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

[ElenorRigby]

Just that really!

I don't know Liza. I'm happy for her to see a chicken, then eat it. She knows what meat is. I'm NOT happy for her just yet to see how it gets from cute clucky thing to roast. Yet. She has a thing about death right now, and that would result in crying for days. I remember how I first felt when I found out about how things are done, I was about 10. I wanted to become vegetarian but my Stepmum laughed at me and told me not to be silly. Any younger I would have been traumatised but 10 would have been the right age for me to make my own decisions. As it was, I was tempted back by chicken kiev!

I agree with you with the brainwashing. If you're not prepared to kill it then no you shouldn't be eating it. I am, I do. Although DH has suggested steak for dinner...and now...

But I'm not giving up cheese!

ArmyofPenguins - sorry to shit stir but you refuse to eat meat on a moral basis but are happy to keep a bird in a cage for your own pleasure?

(sorry! Being an arse I know)

Icbineg, absolutely! I agree. I am now far more conscious of the books etc that my little girl reads. I believe she was born a vegetarian, (I believe we all were!) and I must confess, we were constantly encouraging her to eat meat, although she didn't like it. Because we had been brainwashed into thinking 'meat is good for you' you must eat meat to be healthy'. Rubbish! We now have adopted a vegan diet and she has never eaten so willingly and so healthily!

Ps. I am new to this, so apologies if I'm not responding to everyone.. still getting the hang of it! :)

Nah, you're not being an arse.
I wouldn't keep a budgie now, unless it was a 'rescue' bird and I had ample room.

That's true, Seventh, but some people do 'tread more lightly on this Earth' than others and it's a laudable aim.

There are so many other considerations, though; it's never black-and-white. Soy farming's a shockingly heavy burden on the Earth, for example. Unless a veggie sources all her foods with meticulous care, she's supporting comparable environmental damage and ingesting as many unpleasant chemicals (perhaps more, in Europe, as USA-style meat enhancement isn't allowed here) as a meat eater. But she's being kinder to fellow mammals, no doubt about that.

If we had to farm our own diet I'd be dead anyway. It's labour-intensive work and I couldn't produce enough nutrition to generate the energy. My most aggressively vegan friend had to stop herself taking this thought to its logical conclusion and pronouncing me better off dead!

Yes strop. I really think most of us would choose to be vegetarian if we were allowed to make a free, realistically informed choice without being influenced by the conformist nature of society!

Strop, my parents made sure we saw animals being farmed, milked & killed. I strangled me own chicken at around 10yo. Admittedly, my parents were weird but I think this was more usual for my generation than later ones.

garlic:
Most soy is produced to feed cattle.
Humans need less of it. It's a waste of resources to eat them 'second hand'.

Liza - I am making my free, realistic, informed and in influenced choice to eat ethically sourced meat.
Eating meat does not mean you are uninformed or influenced.

*uninfluenced
Sorry on the phone!

"I strangled me own chicken at around 10yo."

That must have been upsetting. :(

Strop, I don't think that's weird at all, I think it is a far more moral and realistic way to raise children and eat meat.

The seventh, what I mean is that if you were to make that choice as a child before meat was shown to be 'normal and acceptable'

I know that some meat eaters are fully informed, but I think it is almost impossible to be uninfluenced in todays society.

Also, seventh, I applaud you for eating 'ethically sourced' meat. That is a very positive decision and one that I too made before deciding to stop eating meat altogether.

Just one question, do you raise, kill and prepare that meat yourself? Or have the opportunity to see it being done?
I hate to play devils advocate when you clearly have morals about what you eat. But I have come to question 'ethically produced' meat and dairy products. The guidelines set out, are not quite as one might think... The term 'free range' for example can still be used for very restrictive living conditions which could arguably considered a poor standard of living.

We used to have a subject called 'Rural Studies' when I was at Secondary school (it was the first 'Community School' in the country and it did trendy subjects like that. Mid 70s). As well as learning how to grow vegetables etc, we also had chickens to look after and we had a demonstration, by the teacher, of how a chicken was killed: he wrung its neck in front of the class. He also showed us how to off a rabbit the following week, followed by a practical demonstration of skinning said bunny.

I don't think that could happen these days.

I was informed as a child by a lovely trip to a slaughter house with school. My mother also worked in a slaughter house as a student in the 80s so I've been aware of processed foods to.
I chose to eat meat. Mainly because I liked it. I'm an animal lover but also a realist. Dogs eat meat and don't stress over whether they have considered the rights of their prey. Yes we are more able to make a conscious choice than other omnivores but do long as the animal doesn't suffer I don't see the issue.

My mum worked at a SAUSAGE FACTORY not slaughter house. Sorry, slowly going mad today.

Liza - I would be able to raise and kill my own meat, if I had to. And if it was practical to me then I would prefer to raise my own meat and grow my own veg etc because, yes, there are doubts over the reliability of packaged foods. I wouldn't enjoy killing animals an prefer not having to do so but I see it as necessary and enjoy eating meat.

And you're not being devils advocate! Im enjoying the debate! It's very fascinating. And, as someone else has said, great that it hasn't fallen out to a bun fight!

Yes we had a slaughter house trip as well. I also had a Saturday job in the local Butchers - the connection between the animal and the meat was always very clear (I used to hate washing the ox tongues in the sink - weird!) I'm omnivore by free choice and will continue to be so.

ICBINEG - would I know anything other than that that society was the norm?

'so long as the animal doesn't suffer I don't see the issue'

That is my biggest issue! The animals do suffer more often than not!

I have only recently become a vegan.. I never in a million years expected that I ever would! I wanted to become a vegetarian, or at least only eat meat that I had personal responsibility for the welfare of (knowing this would drastically reduce my meat consumption, and I have long believed that if we are meant to eat meat, it is certainly only in small quantities!)

The reason I chose to stop supporting the dairy trade is because having looked into it, I realised what a cruel, unnatural, industry it really is. Milk is only produced by cows for calves and those calves are more generally denied their mothers milk, and indeed comfort (the basic right of any living creature!)
If having your new born baby taken away from you is not suffering I don't know what is!

Sorry, I know this is about meat, but I feel that dairy comes into the same category (animal exploitation).

Hully: overall the animal eaters on this thread have been a lot more "aggressive and antagonistic" than the veggies
That's nonsense, Hully, no one accused veggies of melodramatic murder, or stupidity, or being less evolved or greedy or selfish and repulsive.
The worst thing thrown at them was that they sounded a little smug.

Garlic you strangled your own chicken at 10?? Wow. Credit to your parents for being hands on. I'd do it if I had to, but I'd feel terrible. We've been thinking about getting chickens. DH would eat the eggs, but wouldn't eat the bird.

I've been and got my steak! I wanted to know about the place it came from and my butcher told me all about it, including the name and address of the slaughter house. Oddly he also said he'd been for a visit but that it had upset him!

I asked DD if she knew where beef came from, and explained a little about it. She was momentarily upset when I used the term "you kill the cow" and said she didn't want to eat it, but changed her mind again when I said it was already dead and she didn't have to kill it herself. Then I got a very enthusiastic "Yess! It's tasty!". Still a little young to understand I feel.

We have differing perceptions.

I'd rather talk about the subject than the who did or didn't say what. That's when it stops being interesting and turns into a stupid fight.

Strop, it's funny isn't it? Mine have known forever what and how they are eating. I have always called it minced cow burger, or skin stuffed with dead pig etc. while dd never ate it before now, ds couldn't have cared less. he used to grin and say "dead pig is yum" the psycho

Seventh, Penguin & Son - Killing the hen was unpleasant but the point was (and is) that we should know what meat is. You can't make informed choices about eating meat if you've never thought beyond the tidy oblong in a polystyrene tray.

We were also obliged, in secondary school, to watch a film about mechanically recovered meat, which is why the recent spate of videos on Facebook hasn't shocked the arse off me. I've avoided the stuff as far as is practicable (to me) but I use it occasionally. I feed my cat with it. As I prefer the whole carcass to be used up, I can't have ethical objections to it.

Liza, if British people would start buying pink veal the calves wouldn't be killed so soon.