested in humane treatment of livestock in feedlots and at the slaughterhouse. This is important both from an ethical perspective and from a food safety perspective. If the animals are properly treated while waiting to be "processed" then they will remain healthy, resulting in safer food. If they are not treated properly, people can die, which is generally considered a Bad Thing (except by PETA).

And the way the animals are killed is important too, for both reasons. The standard method of dispatching cattle involves something akin to a powernailer that drives a slug into the animal's brain. They die very quickly and as far as anyone can tell painlessly. This means that they do not damage themselves, potentially contaminating their meat, and they feel no discomfort (despite the secondary effects on their nervous systems-twitching and so on-which have no conscious basis and are purely anatomical; the brain is dead almost instantaneously).

And let the flaming commence-I've done some homework here.

[effgee]

Originally Posted by Cubeoid

I'm an animal. Are you going to eat me?

Check the nearest mirror - if you're female and look anything like Jennifer Connelly, Lucy Liu or Angelina Jolie PM me and we'll work something out.

Originally Posted by ghporter

... But note that there is a special term for animals raised for food: "livestock." That's because they are different-they are NOT pets, they are a product. You don't give them names, you don't even try to tell one from the other except by their ear tags, ...

First off - I love meat and have no plans to turn vegetarian. Ever. But I also don't really think that the definition of the term livestock will be of any help here. After all, that's the word we humans made up so we don't have to feel bad about breeding animals for the sole purpose of killing and eating them.



As far as the remainder of your post is concerned - 100% agreement from me. Even if bred for the purpose of killing them somewhere down the line, there's not a single reason to abuse animals, except to satisfy our greed - being able to maximize profits (from a producers' POV) and/or buy meat at the lowest price possible (from a consumers' POV). And by itself, that shouldn't be enough - unfortunately I don't see this changing anytime soon. Greed is a powerful motivator.

[PacHead]

Vegetarians annoy me more than fundamentalist religious types. Vegetarians should take it to the next level and not eat anything at all, think about all the poor vegetables.

I will eat a steak tonight, that's all.

[Kevin]

I swear I could hear the carrot cry as I was peeling it's dead skin off.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally Posted by sek929

I'm a level 7 vegan, I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

I believe you mean that you're a level 5 vegan:

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/CABF01

At level 7, I think you subsist off of bog vapors or something. ;-)

[brapper]

Originally Posted by PacHead

Vegetarians annoy me more than fundamentalist religious types. Vegetarians should take it to the next level and not eat anything at all, think about all the poor vegetables.

I will eat a steak tonight, that's all.

why?

Thanks for bringing the movie up, brapper. I saw it a couple of years ago when it first came out and am glad it's still making the rounds.

It's pointless to debate meat-eating on this board, though, so I'm not going to get into it any further.

[Kevin]

I'm a vagatarian. I like vagtable soup.

The campbells stuff is nasty.

[mojo2]

What's in the Beef?
by Barbara Allen

“Americans now spend more money on fast food—$110 billion a year—than they do on higher education. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music—combined.” from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Many believe the growing problem with obesity in America is due to this diet of fast food. The fast food diet is primarily a meat diet. So what is that burger costing us really?

Here are a few statistics:

More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation’s entire fruit and vegetable crop.

John Robbins wrote in his book The Food Revolution, “you’d save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year.”

It takes 60 lbs. of water to grow a pound of wheat. It takes between 2,500 and 6,000 lbs. of water to grow a pound of meat.

Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles and causes the loss of five times its weight in topsoil.

If a 10-acre farm grew soybeans it could feed 60 people, if it grew wheat it could feed 24 people, growing corn would feed 10 people. If it raised cattle it would feed two!

Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet For a Small Planet, suggests we imagine sitting down to an eight-ounce steak. “Then imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls in front of them. For the ‘feed cost’ of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains.”

If meat production was reduced by just 10 percent in the US it would free enough grain to feed 60 million people, estimates Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer.

It takes 4.8 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat.

Canadian Steve Hall writes:

“Nigeria's per-capita meat consumption is approximately 6.4 kilograms a year and China's is about 23 kg, but, Canada's is 65 kg a year and the United States' is about 95 kg.” That means that we in America eat 15 times the meat that a Nigerian eats and 4 times as much as the average citizen of China. Is all that meat consumption necessary? Thirty years ago American’s ate only one third the beef and pork we eat today, this in spite of the many studies that have shown us it may be bad for our health.

Human health

There is a good deal of evidence that our high consumption of meat is the cause of our high incidence of heart disease, hypertension, and colon and other cancers. Countries with low meat consumption have correspondingly low rates of these diseases. Perhaps just coincidence but there is strong evidence of a correlation. Another strong health consideration with meat consumption is something I’ve already written about and that is the use of antibiotics and hormones in raising livestock and the possibility of developing antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Several poultry growers have agreed to stop the unnecessary use of antibiotics but beef, pork, turkey and chicken from many sources remain a problem.

Cost to the environment:

You wouldn’t think that the “production of meat” would create much pollution but the manure and urine waste, plus the pesticides and fertilizers used to grow feed, are among the largest sources of water pollution in North America. “Factory farms” pollute our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined.

Jim Motavalli in The Case Against Meat says “ The much-publicized 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska dumped 12 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, but the relatively unknown 1995 New River hog waste spill in North Carolina poured 25 million gallons of excrement and urine into the water, killing an estimated 10 to 14 million fish and closing 364,000 acres of coastal shellfishing beds.”

Nearly every aspect of meat production, he goes on to say “from grazing-related loss of cropland and open space, to the inefficient feeding of vast quantities of water and grain to cattle in a hungry world, to pollution from “factory farms”—is an environmental disaster with wide and sometimes catastrophic consequences.” Peter Cheeke, an agriculture professor from Oregon State University, sees factory farming as “a frontal assault on the environment, with massive groundwater and air pollution problems.”.

I have a feeling that 10 minutes in a slaughterhouse would be all any one of us would need to put us off meat forever. A good look at the way most “meat” animals spend their relatively short lives would also turn many of us into vegetarians. The mass production methods used to raise these animals are something we would just as soon not think about or know about.

Did you know that animals that collapse at the slaughterhouse door or during transportation are called “downers,” and their corpses are routinely processed for human consumption? The diseased ones are “rendered” into “meat meal” and fed back to the pigs and chickens we eat and added to pet food. This according to the USDA.

Reading all that really made me rethink our “need” for meat. I know that we get protein from non-meat sources. It’s a myth that plants don’t contain complete proteins. They are just arranged differently. Most nutritionists agree that we consume much more protein than we need. It’s actually bad for your health! The Chinese stay healthy on a quarter of what we eat and even we consumed two thirds less than we do now just 30 years ago.

So if you want to do something wonderful for your body as well as for the environment – cut back on your consumption of meat. Eat at least one meal a day that has no meat. Or try one day a week with no meat, or just eating much smaller portions. Your body will thank you! And so will the planet.

http://www.dfsgardenclub.org/articles/What'sInTheBeef.htm

[sek929]

Originally Posted by strictlyplaid

I believe you mean that you're a level 5 vegan:

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/CABF01

At level 7, I think you subsist off of bog vapors or something. ;-)

MMMMmmmmm bog vapors <salivating>

So my memory is hazy...

Hazy like the moors of scotland?!?

[JoshuaZ]

Its eat or be eaten. You know a cow would eat you if it had the chance.

[mojo2]

Originally Posted by ghporter

I am an omnivore and glad of it. But I do have compassion for animals, so I am very interested in humane treatment of all animals, even livestock. But note that there is a special term for animals raised for food: "livestock." That's because they are different-they are NOT pets, they are a product. You don't give them names, you don't even try to tell one from the other except by their ear tags, you just take care of them so they grow properly.

I am particularly interested in humane treatment of livestock in feedlots and at the slaughterhouse. This is important both from an ethical perspective and from a food safety perspective. If the animals are properly treated while waiting to be "processed" then they will remain healthy, resulting in safer food. If they are not treated properly, people can die, which is generally considered a Bad Thing (except by PETA).

And the way the animals are killed is important too, for both reasons. The standard method of dispatching cattle involves something akin to a powernailer that drives a slug into the animal's brain. They die very quickly and as far as anyone can tell painlessly. This means that they do not damage themselves, potentially contaminating their meat, and they feel no discomfort (despite the secondary effects on their nervous systems-twitching and so on-which have no conscious basis and are purely anatomical; the brain is dead almost instantaneously).

And let the flaming commence-I've done some homework here.

What do you know about downer cows?

Did you know that animals that collapse at the slaughterhouse door or during transportation are called “downers,” and their corpses are routinely processed for human consumption? The diseased ones are “rendered” into “meat meal” and fed back to the pigs and chickens we eat and added to pet food. This according to the USDA.

[wdlove]

I like to eat a well balanced diet. Animal protein is important also. Just try to make sure that I get plenty of fruits, vegetables, and grains.

[black bear theory]

i agree that many people have very little respect with how the meat they eat comes about. they step up to the counter, order, and they hand it over. it's like magic! i was once vegetarian, an may be one again, though i think it's important to know what happens from animal -> meal. it's not something for the faint of heart.

i went on my first hunt (actually i was just working, my field partner brought his .22) and i got to see first hand how birds were field-dressed, pretty quick and effective, lots of guts, but i feel much better having seen it. if i ever do get a chance to eat that meat, i will already have witnessed it and know what has happened up to it being placed on the plate.

and since we got simpson's refs going: (off the top of my head)

'don't be scared by the name billy, it's not so much of a [killing] floor, but rather a sluice, through which the guts can go through.'

[sek929]

When I grow up I want to go to Bovine University.