Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?

[bcuster]

 

[Aquamarine]

There are still uncertainties around the scalability and affordability of non-slaughter meats in the longer run. Certainly in the short term they will be too scarce and expensive to make any meaningful difference. I'm not banking on them. But, as far as I can tell for the foreseeable future, non-slaughter meats still represent one of the most likely alternatives to humanity's present torture and extermination of trillions of sentient beings every year. Given how morally depraved the present human-animal relationship is - and that about 99% of humans are totally indifferent to animal suffering whenever it serves their personal interests - I'm at a loss for what else could be done.

The long term affordability of slaughter meat is also looking uncertain. The first to go will probably be commercial pet food. It would be too sad if the people who are unable to wean themselves off meat find themselves chasing vermin.

 

[friedaweed]

There are still uncertainties around the scalability and affordability of non-slaughter meats in the longer run. Certainly in the short term they will be too scarce and expensive to make any meaningful difference. I'm not banking on them. But, as far as I can tell for the foreseeable future, non-slaughter meats still represent one of the most likely alternatives to humanity's present torture and extermination of trillions of sentient beings every year. Given how morally depraved the present human-animal relationship is - and that about 99% of humans are totally indifferent to animal suffering whenever it serves their personal interests - I'm at a loss for what else could be done.

What would Jesus do?

 

[friedaweed]

The long term affordability of slaughter meat is also looking uncertain. The first to go will probably be commercial pet food. It would be too sad if the people who are unable to wean themselves off meat find themselves chasing vermin.

Squirrel taste nice apparently but I'll put a tenna on not being available in Aldi during your lifetime Is this what vegetarianism does long term? Delusional behaviour?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

As with many of your links, I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make. Yes, cows frolic around when they're released into the fields in spring. It's great. They're clearly delighted to be allowed out finally after the grim winter.

But what do we take from that?

First, cows don't much like being cooped up inside. Not such a surprise. But winter is very hard for a great many wild animals, too, and they also love it when spring comes. At least the cows are safe and warm inside during the coldest and darkest months, and they have survived winter.

Second, like humans, other animals that are truly traumatised don't instantly perk up like that with the offer of a treat. For the cows to find that moment so joyous indicates that their spirits haven't been totally crushed by the months spent inside during winter.

If you're going to apply psychological (and indeed psychiatric) ideas usually reserved only for humans to other animals, then you have to do so in a rounded way. (And I think it is appropriate to do so, as the similarities are strong enough to justify it, if you are careful to acknowledge the differences as well as the similarities. I also think the reverse sentiment is true and necessary. We need not to kid ourselves that our behaviour is somehow subject to rules separate from, and more noble than, those of other animals. It's not.)

 

[bcuster]

My point is that domesticted animals respond positively to kindness, just like humans.

 

[Aquamarine]

Squirrel taste nice apparently but I'll put a tenna on not being available in Aldi during your lifetime Is this what vegetarianism does long term? Delusional behaviour?

I was not suggesting it will even get that far. Delusional certitude maybe.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Ministers broke the law by failing to make plans to cut consumption of meat and dairy in England, activists will argue in a legal challenge after they were granted permission for a full judicial review of the government’s food strategy.

Overturning two previous decisions, the court of appeal ruled that the food systems campaigners Feedback could challenge the national food strategy on the basis that it failed to take into account ministers’ duties to cut carbon emissions.

The government had argued that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which drafted the strategy, was not bound by the obligations set out in the Climate Change Act 2008.

But Lord Justice Lindblom, leading a panel of three judges, said: “We have decided to grant permission to apply for judicial review, having in mind that the case does raise questions of considerable general importance.”

Campaigners win right to challenge England’s food strategy over climate crisis

Feedback argues ministers’ failure to include measures to reduce production of meat and dairy products was unlawful

www.theguardian.com

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Students at the University of Kent have voted in favour of catering facilities switching to plant-based menus.

More than 450 students voted to lobby university-run catering facilities to introduce entirely plant-based food by 2027/28 - a move which could affect 16 outlets.

Kent’s Student Union said it was the highest turnout in the body's history.

Union president Zaid Mahmood said: “This is an extremely important step in combating the climate crisis.”

University of Kent students vote for plant-based catering

Kent University students voted to lobby catering facilities to introduce entirely plant-based menus.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[kabbes]

My point is that domesticted animals respond positively to kindness, just like humans.

An incredible revelation. I had no idea.

 

[bcuster]

An incredible revelation. I had no idea.

It'd be a better, kinder world if we didn't slaughter animals for food. The point of this thread is to think about such an enlightened world. .I'm sorry some people are so close-minded that they cannot even considering the food choices available that do not include cruel treatment of other sensient beings.

Meat is just not that good that I'd refuse to explore other choices...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It'd be a better, kinder world if we didn't slaughter animals for food. The point of this thread is to think about such an enlightened world. .I'm sorry some people are so close-minded that they cannot even considering the food choices available that do not include cruel treatment of other sensient beings.

Meat is just not that good that I'd refuse to explore other choices...

You're making an error here, though. People who eat meat generally realise that other animals also have feelings. You've not understood them or their motivations if you think they only eat meat because, in some way, they don't get that other animals have feelings.

If you look at pre-industrial societies, where people lived much more closely to the animals they ate, it was as obvious to those people as it is to you and me that other animals have feelings. If you look at non-agricultural societies, generally various totemic powers are attributed to other animals, who, if anything, are granted more agency and intelligence than they deserve rather than less. But they still hunt and eat those animals.

Various modes of thinking in more recent times have sought to deny sentience to other animals. Christianity does it. A particular form of behaviouralism - the 'American School' of BF Skinnner - that dominated ethology in the second half of the 20th century also did it, making the scientific study of animal minds verboten. But anyone who owns a dog or a cat is fully aware of their pet's sentience. That's always been true, and was pointed out to the behaviourists many times by many people. The idea of 'animals as automata' has never had a wide acceptance, whatever Christianity or behaviourists might have taught. The sentience of other animals is, and always has been, self-evident to most people.

 

[bcuster]

You're making an error here, though. People who eat meat generally realise that other animals also have feelings. You've not understood them or their motivations if you think they only eat meat because, in some way, they don't get that other animals have feelings.

If you look at pre-industrial societies, where people lived much more closely to the animals they ate, it was as obvious to those people as it is to you and me that other animals have feelings. If you look at non-agricultural societies, generally various totemic powers are attributed to other animals, who, if anything, are granted more agency and intelligence than they deserve rather than less. But they still hunt and eat those animals.

Various modes of thinking in more recent times have sought to deny sentience to other animals. Christianity does it. A particular form of behaviouralism - the 'American School' of BF Skinnner - that dominated ethology in the second half of the 20th century also did it, making the scientific study of animal minds verboten. But anyone who owns a dog or a cat is fully aware of their pet's sentience. That's always been true, and was pointed out to the behaviourists many times by many people. The idea of 'animals as automata' has never had a wide acceptance, whatever Christianity or behaviourists might have taught. The sentience of other animals is, and always has been, self-evident to most people.

I agree with everything you posted here. Upvoted. Given this, do you feel it is more or less reasonable to eat animals today, given that there are clear choices available that would permit healthy nutrition without eating other sensient beings?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I agree with everything you posted here. Upvoted. Given this, do you feel it is more or less reasonable to eat animals today, given that there are clear choices available that would permit healthy nutrition without eating other sensient beings?

I don't share your disgust for the idea of eating other sentient beings. I think that's where the problem lies in terms of discussion on this subject. And I don't think it is inherently cruel or wrong in all circumstances to farm animals for meat.

As I have stated before, there are forms of modern farming that I have very little problem with. Most lamb farming in the UK, for example. Yes, most of the lambs, and nearly all the male ones, are killed after around six months. But they spend a few months in the fields with their mothers. Their lives are short, but they're not miserable. And in the wild, most lambs wouldn't survive their first year either. Meanwhile the ewes get to live maybe five or six years before they're killed. A life expectancy in the wild (not really possible as these are no longer a wild species) is often quoted as 12-14. But this is a maximum. Most meet rather unpleasant ends before they reach that age.

 

[bcuster]

I don't share your disgust for the idea of eating other sentient beings. I think that's where the problem lies in terms of discussion on this subject. And I don't think it is inherently cruel or wrong in all circumstances to farm animals for meat.

As I have stated before, there are forms of modern farming that I have very little problem with. Most lamb farming in the UK, for example. Yes, most of the lambs, and nearly all the male ones, are killed after around six months. But they spend a few months in the fields with their mothers. Their lives are short, but they're not miserable. And in the wild, most lambs wouldn't survive their first year either. Meanwhile the ewes get to live maybe five or six years before they're killed. A life expectancy in the wild (not really possible as these are no longer a wild species) is often quoted as 12-14. But this is a maximum. Most meet rather unpleasant ends before they reach that age.

That's a thoughtful response. However, I don't think you answered my question...

 

[Jeff Robinson]

You're making an error here, though. People who eat meat generally realise that other animals also have feelings. You've not understood them or their motivations if you think they only eat meat because, in some way, they don't get that other animals have feelings.

I think that's basically right, but there's a bit more nuance. Whilst most meat eaters probably don't view animals as mere automata like Descartes did, they are, I think, likely more inclined to underestimate the inner lives and mental capacities of animals. There's a bunch of psychological research that seems to bear this out. It's nicely summarised in this chapter:

Recent psychological research on the so-called “meat paradox” empirically confirms these claims. For example, in a series of five studies, Brock Bastian and colleagues have demonstrated a link between seeing animals as food, on one hand, and seeing animals as having diminished mental lives and moral value, on the other hand. We will here describe three.

In a first study, participants were asked to rate the degree to which each of a diverse group of 32 animals possessed 10 mental capacities, and then were asked how likely they would be to eat the animal and how wrong they believe eating that animal is. Perceived edibility was negatively associated with mind possession (r = -.42, p < .001), which was in turn associated with how the perceived wrongness of eating the animal (r = .80, p < .001).

In a second study, participants were asked to eat dried beef or dried nuts and then judge a cow’s cognitive abilities and desert of moral treatment on two seven-point scales. Participants in the beef condition (M = 5.57) viewed the cow as signicantly less deserving of moral concern than those in the control condition (M = 6.08).

In a third study, participants were informed about Papua New Guinea’s tree kangaroo, and informed variably that tree kangaroos have a steady population, that they are killed by storms, that they are killed for food, or that they are foraged for food. Bastian and colleagues found that categorizing tree kangaroos as food and no other features of these cases led participants to attribute less capacity for suffering and less moral concern.

Additionally, a sequence of five studies from Jonas Kunst and Sigrid Hohle demonstrates that processing meat, beheading a whole roasted pig, watching a meat advertisement without alive animal versus one with a live animal, describing meat production as “harvesting” versus“ killing” or “slaughtering,” and describing meat as “beef/pork” rather than “cow/pig” all decreased empathy for the animal in question and, in several cases, significantly increased willingness to eat meat rather than an alternative vegetarian dish.

Psychologists involved in these and several other studies believe that these phenomena occur because people recognize an incongruity between eating animals and seeing them as beings with mental life and moral status, so they are motivated to resolve this cognitive dissonance by lowering their estimation of animal sentience and moral status. Since these affective attitudes influence the decisions we make, eating meat and embracing the idea of animals as food negatively influences our individual and social treatment of nonhuman animals.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Those are interesting studies. Not so surprising results. I think most of us today live at an unhealthy distance from farming and that produces these kinds of effects. Looking at that Kunst and Holne study, they say this:

In all experiments, effects were strongly mediated by dissociation and interacted with participants' general dissociation tendencies in Study 3 and 5, so that effects were particularly pronounced among participants who generally spend efforts disassociating meat from animals in their daily lives. Together, this line of research demonstrates the large role various culturally-entrenched processes of dissociation play for meat consumption.

So the more distance you have from farming, the more pronounced these effects are going to be. There is denial and cognitive dissonance in there, for sure.

I can't read the full study, sadly, as I would like to know who the test subjects were. How would such results compare to results in non-Western countries? I suspect that there will be a fair bit of variation across cultures. As a simple counterexample, when people buy pork sandwiches from street vendors in Cuba, they want to see that pig head there. They want to know that they're not being fobbed off with dog meat.

 

[kabbes]

It'd be a better, kinder world if we didn't slaughter animals for food.

You’re begging the question. This is what you are seeking to show, so you can’t use it as the kick-off for your reasoning.

The point of this thread is to think about such an enlightened world. .I'm sorry some people are so close-minded that they cannot even considering the food choices available that do not include cruel treatment of other sensient beings.

Killing an animal for meat is not axiomatically a cruel thing, even if it is sentient. If you don’t think this is cruel, the rest of your point falls down.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Those are interesting studies. Not so surprising results. I think most of us today live at an unhealthy distance from farming and that produces these kinds of effects. Looking at that Kunst and Holne study, they say this:



So the more distance you have from farming, the more pronounced these effects are going to be. There is denial and cognitive dissonance in there, for sure.

I can't read the full study, sadly, as I would like to know who the test subjects were. How would such results compare to results in non-Western countries? I suspect that there will be a fair bit of variation across cultures. As a simple counterexample, when people buy pork sandwiches from street vendors in Cuba, they want to see that pig head there. They want to know that they're not being fobbed off with dog meat.

Study's here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144215596.pdf

Participants are all Norwegians.

 

[butcher]

University of Kent students vote for plant-based catering

Kent University students voted to lobby catering facilities to introduce entirely plant-based menus.

www.bbc.co.uk

"Kent’s Student Union said it was the highest turnout in the body's history."

TBF I always have a massive turn out if I eat a big veggie meal.......................

 

[bcuster]

"Kent’s Student Union said it was the highest turnout in the body's history."

TBF I always have a massive turn out if I eat a big veggie meal.......................

It's healthy for you. Meat can be quite binding

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Study's here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144215596.pdf

Participants are all Norwegians.

There are a couple of ways of looking at those results.

First, you can say that once these people who have grown up this way are given more information about the cognitive abilities of the animals they eat, they may be more likely to turn veggie. The biggest blind spot in this regard in my experience - anecdotally - is that many people seem to think (or perhaps want to think) that fish are barely conscious beings with no capacity for reasoning. It's an odd one. I guess we find it easier to relate to mammals and birds.

But second, you can see these people has products of their culture, including the disconnect with food production, and see this disconnect as one of the reasons why they feel the need, consciously or subconsciously, to disassociate from the reality of meat production. If they had grown up closer to the processes, they would likely not feel that need. After all, while growing up on a farm, or rearing a pig or goat in the back yard for New Year as still happens among townsfolk in some parts of the world, can lead some people to becoming veggies, mostly it doesn't.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You’re begging the question. This is what you are seeking to show, so you can’t use it as the kick-off for your reasoning.

Killing an animal for meat is not axiomatically a cruel thing, even if it is sentient. If you don’t think this is cruel, the rest of your point falls down.

Indeed. This is the source of much of the miscommunication on here. There are a few posters here who are categorical that killing an animal in order to eat it is inherently cruel, no matter how you kill it and no matter how it has lived during its life. Such posters need to get that there is a different view, one that I hold fwiw, that sees the way the animal is treated and also the way it is killed as possible sources of cruelty, but also considers that killing animals can be done well, or at least in an acceptable manner, and also per Grandin that killing methods can be measured (by looking at the animals' behaviour and stress levels) and improved.

 

[MickiQ]

Squirrel taste nice apparently but I'll put a tenna on not being available in Aldi during your lifetime Is this what vegetarianism does long term? Delusional behaviour?

I have to confess I wonder at times what's in their meatballs. Whatever the meat I'm convinced they lace them with crack, they're so addictive.

 

[Karl Masks]

I tried vegan for a week, prior to a camera being shoved up my arse (good times), but I coudln't get on with high carb meals. I'd eat my fill of a nice lentil curry for example. Then not half an hour later i'm utterly ravenous and hungry all night. Some folk just can't do the diet and I wish vegans could accept that

 

[WouldBe]

"Kent’s Student Union said it was the highest turnout in the body's history."

TBF I always have a massive turn out if I eat a big veggie meal.......................

450 students voted. Is it a miniscule university? There was about 4 times that many students at my secondary school.

 

[ebay sex moomin]

What would Jesus do?

weep

 

[Jeff Robinson]

There are a couple of ways of looking at those results.

First, you can say that once these people who have grown up this way are given more information about the cognitive abilities of the animals they eat, they may be more likely to turn veggie. The biggest blind spot in this regard in my experience - anecdotally - is that many people seem to think (or perhaps want to think) that fish are barely conscious beings with no capacity for reasoning. It's an odd one. I guess we find it easier to relate to mammals and birds.

But second, you can see these people has products of their culture, including the disconnect with food production, and see this disconnect as one of the reasons why they feel the need, consciously or subconsciously, to disassociate from the reality of meat production. If they had grown up closer to the processes, they would likely not feel that need. After all, while growing up on a farm, or rearing a pig or goat in the back yard for New Year as still happens among townsfolk in some parts of the world, can lead some people to becoming veggies, mostly it doesn't.

The problem for me is that most people are either too far removed or too closely involved with animal agriculture and this in turn can encourage a lack of independent or critical thinking about ithe matter.City folks only really see farm animals when their corpses are wrapped in plastic in Tesco. It’s all too easy to adopt an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ when making these purchases.

But then there are people who are directly involved in rearing and slaughtering animals for food. These folk have all manner of self-interested reasons to psychologically accommodate themselves to exploiting and killing animals. I would be interested to know more about the phenomenon of ‘desensitisation’ in the latter group. I’ve shared quite of bit of research into slaughterhouse workers on here in the past, and it’s pretty grim stuff to be honest. One study I shared about slaughterhouse workers in South Africa documented the shame, guilt and anxiety they felt after their first kill.

I’ve also spoken to vets who have to put down healthy pets at the owners request and they tell me it’s deeply distressing to do - and these methods of killing cause far less stress than even the best run slaughterhouses.

I remain suspicious that a lot of people who purport to be totally fine with the industrial slaughter of sentient animals (at least in principle) really are deep down, but to the extent that they genuinely are, I think they’re profoundly, deeply wrong.

 

[bcuster]

especially when there are choices in the alternative.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The problem for me is that most people are either too far removed or too closely involved with animal agriculture and this in turn can encourage a lack of independent or critical thinking about ithe matter.City folks only really see farm animals when their corpses are wrapped in plastic in Tesco. It’s all too easy to adopt an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ when making these purchases.

But then there are people who are directly involved in rearing and slaughtering animals for food. These folk have all manner of self-interested reasons to psychologically accommodate themselves to exploiting and killing animals. I would be interested to know more about the phenomenon of ‘desensitisation’ in the latter group. I’ve shared quite of bit of research into slaughterhouse workers on here in the past, and it’s pretty grim stuff to be honest. One study I shared about slaughterhouse workers in South Africa documented the shame, guilt and anxiety they felt after their first kill.

I’ve also spoken to vets who have to put down healthy pets at the owners request and they tell me it’s deeply distressing to do - and these methods of killing cause far less stress than even the best run slaughterhouses.

I remain suspicious that a lot of people who purport to be totally fine with the industrial slaughter of sentient animals (at least in principle) really are deep down, but to the extent that they genuinely are, I think they’re profoundly, deeply wrong.

I've had to put down a pet. It was far more distressing to me than it was to him. He died in as good a way as possible. The idea of putting down a healthy pet, tbh I can't really comprehend that.