I'm more concerned about the antibiotics and steroids. That's why I don't like factory farming more than anything. If they can fix that it would be great but a far as the animals themselves, I think they're meant to be eaten and I feel no guilt about it. We have forward facing eyes for a reason. We're predators.
Venison shanks in the slow cooker, with mushrooms and herbs and wine and such...will be delicious tomorrow.
Genesis 8: 20-21 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans..." There ya go.... God loves BBQ.
Two questions, @jacoby : -If you had a dairy/egg farm and the animals died of old age, would you eat them? -If you could buy lab-grown death-free meat would you eat it? Honestly curious. I read a near-future sci-fi book a couple years ago where being a ‘Deagan’ (eating only death-free meat) was a thing.
Loaded question. Omnivores like humans are animals too and we have the right to eat what we like. That includes when we are predators eating prey. Why don't you make dogs and cats go Vegan too? Should we force our pets into this lifestyle? You do you, and eat what you will, but acting self righteous about it is irritating and not endearing anyone to your "cause". A lazy one too because it's just what you prefer to eat and you think everyone should feel compelled to because you think we are ruining the planet by just eating meat. It's pretty torturous to force a meat eating animal to forgo it's natural diet by the way. I would consider it a unique form of torture actually if someone made me eat bugs instead of beef in order to "save the planet". If we really want to tackle climate change, it must start with all the useless stuff we buy from China, and real pressure must be put on industrial countries, like China. Cutting the production of useless junk, doing it in ethical and less harmful ways, and cutting down on IMPORTS which add to carbon, are all obvious starts. We should be eating locally and buying locally from small businesses; not chains like Wal-Mart. When these other countries manage to get their emissions under control, then, maybe then, if there is no alternative, we can talk about my hamburger. Until then, go enjoy your smoothies or whatever else you eat. Best of luck and I hope you don't suffer long-term health problems related to malnutrition.
Old animals are edible and should be slaughtered before this happens, but if I knew it was old and it wasn't illness, which is hard to know, I guess boil it and make chicken soup. Also hell no to lab-based meat. I will always eat real meat. Just as a lion shouldn't feel ashamed for being a predator, neither should humans. We are omnivores which includes meat.
Good point about putting them out of their misery. There are humane ways to put animals down. Your omnivore point comes from ignorance and 'common' belief. Just because you can eat meat doesn't mean you should, especially every day. There are scientific studies that prove that we shouldn't eat red meat regularly, and we should really limit meat intake entirely. Processed meat (processed off-site hamburger, hot dogs, lunch meat, cured bacon) is a carcinogen and should be avoided entirely. Saying 'we're omnivores' is just a justification for people to eat meat daily. We're also great apes. If you look at other great apes, their diets mostly consist of vegetation. A gorilla might eat a dead squirrel if they're starving but they prefer bananas over the meat.
Well I never said we should eat meat everyday, but there is strong evidence that our brains grew and evolved differently from those other apes because we were eating more meat. We are omnivores and it's not ignorant. It's not a belief. It's a bloody fact. I'm not against limiting my own meat intake for health reasons. Anything in too large of a quantity is bad for you. People should have the freedom to choose though and shouldn't be made to feel bad for being what they are. This is generally what militant vegans do.
I try for health reasons but seems like a lot of work.... I struggle to go meatless for 1 day of the week.... if you count fish as "meatless" then 2 days of the week. The meat alternatives are pretty unhealthy.... and a lot of frozen/prepackaged vegan food is really high in fat and salt. The older I get the more it becomes a humane issue too.
I'm genuinely curious, do you have a link that hamburgers are carcinogens? What about ones bought from the store?
That's a slippery slope you could apply to anything, including hard drugs like heroin, crack and meth. Yes, you should have the freedom of choice. But you should also be educated and aware that Heart Disease, which is almost completely based on diet, is the number one killer of Americans, followed by Cancer, much of which is caused by diet. It's easy to say '**** it, I do what I want!' when the burden of your care will fall on society and your family when you hit your 60's if you don't watch it. Personally, I don't want to go out like my family members who were gasping for each breath at the end. I work in hospitals and I see that **** too often. One day you're bullet proof, the next you're a slug on a scooter in Walmart. No thanks. My mistake- fresh (store made) ground beef isn't considered 'processed'. That stuff you buy in a tube is, though. By the way, Walmart fired all of their butchers when they tried to unionize. Now all of their meat is processed off site shipped in, so I suspect there is more 'processed' to it than stores that package their own. Unless you kill and process your own livestock you can never get completely away from preservatives, but it helps to be aware.
Yea the external costs aren't really considered from obesity related diseases to razing forests/jungles for ranching. Not really sure how to price the moral ones, like animal cruelty.
