Given that what do you think should happen considering your environmental concerns? If consumer pressure can work what should they do. Everyone buy less meat? Better sourced meat? Two out of three going veggie? What changes should be made? I don't think less but more environmentally friendly meat is a bad start.
Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?
- Thread starter MrCurry
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I'm repeating myself here but I'd love it if we were to reach a situation in which everyone had the chance to spend one or two days a week working on a community farm of some kind. Be great for us city types to mix up our working week and it would have all kinds of benefits in terms of local food production. A mate does a fair bit of gardening on his estate's community patch, but many of us don't have anything nearby at all. His centre could keep chickens, definitely. I might suggest it.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I've been helping a school put together its curriculum to deliver the new iGSCE in Agriculture as of this September, I think - I believe there are only three schools in the country doing this at the moment but I'd love to see it take off. This would give kids who are interested (but perhaps not necessarily so interested that they want to make a career of it) a chance to interact with agriculture and gain some real working knowledge of where our food comes from and insight into how they might produce some.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sadly, if you look at the new housing developments sprouting around London, there is no provision for any of this kind of thing. Mate mentioned above lives on an estate built in the 50s/60s for which community provision of this kind was part of the brief. That's no longer the case. There are so many aspects to building healthier food systems and one of them is to build healthier, integrated built environments. Every development that doesn't do that is a missed opportunity.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
There are loads of benefits to Urban Ag, I cover it a bit in a "sustainable agriculture" module I deliver, not least are the social benefits (community integration and inclusion). In some cases, its actually more efficient than field based horticulture (you can grow up, for example, with supports which would be impossible if you were going to combine peas or beans). In the US they are taking abandoned spaces in the rust belt - over here, there's lots of potential space, the difficulty is access (car park roofs, for example).
friedaweed
Me and me girl named Jane
Pretty much all of mine and that's enough for me. An educated ethical choice pretty much the same as your dietary choices.
It's not 'expensive nice stuff' it's a choice in response to the same things you're banging on about but because it involves people still eating meat you can't engage in a discussion about it and attempting to ridicle it as trendy and niche.
Just comes across a bit ranty to me especiallyfor someone woh must has been on the recieving end of similar for being a trendy vegan.
Each to their own.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Sometimes you can save money by going to yer actual butchers too.
You don't often get scrag end of lamb or decent offal in the supermarket.
editor
hiraethified
You know, I've never realised I'm supposed to be a 'trendy vegan' before, But then that's quite probably because I'm not one.
editor
hiraethified
Even better if everyone got to work in an abattoir/industrial factory farm. Let people find out where that cheap bucket o'chicken wings comes from.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That's your response to that post? Wow. I know you don't want to hear about constructive suggestions for non-vegan solutions to anything, but is that an excuse for being such a joyless fucker?
You like using this smilie. Have one back.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I'm not sure people being in abattoirs is quite the "coup" it's made out to be. I've taken people round a teaching abattoir at a university veterinary school on numerous occasions. An ex colleague is farm liason for a beef company. I've taken people round that one too, and she hosts visits often.
People generally seem fine with it, I've had the odd one who's had to sit it out, but they are very much in the minority.
People generally seem fine with it, I've had the odd one who's had to sit it out, but they are very much in the minority.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Most people who live in societies where killing animals is done at the everyday family level grow up without having a problem with it. Some grow up to be repelled by it.
That's not so different I don't think from our society - most people aren't repelled by the idea that animals are killed so that we can eat them but some are. But it does seem that those who are repelled by the idea struggle to understand why everyone isn't repelled.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
this is the most disturbing aspect of this entire discussion. the cruelty shown these creatures is astounding...
bcuster
Well-Known Member
creatures live and die. there is no need for mankind to inject unnecessary cruelty into the already stark reality of life & death...
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That's not really my point. I'm talking here perhaps about the pig that is kept in the backyard to be killed for New Year. Other than on the day of its death, the pig has a perfectly fine life. The killing of a pig is pretty horrible, that is undeniable, but that's also no different really from the killing of a prey animal by a predator. It is something I've witnessed and I ate the pig I saw being killed. Being exposed to the reality of slaughter has not stopped me from eating meat.
Not every post here is about industrialised factory farming. In fact some posts are explicitly about something else.
littlebabyjesus your post #1932
I agree with many, most of your posts on this thread but I do think you’re being overly simplistic about people who eat meat and their comfort zone when it comes to the dead animal that they’re eating.
I eat meat, and live in a rural community where the butchers sell meat that they’ve raised and slaughtered and know I am lucky to have all this on my doorstep. Nevertheless I do also and often buy meat I have no proper idea of the provenance of, whether it’s ham for a sandwich, a saucisson from the supermarket, or food for the dog. I’m one of those meat eaters that pretends to myself that, because I know how well animals Can be reared for meat, that’s all I eat. Which isn’t true.
Also, while I think I could probably kill a rabbit, and am not bothered of my dog gets one or two, I don’t know if I could happily turn it into meat for me to eat.
I agree with many, most of your posts on this thread but I do think you’re being overly simplistic about people who eat meat and their comfort zone when it comes to the dead animal that they’re eating.
I eat meat, and live in a rural community where the butchers sell meat that they’ve raised and slaughtered and know I am lucky to have all this on my doorstep. Nevertheless I do also and often buy meat I have no proper idea of the provenance of, whether it’s ham for a sandwich, a saucisson from the supermarket, or food for the dog. I’m one of those meat eaters that pretends to myself that, because I know how well animals Can be reared for meat, that’s all I eat. Which isn’t true.
Also, while I think I could probably kill a rabbit, and am not bothered of my dog gets one or two, I don’t know if I could happily turn it into meat for me to eat.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I'm very far from perfect. I buy meat that I know full well is low-welfare - in a restaurant, say, or in a pie. I'm trying to do better. But I don't set myself up as some example to follow. Never have.
Oh gosh I didn’t think you were, just was flagging up something.
I read this thread (I think I must have posted on it once, it turns up on my ‘alerts’) and also I’m interested in food and my near ecology, as well as the global issue that the thread OP alludes to.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
In spite of coming from a city family, I grew up rurally from being 10 or so, and even within the UK, those that know how their meat arrives are, on the whole not bothered by it.
The Rural Vs Urban working class perspective is one of the main things informing the rejection of "the left" in the countryside, much to my frustration, being a committed Salford Socialist and trade unionist.
Ferrets, running dogs, poaching etc are part of the rural working class way of life to this day, and sadly, somehow these things have been portrayed as "right wing" by (usually) middle class, "left" townfolk. Ive stolen pheasants, rabbits and hares. I've known 'keepers steal me hares and hang them on my gatepost because I had a young family to feed and times were hard.
People are only horrified by death for food when their life has been sterilised.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
I'm horrified by unnecessary cruelty, not by death
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Most farms and all abattoirs Ive been in successfully avoid that.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
where do the notorious pictures & videos of Indescribable cruelty i've seen come from then?
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Farms or abattoirs?
All the slaughter ones Ive seen that have been promoted by the likes of PETA are not obviously in the UK - they lack SOPs that are universal to UK slaughterhouses ect
Farms - I have no idea. I haven't been on all the farms in the UK, but, as I've said, Its best not to construct your view of something from online videos. You can easily go and visit farms in person on open farm sunday etc etc - go and look round some for yourself. Meet farmers, talk to them.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
If you're not going to eat it what would be the point in killing it if you could?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Just watched the film Cow. I would recommend it.
A few comments fwiw. The only bit I find at all troubling in the context of this thread is the separation of the cows from their calves. Of course they suffer when that happens. This was a farm on which they prevent calves from suckling. I'd be interested to compare to how things work on farms where they don't do that. Such farms are not widespread, but they do exist - it is a possible way to do it. But it's a strength of the film that this is a typical dairy farm, seemingly well run by people who have a certain affection for their animals.
The filmmaker Andrea Arnold is clearly making lots of choices here. She portrays Luma more than once as seemingly the only cow in a big circle being milked that is mooing and agitated. The cows generally, Luma included, aren't bothered at all about being milked. They need to be milked after all. Luma mooing at the camera near the start is supposed to represent her separation anxiety from a calf, but tbh it could just as easily be agitation at having a camera shoved in her face. So there's a fair bit of narrative construction going on here. I don't have a problem with that, especially if the filmmaker thinks this is the best way to portray the underlying truth of a situation, which she may very well have done. And the comment from the farmer near the end that Luma is becoming more protective of her calves as she gets old is revealing. She is remembering what happened last year and the year before, and she doesn't like it.
The film captures certain moments very well. The delight among the cows at being allowed out into the fields is very well captured. Of course being inside sheds is nowhere near as pleasurable for the cows, although presumably being out in a field in winter with little grass and freezing cold wouldn't be much fun either. Luma does look knackered by the end. She's had six calves at this point so is around eight years old, maybe nine, quite old for a dairy cow but not that old for a wild bovine. But those are big fuck off udders by that point. She's made a lot of milk in that lifetime.
A few comments fwiw. The only bit I find at all troubling in the context of this thread is the separation of the cows from their calves. Of course they suffer when that happens. This was a farm on which they prevent calves from suckling. I'd be interested to compare to how things work on farms where they don't do that. Such farms are not widespread, but they do exist - it is a possible way to do it. But it's a strength of the film that this is a typical dairy farm, seemingly well run by people who have a certain affection for their animals.
The filmmaker Andrea Arnold is clearly making lots of choices here. She portrays Luma more than once as seemingly the only cow in a big circle being milked that is mooing and agitated. The cows generally, Luma included, aren't bothered at all about being milked. They need to be milked after all. Luma mooing at the camera near the start is supposed to represent her separation anxiety from a calf, but tbh it could just as easily be agitation at having a camera shoved in her face. So there's a fair bit of narrative construction going on here. I don't have a problem with that, especially if the filmmaker thinks this is the best way to portray the underlying truth of a situation, which she may very well have done. And the comment from the farmer near the end that Luma is becoming more protective of her calves as she gets old is revealing. She is remembering what happened last year and the year before, and she doesn't like it.
The film captures certain moments very well. The delight among the cows at being allowed out into the fields is very well captured. Of course being inside sheds is nowhere near as pleasurable for the cows, although presumably being out in a field in winter with little grass and freezing cold wouldn't be much fun either. Luma does look knackered by the end. She's had six calves at this point so is around eight years old, maybe nine, quite old for a dairy cow but not that old for a wild bovine. But those are big fuck off udders by that point. She's made a lot of milk in that lifetime.
butcher
boner at the ready
So which animal products do you consume if you are not a Vegan?You know, I've never realised I'm supposed to be a 'trendy vegan' before, But then that's quite probably because I'm not one.
That's another issue with how people are disconnected with their food and where it comes from now - how much is wasted. The farmer I sometimes work for gives me really good offal for free because so many customers don't want it.
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
I killed one because it was hit by a car and had been suffering for hours
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WouldBe
Dislicksick
Fair enough in cases like that but that's not how the post I was replying to came across.
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