to wonder WTF would it take for people stop eating "meat"

[ElenorRigby]

Just that really!

I'm not sure, squeak, I imagine it has to be somewhat better but at the end of the day cows don't naturally produce milk all of the time so there is some kind of fiddling going on there.
I heard rumours of impregnating cows and then aborting repeatedly to keep the produce up but I have no idea whether that is true or not.

Dairy farming is a cruel thing

They don't abort the calves, they take them away from the cows within 24hrs of them giving birth...leaving some cows to wail (literally) all night for their newborns.

The males will be slaughtered for veal and the females raised to live the same miserable over milked life as their Mothers.

This is why people who claim to be vegetarian due to an animal welfare angle, confuse me totally if they're happy to consume dairy products.

WL, that is why I've recently given up dairy products. Knowing how the milk industry is perpetuated actually made me feel absolutely horrified. I couldn't believe that was happening so I could have a glass of milk. I don't even like milk that much. It just didn't seem justifiable to me.

It's not just meat, and being a vegetarian does not necessarily protect you from food safety issues or controversy.

For example: a large percentage of the worlds peanuts originate from China - where they've been fertilising the peanut plants for centuries with human excrement.

Human waste as fertilkiser , nay nay and thrice nay!

They've been using in the UK for years, so when you go off to your organisc markets, just spare a thought for who has been shitting on your lentils

www.thisisdevon.co.uk/Human-waste-used-crop-fertiliser/story-11747379-detail/story.html#axzz2Kr2DX3ix

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/sewage-safe-as-farm-fertiliser-1531329.html

and you think that if it has been so easy to pass off horse meat as beef , the meat you have bought marketed as 'free range and organic' always has been?

The horse meat has been in processed foods. it would be far more difficult to pass off horse in a pure meat item like a roasting joint. I assume it tastes quite different on its own with no their flavourings to mask any taste difference.

The reality is that yo can never be 100% certain where any of your food comes from be it organic carrot or chicken. The vegetables you eat could have been grown with shed loads of iffy chemicals and have "faked" organic credentials.

I agree with NotADragonOFSoup. I get my meat from local suppliers- at the farm shop you can see the pigs outside and the sausages etc inside on the counter. The answer is not to give up meat but to know where it comes from.
A lot of vegetarians are very removed from the food chain and happily eat dairy products without the foggiest bow milk is produced! They have no idea that people who spray cucumbers have to wear protective clothing and breathing apparatus!

The trouble is, the supermarkets round here have killed off all the local butchers.

My local butchers is now a mosque so the nearest butchers to me is a fairly long bus ride into town...hence the reason I have to rely on in store supermarket butchers.

Ironic that there should be spam on a thread about not eating meat :o

Bogey!!

I think vegetarians get their smugness from not being murderers.

Actually if you drink milk you are responsible for the death of many calfs. I'll do you a favour then and eat the odd piece of veal.

But then again, acording to certain prolifers I'm a murderer for taking the pill.

Most male milk calves aren't slaughtered for veal. They are just slaughtered.

True, Pip, which is why I support the return of veal. It's great that Brits rejected white veal so completely - due to the animal abuse involved in producing it - but pink veal comes from young bulls, whose mothers get to nurse them for at least a few precious months. No farmer likes shooting new-borns. If the market for pink veal recovers, they won't have to.

I know it's been said before, but can I just reiterate that intensive farming for pulses, grains and vegetable oils causes immense human suffering, ecological damage and wildlife extinction?

No matter what your diet or what species you are, eating causes harm to other life forms. It's the food chain, innit. As humans in a developed country, we have the luxury of choosing a diet that fits our circumstances and moral priorities.

Me, I enjoy eating meat and am aware there wouldn't be ANY friendly cattle or charming lambs, if not for livestock farming. My morals would be happier if there were less wastage - if all meat carcasses were skinned for leather, for example - but the fluffikins argument cuts no ice with me because it's illogical.

Is there any point in saying that humans beyond the age of 7 shouldn't drink cow's milk and don't need dairy?

If we were all vegetarian we wouldn't keep big artifical herds of cows and milk themn and slaughter their babies.

If we were all vegetarian/dairy free there would be no cows at all.

Anyway, give me butter over hydrogenated fats any day. Then there is cheese...

We could keep just a few for our descendants to point and marvel at. Or let the wild breeds come back and roam the prairies.

I think if we're killing animals then we should really try to make their lives as good as possible, kill them as humanely as possible and then use as much of the carcasses as possible.

Very little pink veal is sold in supermarkets, nor do they sell much offal. It's so wasteful - similar to throwing away up to 40% of harvested fruit and veggies because it doesn't meet specifications on appearance.

You couldn't let the wild breeds back, Hully - they'd eat all the veg! Then you'd have to resort to killing and/or eating them ... oh, wait

If I couldn't buy locally produced organic meat. I would stop then.

I would happily eat horse though.

They don't have veg on prairies, just prairie grass, they're welcome to that. Narsty old prairie grass.

Vegetables have feelings too.

vegetables communicate, it has been measured. I don't know if they have what we mean by "feelings"