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

[ElenorRigby]

Just that really!

My dd was a veggie from three until she was about 12. Now she eats some meat, but not all. I expect she'll revert eventually.

Meat should be costly. There's no reason for it to be produced so cheaply; we don't need it.

As it is, the demand for cheap meat (because we've been led to believe we're entitled to eat it/need to eat it) is causing much of the mistreatment of animals.

Domjolly: Possibly you're right, but only because they would become desensitised quite quickly.

Strop, Absolutley! No child should have to see that! Children are sadly more in touch with right and wrong, in that respect, then we have become as adults. Would any child knowing the truth choose to eat meat?

I think it's so sad that in today's world when there is so much money (there is!) that somehow human being have lowered ourselves and allowed ourselves to be fed shit. We now know that horses are in our food chain. What else is there that we don't know about?

The only good thing that can come out of this is that (very hopefully) UK farmers will prosper again.

Hully I wasn't calling you stupid. I'm not sure I called anyone that, and you very obviously aren't silly. That post was almost entirely tounge in cheek in reply to a post further up.

"If Slaughter houses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian"

Nice thought, but I'm much more horrible than Sir Paul! I've eaten meat after watching the animals being slaughtered. Worse (arguably), I considered this better food than meat from a shop.

So Hully would you have a kid if you lived in a society that enforced euthanasia at 40?

I stopped eating meat a year ago but in all honesty for the last 10 years I've had times where I've really struggled with my conscience. I dealt with it by refusing to think about it and appeased my guilt somewhat by only buying free range, high welfare but eventually even this wasn't enough.

But I know that it's no good forcing my views on anybody else. It's a very personal decision and took me long enough to get here.

I'm sure I'll eventually end up vegan but its small steps for me and a gradual process.

garlic:
I'm dirt poor too :(
That's why I don't often use the environmental arguments: I can't say I'm genuinely choosing not to drive/fly - I can't afford it anway!
I do find my diet to be relatively cheap and I think healthier than eating chickens.

Liza it's got nothing to do with knowing the truth, and being in touch with right or wrong, she's not at an age where she can process what she's seeing. Children don't need the truth about a lot of things. This is one. For now, she can enjoy the benefits and pleasure of eating meat without worrying. She can choose when she is able to.

Interestingly I know a vegetarian couple who have a son they have bought up veggie. He has been shown all the vids at possibly too young an age, and it has desensitised him to suffering. He has chosen to eat meat now. Pushing too hard one way or the other clearly isn't a good idea!

liza80 would children eat meat if they knew the truth?

Well it depends on the truth they have been brain washed with.....

Given kids toys, wallpaper, curtains, books etc. are covered with the LIE that all animals are furry and lovely and cuddly and cute then I guess they would think eating them is wrong.

But that is a LIE.

A toddler would no doubt fail utterly to believe that a lion would eat them on the same basis.

In cases where the truth is that animals are food (and in developing countries / lost amazon tribes this is a necessary truth) and children are brought up to see them that way, I doubt the children would refuse meat on the basis that it was dead animal....they would already know that!

and I agree with the poster above who said that meat should be more expensive. Of course it should.

A roast chicken (very probably a cared for and healthy chicken) used to be a special treat. It's rubbish nowadays, lead a miserable life, pumped full of hormones and drugs.

The world has gone crazy.

I carried on eating meat after watching 'slaughter' videos etc, I just got more and more defensive about it. It was my behaviour that triggered me to think. I was acting like people who have no argument re porn consumption other than 'I like it so it isn't bad'.
But that's only my own personal journey. It's good to question yourself from time to time.

'It was my behaviour that triggered me to think'

That's not meant to imply meat eaters aren't thinking!

That's why I don't often use the environmental arguments: I can't say I'm genuinely choosing not to drive/fly - I can't afford it anyway!

Me, too, Penguins, exactly! Still, I sometimes take comfort in the fact that I'm now a very low-level polluter. I don't even fill a bin bag a week these days. You must glow with environmental purity

My farmer friend (not factory farming) tells me cows get upset when they're going to be slaughtered, while sheep placidly follow the leader to their doom. This simple discovery would lead me to eat a lot more lamb than beef, if only it weren't so expensive. I limit the amount of pork I buy because I don't like intelligent animals being farmed in pens; it bugs me since pork's good value, food-wise. Hens are grumpy and stupid, so I don't care much about them ...

... see, I said I'm horrible

Strop:
I think Compassion in World Farming is a good charity for info about choosing products carefully, if you don't want to give them up (yet ;)).

Dom, slaughterhouse workers have to become desensitised to violence, and studies are recognising the problems this can cause. The staff turnover can be as high as 100% annually and I would imagine that a lot of ex slaughterhouse workers are vegetarian!

www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/NEWS/news_slaughter2819

Thanks Army I will look at them.

Hens are not grumpy and stupid! Well, not all of them.
And I'm sure you get the odd sheep that doesn't follow the flock.
Animals all have different 'personalities' and intelligence levels.
I once had an exceptionally clever budgie.
So there :)

You make fair points, Penguins :)

And your budgie wouldn't even make a decent starter!

Strop, I disagree, children are more able to process what they are seeing.... They see a chicken walking around clucking and then to be told that that is what is on their plate for Sunday lunch is distressing!
I think society has brainwashed us into not making those connections. Of course we all know it, and many meat eaters are fully aware and accepting of the truth, but there is a large section of society that refuses to make that connection, buying nicely packaged meat and refusing to consider what is is and how it got there!

Everything we do has some negative impact on something. The argument of not eating meat because we dont need to and it possibly leads to the abuse of animals even with ethical choices is unfair.
By that argument we couldn't do anything - only holiday locally where you can walk or cycle because driving or flying harms the environment. This is okay because you don't NEED to go on holiday.

(Im not supporting that we don't need meat btw I'm just using the example)

If we stopped doing things because they had some kind of negative impact on something else then we literally wouldn't be able to do anything.

I had the budgie when I was a meat eater, and I reckon I would have considered her for a starter if she hadn't been such a genius.
Just kidding.
I think.
:)