Veganism

joenobody

rjsterry wrote:

In the UK, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle are usually electrically stunned so they are unconscious and insensitive, and then killed by exsanguination (bled). That sounds pretty humane to me.

Are you sure? The RSPCA seem to think several methods are used, although no date on the content so can't comment on how current that it. Of course, whatever the method you'd have to be sure of the effectiveness of the stun in the first place. I'll admit I'm predisposed to a biased viewpoint on this, but my understanding is that working in a slaughter house is not something you need to be highly skilled for, and that there's a high staff turnover. This would lend itself to poor working habits, and poor execution (bad choice of word there...) of these tasks.

If you can be sure that effective stunning, only by electricity (or maybe using gas), takes place every single time, then I'd concede that it's relatively more humane than ineffective stunning before slaughter. It's still, in my view, not humane to raise an animal with the sole purpose of killing it to eat it (or to turn it in to some item of clothing or accessory), regardless of how it has been raised, kept, stunned or slaughtered.

rick_chasey

It’s just part of the latest fad diet no?

Meat & dairy associates with cancer etc.

More for me.

It’s only a ball ache if you want to go out eating with them.

cooldad

Our local butcher sources chickens, eggs, pork etc from local free range farms. They're not cheap, but compared to supermarket fare, the taste is not comparable. No water oozing out of chicken breasts, bacon doesn't shrink to half it's size.

They cure their own bacon and make amazing in house sausage, amongst other things.

IMHO, worth eating less better stuff. Or damn the torpedoes and stick it on the card.

I was there at 8am on xmas eve to pick up my special order bacon lattice wrapped chicken and avoid the later block long queue. I'm not a big turkey fan. Tastes like tasteless chicken.

I assume the animals live well enough until it's their turn to make me happy. They didn't die in vain.

trivial_poursuivant

cooldad wrote:

I'm not a big turkey fan. Tastes like tasteless chicken.

Which is why my wife and I always have duck. So much tastier.

pinno

The global appetite for red meat is highly destructive. Soya is grown in Brazil for example, after virgin rainforest is destroyed and then the soil is fallow after only 2 harvests. So the bulk of the Soya production is as animal feed. The rest is for the production of hydrogenated vegetable oils for the fast food industry. It is known that Argentina boosted their beef exports as much as possible to pay off their debt to the US. Then you can make the direct correlation to steroidal and antibiotic residue in red meat that raises health issues.
No we have the rise in demand for red meat in the far Eastern economies.

Worst, is that your Dublin bay prawns that are grown in far eastern fish farms are fed on krill that is farmed on an industrial scale in the Antarctic.

I am not suggesting that giving up red meat is necessary but on a global scale, the consumption of meat of all types has to be reduced (and the world is getting fatter).

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-global-obesity/

So perhaps some non-vegans and vegans are missing the point which is that the increased production of meat and the resources to to sustain that are finite, placing huge demand on the environment and therefore, the issue is far more complex and far reaching than some skewed subjective idea of morality.

rjsterry

JoeNobody wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

In the UK, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle are usually electrically stunned so they are unconscious and insensitive, and then killed by exsanguination (bled). That sounds pretty humane to me.

Are you sure? The RSPCA seem to think several methods are used, although no date on the content so can't comment on how current that it. Of course, whatever the method you'd have to be sure of the effectiveness of the stun in the first place. I'll admit I'm predisposed to a biased viewpoint on this, but my understanding is that working in a slaughter house is not something you need to be highly skilled for, and that there's a high staff turnover. This would lend itself to poor working habits, and poor execution (bad choice of word there...) of these tasks.

If you can be sure that effective stunning, only by electricity (or maybe using gas), takes place every single time, then I'd concede that it's relatively more humane than ineffective stunning before slaughter. It's still, in my view, not humane to raise an animal with the sole purpose of killing it to eat it (or to turn it in to some item of clothing or accessory), regardless of how it has been raised, kept, stunned or slaughtered.

Fair enough. We'll have to agree to differ on the last point.

Wheelspinner

Vegan is often used as just-another-marketing buzzword to suck in buyers. There's a local hairdresser which has a sign in the window advertising a brand of "Certified Vegan Hair Care Products". WTAF?? Cracks me up every time.

Like this stuff - seriously?

cooldad

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

cooldad wrote:

I'm not a big turkey fan. Tastes like tasteless chicken.

Which is why my wife and I always have duck. So much tastier.

No argument from me on that. Nom nom.

trivial_poursuivant

Wheelspinner wrote:

Vegan is often used as just-another-marketing buzzword to suck in buyers. There's a local hairdresser which has a sign in the window advertising a brand of "Certified Vegan Hair Care Products". WTAF?? Cracks me up every time.

Like this stuff - seriously?

So that’s how they all get that gaunt faced poor skin lank hair look.

Lookyhere

rjsterry wrote:

JoeNobody wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

I don't actually think killing an animal humanely is cruel.

How do you humanely kill an animal? Is tw*tting it in the head with a bolt gun humane? What about chucking male chicks in a grinder, alive, because they don't lay eggs? Probably the closest you'll get is with a clean headshot from a high-powered rifle.

In the UK, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle are usually electrically stunned so they are unconscious and insensitive, and then killed by exsanguination (bled). That sounds pretty humane to me.

Shall i do it to you?

I m sure the Nazis had similar feelings. at the end of the day, these animals do not want to die.

veronese68

rjsterry wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

I agree with CB, it’s the extremists that are the problem. As in most things.
RJS, if you’d been riding your bike it wouldn’t have been an issue ;-)

Ouch! Not sure my clients are ready for a rain-soaked, slightly hypothermic man in lycra at 8.15am.

Sorry, couldn't resist the obvious joke, particularly cheap shot considering I drove to work today. :oops:

joenobody

Rick Chasey wrote:

It’s just part of the latest fad diet no?

No.

Don't confuse veganism with consuming a plant-based diet. People often the latter as the former because it's more broadly understood, despite the latter being pretty much self-explanatory.

joenobody

Wheelspinner wrote:

Vegan is often used as just-another-marketing buzzword to suck in buyers. There's a local hairdresser which has a sign in the window advertising a brand of "Certified Vegan Hair Care Products". WTAF?? Cracks me up every time.

Like this stuff - seriously?

Yes, seriously. Some people care whether or not the products they use have been tested on animals, or contain animal products. Mind you, such obvious labelling is over the top. All it really needs is a small "suitable for vegans" on the back somewhere, even if that would make it sound like food...

rick_chasey

JoeNobody wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

It’s just part of the latest fad diet no?

No.

Don't confuse veganism with consuming a plant-based diet. People often the latter as the former because it's more broadly understood, despite the latter being pretty much self-explanatory.

Fairly sure that’s why it’s become more popular.

Might not be why you might be a pain in the arse to eat out with, but that’ll explain the popularity I suspect.

rjsterry

Lookyhere wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

JoeNobody wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

I don't actually think killing an animal humanely is cruel.

How do you humanely kill an animal? Is tw*tting it in the head with a bolt gun humane? What about chucking male chicks in a grinder, alive, because they don't lay eggs? Probably the closest you'll get is with a clean headshot from a high-powered rifle.

In the UK, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle are usually electrically stunned so they are unconscious and insensitive, and then killed by exsanguination (bled). That sounds pretty humane to me.

Shall i do it to you?

I m sure the Nazis had similar feelings. at the end of the day, these animals do not want to die.

Blimey! Even Eden didn't go that far. Are you sizing me up for a meal?
Some animals eat other animals. One thing's for sure, we are the only species to give so much as a passing thought for the welfare of the animals we eat.

rick_chasey

I mean, I’ve overheard people doing “veganury”.

Stevo_666

We've evolved as omnivores - eating meat is kind of natural for us.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

I mean, I’ve overheard people doing “veganury”.

Possibly the worst portmanteau ever invented.

Ben6899

I'm pescetarian - mostly vegetarian, but I do eat some (responsibly sourced) fish. People are free to eat what they like as far as I'm concerned. There's no need for aggressive advertising and also no need for meat eaters to claim it's all bollox when someone chooses a lifestyle with animal welfare as paramount.

Live and let live, for want of a less paradoxical expression.

rjsterry

Ben6899 wrote:

I'm pescetarian - mostly vegetarian, but I do eat some (responsibly sourced) fish. People are free to eat what they like as far as I'm concerned. There's no need for aggressive advertising and also no need for meat eaters to claim it's all bollox when someone chooses a lifestyle with animal welfare as paramount.

Live and let live, for want of a less paradoxical expression.

The argument is that meat eating and animal welfare are not mutually exclusive, but otherwise agreed.

cooldad

Lookyhere wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

JoeNobody wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

I don't actually think killing an animal humanely is cruel.

How do you humanely kill an animal? Is tw*tting it in the head with a bolt gun humane? What about chucking male chicks in a grinder, alive, because they don't lay eggs? Probably the closest you'll get is with a clean headshot from a high-powered rifle.

In the UK, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle are usually electrically stunned so they are unconscious and insensitive, and then killed by exsanguination (bled). That sounds pretty humane to me.

Shall i do it to you?

I m sure the Nazis had similar feelings. at the end of the day, these animals do not want to die.

Oh dear we've been Godwinned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

mouth

For me your dietary choices should sit just alongside your religious, sexual or gender preferences - I'm sure they're very right for you but I don't need you to ram them down my throat. I know plenty of vegans and vegetarians and if I want to order a cheese burger when we're out I will, but I won't sit there and tell you all b=about why I should, or shouldn't. For me, mushrooms are pretty much the only thing off the menu and that's a preference not a moral issue.

I'll go on to say that there is absolutely no moral standpoint to be a vegetarian on the basis of animal welfare if you're not going to be a vegan - the treatment of livestock in the dairy industry makes the meat trade look like a health spa.

As much as 60% of the land available to farming is non-arable. In other words it would be unable to sustain a crop as we know it - I suspect with a little evolution and maybe some genetic modification more could be grown in more places but I doubt all of the Australian outback will be covered in fields of grains and pulses by the end of the year. With a little infrastructure and development cattle and livestock could flourish quite quickly though.

In terms of Eden, if someone is prepared to shell out on all that advertising then there will always be someone prepared to take the cash. If it were one or two posters in a spot surrounded by several others I suspect you wouldn't have as much of a problem but if it were Eva Herzigova and her 90's Wonderbra ads in Eden's place there wouldn't even be a thread. All Eden have done is try to exploit the time of year - how many people try for a lifestyle change in January - sorry - Veganuary? It could well be a Weight Watchers campaign, Slimming World, Cambridge, Slim Fast, David Lloyd - really any of them. They're technically stating a fact - meat is essentially murder (that's not how I see it, but understand the interpretation) but I think there are maybe better ways they could get their message across.

Would I eat my pets? No, but I still ate fish while I kept fish, and I know a lady (I use the term 'lady' very loosely) who keeps a horse and could never ever eat Bella ("....it'd be like chowing down on one of the kids....") but when she's in France for instance thinks nothing of ordering the cheval main. I couldn't eat my own dog or cat, and I know we don't have that culture in the UK anyway but if I was in China I'd at least have a look. I have no problem with rabbit either. (Side note, someone mentioned earlier about a clean headshot being the most humane way to kill your meat, this is how Jamie Oliver - not him personally but his supplier - whacks his rabbits for his restaurants).

pblakeney

lesfirth wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

I presume they were all wearing wooden clogs?
Couldn't have been wearing leather or nasty oil based plastic*.

I know oil based plastic has little directly to do with animal welfare but the protestors are usually one and the same.

Would the clogs have to be made of wood from trees that have been blown down by the wind or is it OK for a vegan to kill a tree with a chainsaw to get some wood?

That will be on their conscience, not mine.

bompington

Nice to have a couple of posters turn up and confirm everyone else's prejudices about vegans ;-)

What I've always wondered is... are true vegans allowed to eat organic veg? You know, that uses animal poo to grow? I'd have thought that logically, they must be restricted to man-made chemicals...

Pross

bartman100 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Agree to a certain extent. In the UK at least , animal welfare is pretty decent. The closest we ever come to questionable conditions is chickens. Most other farmed animals are well cared for and free to ro
am.

Bold claim. Evidence?

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

What vegans fail to consider is, if we all became vegan, even with all the extra land available for crops that animals graze on we could never in a million years feed the population year in year out. Crops can fail, pest, disease, natural disaster can wipe out entire crops. Veg has a certain period of use. You need time to grow it, then harvest it then unless you freeze it, will begin to rot. Animals are always there until the time comes to slaughter them. You can do that at any time. Also, Animals are much more resilient to such things like disease or pest damage. We import the vast majority of all our fruit and veg. A large proportion of farmland growing cerials in the uk gets turned into bio fuels, vegetable oil, animal feed. A lot of the land needs time to recover through crop rotation. Even the amount of phosphorus required for fertiliser is starting to dry out. If every country decided to stop eating animals and eat nothing but fruit and veg we would all starve.

Whilst I'm sure animal production uses more land (after all, land has to be given over to producing their feed too) that graph is pretty misleading as it is per gram of protein and meat has way (whey?) more protein than pulses that are mainly carbs and fibre.

I've no axe to grind either way, if I was told by a doctor I had to give up meat it wouldn't bother me much, but as with many things it is people who try to force their views on you and act like their choices are superior that are this issue.

rick_chasey

It must kill your social life.


Unless you have like minded vegans I guess. Small pool to pick from though.

rjsterry

Mouth wrote:

For me your dietary choices should sit just alongside your religious, sexual or gender preferences - I'm sure they're very right for you but I don't need you to ram them down my throat. I know plenty of vegans and vegetarians and if I want to order a cheese burger when we're out I will, but I won't sit there and tell you all b=about why I should, or shouldn't. For me, mushrooms are pretty much the only thing off the menu and that's a preference not a moral issue.

I'll go on to say that there is absolutely no moral standpoint to be a vegetarian on the basis of animal welfare if you're not going to be a vegan - the treatment of livestock in the dairy industry makes the meat trade look like a health spa.

As much as 60% of the land available to farming is non-arable. In other words it would be unable to sustain a crop as we know it - I suspect with a little evolution and maybe some genetic modification more could be grown in more places but I doubt all of the Australian outback will be covered in fields of grains and pulses by the end of the year. With a little infrastructure and development cattle and livestock could flourish quite quickly though.

In terms of Eden, if someone is prepared to shell out on all that advertising then there will always be someone prepared to take the cash. If it were one or two posters in a spot surrounded by several others I suspect you wouldn't have as much of a problem but if it were Eva Herzigova and her 90's Wonderbra ads in Eden's place there wouldn't even be a thread. All Eden have done is try to exploit the time of year - how many people try for a lifestyle change in January - sorry - Veganuary? It could well be a Weight Watchers campaign, Slimming World, Cambridge, Slim Fast, David Lloyd - really any of them. They're technically stating a fact - meat is essentially murder (that's not how I see it, but understand the interpretation) but I think there are maybe better ways they could get their message across.

Would I eat my pets? No, but I still ate fish while I kept fish, and I know a lady (I use the term 'lady' very loosely) who keeps a horse and could never ever eat Bella ("....it'd be like chowing down on one of the kids....") but when she's in France for instance thinks nothing of ordering the cheval main. I couldn't eat my own dog or cat, and I know we don't have that culture in the UK anyway but if I was in China I'd at least have a look. I have no problem with rabbit either. (Side note, someone mentioned earlier about a clean headshot being the most humane way to kill your meat, this is how Jamie Oliver - not him personally but his supplier - whacks his rabbits for his restaurants).

Before Christmas, the same station was saturated with posters of one of the Kardashians flogging a line of clothes. It was a bit like being beaten round the head with a copy of Grazia, but you're right: I didn't start a thread then. Something-beginning-with-K was not suggesting that to not buy her clothes made you a callous bastard, though.

Of course we can form very deep attachments to particular animals, but that is something we project on to those animals, largely for our benefit. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I don't think we should kid ourselves that they reciprocate those feelings.

Pross

If the principle objection to eating meat is the treatment of farmed animals then surely it should be OK to eat meat such as venison from deer that are culled in the wild? After all, hunting for food is as much a human trait as it is for any other carnivore / omnivore species. The only reason we farm meat (or crops for that matter) is that we have evolved to a position where we are able to do so and therefore take away the risk of going hungry other than in those parts of the world where climate etc. make this difficult.

Surely the ultimate moral stance would be that we become self-sustaining hunter gatherers again and only use what we need to survive whether animal or crop?

Pross

Out of interest and something me and the wife were discussing the day before this thread started. Do vegans use wool products? Genuine question - I assume they do but then couldn’t see any difference between that and other animal products such as dairy that don’t require an animal to be killed.

rjsterry

Pross wrote:

Out of interest and something me and the wife were discussing the day before this thread started. Do vegans use wool products? Genuine question - I assume they do but then couldn’t see any difference between that and other animal products such as dairy that don’t require an animal to be killed.

I think it's a flat out no animal products but there's quite a difference between inducing cows to produce milk, and shearing.

I wonder how many vegans keep pedigree dogs, particularly the flat-faced breeds that are very popular at the moment. Breeding dogs that can't breathe properly seems to me somewhat incompatible with those strongly held views on animal welfare.