To love eating meat but hate the fact of killing animals?

[AWholeLottaNosy]

I know this is totally contradictory but have been thinking about this lately and feel very conflicted about this. I love steak, bacon, roast chicken, sausages etc but I feel sick at the thought of animals being killed. We're so divorced from how these products get to the supermarket that I don't think we even make the connection with these things and what has to happen for them to get there. I feel hypocritical about this ( and I'm not a young, idealistic person either), don't know what to do! Also don't know how my body would cope without having all that protein either...

Sorry for confused post, just wanted to put my thoughts down and wondered what other people thought!

You are correct, it's not the protein that is the problem. The problem is all the other obscure vitamins, minerals and fats that are present in meat in trace amounts that your body needs (albeit in incredibly small quantities).
Most vegetarian meat substitutes contain absolutely none of these and many are only found in meats , leaving artificial supplements the only other way to get them.

Not saying it cannot be done , but being veggie requires a lot more knowledge of food than most people have, and a lot effort than many are prepared to put in.

Lots of great suggestions on this thread. I agree that a vegan diet is the logical solution, but it isn't practical for everyone and requires quite a bit more effort. Almost every meal I cook would be suitable for a vegan diet, but it's the other stuff I would find difficult - simple things like buttered toast (I mean with real butter not some synthetic substitute), tea with milk, and the whole problem of things containing eggs, cheese, butter, milk - eg noodles, some breads, etc

I only buy milk to put in tea. It's one of my small pleasures in life. My compromise is to buy organic milk. Not perfect, but that's as far as I am willing to go for now.

I think that's what it comes down to - deciding where we personally are with this issue. I still buy and cook meat for the meat eaters at home, but I buy the best standard we can afford and buy less of it.

OP - YANBU.

vegetarianism is a feasible diet for a human being; it is veganism that isn't, which is why vegans need supplements.

think about your veg too; if it has come from far away, is hand cut by underpaid people and wrapped in plastic then all the 'organic' labels in the world are still nonsense. Eat seasonal and local.

I was brought up on a farm and if it could provide me with a decent living I probably would be a farmer. We grew cattle and sheep and pigs. They had to go to slaughter. I eat meat. I get the ethical dilemma.

High welfare standards are very important to me and I cook from scratch pretty much all my food. High welfare standards cost money. Many people cannot afford good quality food or even food raised in high welfare standards. People like saving money on their grocery bill

Instead of being a farmer I went into the oil industry. People often die in the production of the petrol that goes in your car. People like saving money on their petrol bill.

How much are people willing to pay to alleviate suffering in animals and humans? Is this just middle class angst?

The thing is ... no matter what you eat, there will be animal life lost.

A field of wheat is not a sterile dead zone, neither is an orchard or a humble vegetable garden. Rabbits and field mice get caught by combine harvesters or crushed under tractor wheels, insects are killed by washing methods or insecticides -- you can't really get away from it.

My response to this issue was to only buy grass-fed meat and eat nose to tail (I boil up bones and render drip and the suchlike), and to source my veg well and not waste anything (so I boil peelings for stock and compost waste). Where we are, grass-fed is not really that much more expensive and you do eat less of it because the nutritional value is so much higher -- plus we don't eat lean meat so the higher fat content keeps us going for longer.

We chose this way because, to me, supporting grass-fed means supporting meadowland, which is supporting spaces that teem with life and are vital for the ecology of the land. Bees are just as important as cows, even more so when you consider their vital role in pollination.

I also think if you are going to eat meat, you should respect the animal by trying to use as much of the carcass as you can ... though, tbh, I can't quite cope with sweetbreads.

Interestingly, to give you an idea of how we cannot get away from food and death, I once read a fascinating article about the first Indian vegetarian migrants to Britain in the 1950s. While these migrants had been fine in India, many of them starting suffering from acute anemia in Britain and no-one could figure out why.

It turned out eventually that the main cause was the way veg and fruit was washed before sale in Britain. The British way removed all traces of insects or insect residue from the veg and fruit whereas, back in India, fruit and veg still had little insects and residue on it. It was the consumption of those tiny insects and residue on Indian fruit and veg that had prevented those India vegetarians from developing acute anemia.

Vegetable production can certainly be unethical too. Usually its inhumane to the humans displaced form land to grow vegetables or soya for export or who are working in near or actual slave conditions.

The most ethical meat production is in Argentina on the Pampas. Cattle grow slowly for 5 years just walking about on natural grass lands. Not sure about their slaughter regimen but it is at least slaughtered and shipped in chilled container ships so no long distance live transport before slaughter as you see in sheep from Australia shipped to the Middle East. Most suffering occurs in the live transport phase of the farm to fork journey.

Eat local is a good motto but really hard to do in practice for a country like the UK with dense urban populations and large supermarkets.

Eat local is a good motto but really hard to do in practice for a country like the UK with dense urban populations and large supermarkets.

I completely agree. I found it very hard to source meat I could afford and was happy with when I lived in London which was post uni until 31. That was the period when I ate the least meat. I moved out of London but didn't increase my meat consumption until I met my husband when it seemed to increase. He is also very happy not to eat meat 3 or so days a week.

Much easier to find happy meat that is affordable when you live in the country and can buy it from the people who rear it.

I don't have a problem with people eating meat, in fact despite not eating it myself at the moment, I think it has its place in a good, varied diet. The problem is that since it became relatively cheap, many people now expect to eat it in large quantities, at most meals, every day. It's not so long since Tesco were selling Value chickens at £2.50 each. I hate to think what those birds were pumped with.

Firstly, I will say that I am not a vegetarian, although I understand why this is the right choice for some people. For me, it is important that there is a consumer market for meat and animal products with high welfare standards, as if there was not, it is likely that more meat would be produced using high intensity methods with less concern for the welfare of the animal. I don't think we will ever live in a vegan utopia, and I also think in this country, without farming, a lot of wildlife species would lose their habitats (this may not be seen as important to some, but it's important to me).

If you're interested in animal welfare and actively working to improve farm animal welfare, you could consider supporting a group like the humane slaughter association- www.hsa.org.uk/ who work to improve the welfare of animals during slaughter through research, education and lobbying governments.

I suppose I'm a flexitarian - over the last year or so I've dramatically reduced the amount of animal products I consume, for ethical, health and environmental reasons. I live in the US where welfare of animals is abysmal so I never eat meat outside my own home and when I do eat it at home I buy extortionate pasture-raised products only as even free range is nowhere near the happy open fields they'd lead you to believe.

I do eat fish more regularly though and feel guilty but I guess is baby steps. And I'm too British to turn down food that has been cooked for me, but generally I probably eat meat once a month at the most, cook mainly vegan food for the family, DC don't really like meat anyway, DH can buy meat lunches if he wants.

My problem is I don't think it stops at vegetarianism, if you're not prepared to eat a chicken then that should extend to the eggs produced under the same conditions as the meat. And the more I read about dairy practices the more I try to cut back.

But I will never be fully vegan, so I do what I can and work out what I am comfortable with. I'm lucky that where I live there it is relatively easy to eat vegan most of the time which helps! And I'm with others that I steer clear of quorn, tofu and other meat substitutes - I don't see the point in replacing meat with highly processed foods and I actively avoid soy for health and environmental reasons, as well as the fact that most soy is grown to feed cattle so you're inadvertently putting money into the very meat industry you are trying to avoid

Americas, I really struggled when I lived in the US for a few years.

I became a member of a small organic co-op and remember paying $20 for 1lb of minced lamb on my first visit, I would easily spend $200 on not very much but decent food each week for two of us.

Have you read 'The Omnivores Dilemma', I read it when I was on hospital for a few months, very interesting stuff.

I think it's important to make informed decisions. Yes land clearance for mass soya and maize crops is a huge ethical issue. But the majority of those crops are grown to provide livestock feed whose meat then then feeds the human population and this is incredibly inefficient www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmenvaud/879/879vw24.htm

Crop planting directly for human consumption is much less of an issue and so it's a bit misleading to use this as an argument against eating less meat and more veggies. Additional intensive farming contributes significantly to greenhouse emissions etc

Totally agree with what had been said about eating better meat less frequently and also with supporting the Humane Slaughter Association - they're a great organisation but very small and really need support for their work.

I have just remembered something that was very funny at the time (Omnivores Dilemma related) - a Twinkie - I had no idea what one was.

When my husband announced this to the two doctors looking after me they thought I was even odder than they no doubt did before. He had told them that I had never eaten fast food the day before. I was the very odd English girl in room 241.

That book sounds interesting, I'll look it up.

It was so eye opening when I first arrived and saw milk specifically labelled as hormone free! And until very recently there wasn't even a bottom standard for welfare of poultry - I live in California though and a law has just been passed which effectively makes factory farming in the state illegal but as I say, even free range doesn't mean that much.

I buy my meat from a farmer to comes to our weekly market and who is very transparent about his welfare, you can visit the farm whenever, and he runs his own abattoir. I pay for this of course - talking $25 for a whole chicken, which is why we buy it so rarely! His eggs are $8/dozen but he runs out of them so quickly because his practices means he has a limited number of hens - but thankfully my local wholefoods has started stocking pasture raised eggs ($6/dozen before tax), and everyone bar DH has made the move from cows milk to almond. Can't wrestle the DC away from their love of cheese but at least for us decent cheese is hard to get hold of so I don't eat it anyway

I am lucky in that being a farmer, I can trace every single piece of meat in my diet.
Literally, I will deliver the animal, raise it, kill it, butcher and cook it myself. The meat I eat at home never leaves my farm from the moment it is born to the moment I eat it. If I am out in restaurants I only eat meat if it's traceable, if there is any doubt I'll have a veggie option. As for meat in supermarkets or takeaways.... forget it.

I also sell to my customers like this, direct from the farm and also the suppliers in the local area all list my farm as their source so concerned diners can drive by and see the cows in the field happily munching the grass. Unfortunately the flip side is price, I can't afford to sell my meat at anything like supermarket price so people have to pay for quality and animal welfare. If more people were prepared to do this then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.
I think people should eat less meat but eat better quality, more ethically produced meat. Win - win.

A field of wheat is not a sterile dead zone, neither is an orchard or a humble vegetable garden. Rabbits and field mice get caught by combine harvesters or crushed under tractor wheels, insects are killed by washing methods or insecticides -- you can't really get away from it.

Pretty much spot on - which is why vegetarianism is a totally flawed concept. Thousands of insects a year are killed by insecticides to feed each person in this country, thousands of rabbits are shot by farmers to prevent them munching all the crops (which they would - believe me) to keep prices low for the consumer. Your average veggie just makes a decision based on the 'cute fluffy animals' that they don't want to eat them, but think nothing of all the insects and other fauna that die in the production of their vegetables. Very few actually 'do' veganism / vegetarianism correctly.
Think that just because you don't directly consume something does not mean you aren't ultimately responsible for it's death? Think again.

Just to complicate matters further - high welfare meat can be less carbon efficient than intensively reared meat - so for instance free range chicken has a higher carbon cost than battery farmed.

man are you my butcher??

He also sells to all of the places we eat locally which is lovely. I asked him what he ate when he went to my favourite place to eat out recently - a T bone steak which isn't on the menu but he sends them one when he knows he is going to be eating there!

There are tons of good books and recipes for vegetarians and vegans these days. I recommend Oh She Glows, Deliciously Ella and My New Roots.

Man, you are confusing intentional and accidental harm to animals when you talk about the animals in the field. Who die anyway to provide crops for feed for the animals you raise for meat. So by eating meat those insects will die anyway. I'm afraid it's not a new argument and one most veggies and vegans have heard before - inherently flawed and illogical. Sorry. Most vegans and veggies are concerned about the welfare of all animals, not just the cute fluffy ones, so it's a wee bit silly and patronising what you've said.

This will explain it for you Man www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/

Unfortunately the flip side is price, I can't afford to sell my meat at anything like supermarket price so people have to pay for quality and animal welfare. If more people were prepared to do this then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

I really don't think it's a case of whether people are prepared to do this or not. More a case that for financial reasons, many people are struggling to achieve even adequate basic nutrition in this country, at the moment. Given the opportunity, I'm sure many people would prefer to eat meat produced in the way which you describe.

Very few actually 'do' veganism / vegetarianism correctly.

Very many choose vegetarianism, rather than eat animals produced for mass slaughter, when meat produced in the way you describe is financially unviable. They would rather not eat meat at all, than support that trade. I think that's pretty commendable!

Whether they are doing it 'correctly' or not is a matter for their own conscience, according to their personal reasons for their choice.