http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/03/27/Consumers/humanemeat_020327 This is a pretty good idea, (although Jeff and Mrs. may not think so ). Some places in Europe are doing this kind of thing. In Austria you can buy meat that displays the name of the farmer that raised it. Does anything like this exist in the US?
We're still gonna kill you once you are fat enough, but until then, feel free to roam around in the yard.
Grizzled -- Your timing on this is pretty good. Today's New York Times Sunday magazine has a lengthy article on the horrors of factory farming. Honestly, I couldn't read all of it, but it does talk about the cages, antibiotics, etc... Actually, I'm all for humane treatment of livestock. I'm a vegetarian, but I also understand that I'm in a small minority. So anything that will make the lives of these animals better is fine with me.
Where would you guys rank this issue, if you were compiling a list of things in this world that you would like fixed...?
Depending on what you think this issue is, I suggest that it's one that can be addressed without hindering the advancement of almost any other issue, so why bother to rank it? Can you think of one? hydra: lol! Mrs.: Glad to hear that you take the practical, greatest good, position.
At places like Central Market, you can buy free-range and other "humane" meat. Of course, it's more expensive meat because it's a little more expensive to raise animals this way.
That's irrelevant. The question was, where does this issue rank, for you? If God decided to come down tomorrow and say to you, "Enough Absentee Creator crap. Time for some hands-on management. I'll fix X number of problems, then I'm done", how many problems would He fix before you told Him to make the short, brutal existence of livestock bred for slaughter more enjoyable for them...? That's what I wanted to know. I'm just curious. I pretty much could not care less about it, so I'm wondering how important it is to those of you that do care about it.
Man, BK, that is a REALLY tough question. I would think that, for me personally, it would rank pretty high up there simply because I view animal life as sentient just like human life, but I would say that it would at least be in my top 10. But, rather than just make meat more humane, mine would probably simply be to eliminate meat from diets altogether.
In this world full of problems I could name many I would rank higher, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important, or that we shouldn’t do anything about it. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, so to speak. This is a BIG issue in Europe where feeding antibiotics to animals as a preventative measure is banned in many countries. Some are concerned about the prolonged effect on humans of eating the meat of animals that have been fed large amounts of growth hormones and antibiotics. Then there is the cruelty to animals issue, and the quality and taste issue. I buy organic beef from a rancher near Calgary and the meat is very noticeably different. It seems to be a little tougher, but much tastier. I wouldn’t go back to factory beef for taste reasons alone. Some claim that the drugs and stress the animals suffer in feedlots etc. affect the taste of the meat. That makes some intuitive sense to me. I buy straight from this rancher, though, and I don’t see much of this kind of beef in the major stores. My bet is that it would be a big seller because, IMO, it’s a superior product. I guess what you’re telling me is that this is an issue that hasn’t come to Texas yet.
I'm sure to some people the issue seems trivial -- is my soon-to-be steak happy? So what? But, I don't think it's so easy to separate how we treat animals from the rest of our lives. It's been widely reported that serial killers often start by killing animals and men who abuse women and children also abuse animals. So how does industry-sanctioned animal abuse effect us as a society? When we believe animal life is cheap, how long does it take before this belief applies to human life as well? I don't believe that we all have to be vegetarians in order to respect animals. Native Americans ate meat, and they were profoundly grateful to the animals for their gift of nourishment. Even the Dalai Lama, one of the kindest souls alive, occasionally eats meat. As the "higher" species, I believe it is our duty to care for animals to the best of our ability. To believe that the natural world is only here to serve our needs is not only arrogant, it is dangerous as well.
Then again, God is not going to come down and do anything. So it's up to us humans, of which there are several billion. I would think that the human race can spare a few souls to work on changing the way meat is raised and produced. To suggest that the issue isn't a priority when there are ethical, health, and even capitalistic reasons to support a change is just intellectual laziness. Of course, you're entitled to not care about the issue. But some of us do, so please spare us your condescension. We're all big enough to determine our priorities and how many we can handle at a time.
BK, A possible reason for you to care does lie in the fact of what they do to factory farm animals which, if you eat them, will then go into your body. Mmmm, bovine growth hormone. Also, this little issue with little girls going through puberty at age 5 now should be a bit of a concern.
It also doesn't mean you're answering my question. There is no way I can speculate on why that is without, probably, insulting you. I won't ask a third time. I do think it's interesting that you find this issue important enough to start a post, but won't compare it in terms of personal importance to the issues considered pressing by 95 percent of the population. I could ask treeman or boy where the Middle East crisis ranks and get a pretty straightforward answer. Jeff answered the question without dancing around the issue: he said it was among the 10 most important issues to him. That's kind of what I was hoping for from you, since you started the thread. This is a very tenuous connection here. You are either implying that working in a slaughterhouse makes a person more likely to become a serial killer, or that such work is equilvalent to torturing an animal without reason and killing it. I don't see those two things as equivalent. Well, for those of us who don't equate human life and animal life, it's no problem at all-- especially as it relates to animals bred specifically to be killed and eaten. What, then, is the natural world here for, then...? Please read this. Who's condescending to whom? I merely said I didn't care about the issue and wanted to know very specifically where those of you who did would rank it among the issues facing mankind. I offered that obviously tongue-in-cheek scenario as clarification because I asked a very straightforward question and got nothing but prevarications in response. Thanks very much for your remarks, though. It is nice to know that my effort to change my approach to this BBS is neither respected or appreciated by other posters. I'm tryin' man. I'm really tryin'. I'd appreciate the benefit of the doubt sometimes. What proof is there that this is caused by eating factory meat? Note to subtomic: I am asking seriously. I do not know and if rimbaud has objective information other than anecdotal, I would like to hear it.
BK, Well, it is probably not meat, only...just a combination of things - hormone and chemical injected meat seeming to be a big part. Some scientists attribute chemicals and hormones. Food and other environmental factors. Just plain obesity. Anyway, obviously, there is not consensus, but all seem to point to diet to some degree. Common sense (imo) would support that putting all sorts of things into animals (or any food, for that matter) when they are alive and meat when they are dead will eventually enter our own blood stream and screw with our systems. For the record, as to your question, I think that this falls in the much larger category of general health and nutrition (which ties in with that Dr Pepper thread) which is definitely top 10 on my list of general problems.
