To ask everyone to eat less meat and meat products?

[Breadandwine]

There are 3 reasons I eat a plant-exclusive diet:

1. I feel I'm healthier (I became veggie to avoid BSE - and my osteoarthritis has been stopped in its tracks since I went vegan)
2. Animal welfare issues (I went vegan after looking at the inevitable cruelty involved in the meat and dairy industries)
3. Global warming/climate change (the single most important thing anyone can do to fight GW is to go vegan - the world's livestock industry contributes more to GW than does transport!)

Before global warming reared its ugly head, I was quite reticent about my veganism, only talking about it when I was asked. But now that our children's and our grandchildren's future is threatened, I'm a lot more vocal.

And now there's me and the Pope on the same side - who'dda thunk it?

Because favourite you suggested they could be returned to the wild. Or did you mean the 'wild' cows pigs and chickens would just freely roam rhrough residential streets and City centres in urban areas and in the countryside trampling your precious crops and causing ecological nightmares even in non farmed areas? Infact as you don't appear to have replied outlining how you would overcome the many issues that have been explained in your 'plan' I'd love an explanation of how you plan to implement the scheme.

No, I didn't say that. I said farms would be scaled back and there would be fewer animals in the system. I didn't imagaine that the animals currently living on farms would be returned to the wild. I did say that cows, chickens etc. would not become exinct just because we do not farm and eat them. They can indeed live wild, though, as you say, they may not be the same breeds as we see on farms, and they may not exist in large numbers or even in the UK at all.

There is no need for any scheme when you work with nature. Do you think the current 'scheme' for feeding the population with animal products is working well?

Permaculture systems thrive all over the world and are very productive. It's not so unimaginable. All these arguments about why we must eat animals so that they don't become exinct or rampage the countryside are not logical.

favourite in your post of 1405 you stated 'cows pigs and chickens can live wild' so you did indeed say that.
You are very uneducated on the subject of nature if you think we don't need to implement schemes when working with it. We've spent thousands of years fucking up nature and changing the ecological balance that it doesn't work anymore without help. You hardly need to study swathes of scientific research to realise for even the most basic balance in nature humans are the most numerous and powerful predator. Even on African game reserves let alone somewhere like the UK. Why do you think Wolves are getting reintroduced if nature is already so wonderfully balanced when left alone?
As I said earlier I think we should go back to eating less animal products and of a lower quality, producing it in places suited and in a humane way. I don't think the current scheme works well at all and nowhere have I said such, but it works a lot better than the loopy schemes available on this thread promoted by people with no understanding of what they are talking about. I get that you have noble ideas and a strong belief as do others but nobody will take your point seriously if you don't even have a laymans knowledge of what you're talking about.

I can't even start to answer that one favouritewasteoftime - words fail me!

Just one point. Do you realise that we have thousands of foxes? They don't just kill to eat they kill anything and have chickens if the are not locked up at night. Do you really want your children walking down the road and seeing a chicken massacre?
A farm has to be productive- there are huge overheads. A farmer can't afford a milking parlour, feed and vets bills for a few cows. Fine for the hobby farmer or someone trying to be self sufficient.

I will ask again - what are pets going to eat?

Maybe pets will eat the wild cows? I can just see a pack of Lhasa apsos bringing down a jersey cow as nature intended.
Or now we're apparently not omnivores and able to survive on locally produced crops that require no machinery or input maybe pets have also become so? Or perhaps we'll see groups of kittens feasting on road kill pig

I would actually secretly love to be vegan. My favourite foods are grain and veg based anyway. I went dairy free when bfeeding ds1 and found cheese the hardest to do without, but once I'd cut it out I soon stopped wanting it, oddly.
What's stopping me? I'm ashamed to say it's social pressure. Dh wouldn't like it. My dps would be outraged. I'd spending life explaining what I could and couldn't eat. And then there's the dc. Currently baby and toddler age. It just seems much easier to feed them the high fat high calorie healthy diet they need right now using dairy - yoghurts cheese etc. and when they're older I don't want them to be the odd ones out at parties, hard to cater for etc.
BUT Dh and I do eat a mainly veggie diet. We might have a bit of bacon or chorizo in a veggie pasta bake or some bolognaise say twice a week? The rest of the time is veggie (maybe the odd bit of fish). We definitely don't eat a lot of meat cos I don't like it, and don't like preparing it.
It's dairy that makes me feel the most guilty - having breastfed two babies of my own the thought of the cow crying for her baby when it's taken away at birth is simply horrible. Possibly when my children are older and I have the confidence to resist pressure from others I will go vegan...

I'm not crazy about the idea of pets, actually (where's that unpopular views thread gone again?!), from an ethical standpoint - but I realise pretty much no-one in the world shares my viewpoint!

Yes, I did say they can live wild because they can - not the very creatures who are currently living in farms, but the species in general - cows will not become extinct because we don't eat them.

I suppose pets will carry on eating Whiskers - there's barely any meat in it anyway.

Permaculture methods can work on a large scale, and they can be adapted or partially implemented. Yes, permaculture is a scheme too and needs to be planned, I accept that, but it's far more self-sustaining than the current system where we fight against nature rather than work with it.

Carrying on as we are isn't an option - we need to explore alternatives rather than poke fun at them.

Favourite - I can understand your point of view, but some of your arguments are flawed.

If cows are not reared to be eaten - (but not only eaten, as by-products are obtained from cattle: milk, leather, etc, a question I asked you earlier, but you didn't reply) - what do you think will happen to them? Will they only become pets? Or will they breed prolifically in the wild, and then rampage around the countryside? They will begin to be a nuisance to the general public, if not properly managed, and will be slaughtered needlessly. I can't see any sense in that, quite frankly.

Naturally, if we neither eat them nor use them for by-products, then the natural course of events will be for them to become extinct. Or am I missing something??

And where do you think "Whiskas" comes from? It is predominantly meat, cats and dogs are carnivores, ergo - they eat meat. All part of the food chain, circle of life.

YANBU
Can't think of one good reason that trumps the killing of anything. Pigs in cages,calfs torn away from their mothers, male chicks thrown live into blenders and chickens hung upside down by their feet on conveyor belts while moving towards a giant rotating blade to be beheaded (still alive).
Nope,yanbu.

For Those Who Believe Eating Meat Is Unnatural

Meat has always been in our diet but the quantity and type has varied enormously over the ages.

The most sustainable way of eating meat and to be honest shopping has been lost and I'm certain the feasibility of reinstating it would be logistically impossible.

There is no right answer on this debate but for our health it's been shown that eating no more than 6oz of meat a week is no more harmful than vegetarianism and better for us then veganism.

Also the long term health benefits of modern veganism have not been studied, neither have the risk factors.

So I feel YABU we should eat with mindfulness and care and I feel that is all we can do. Anthropomorphising animals benefits nobody but caring for them and treating them with respect is the least we can do if we are going to eat them.

Plus veganism is expensive and not easy with children it's a modern diet full of foods additives that are relatively new and unknown, unless of course you only eat whole foods.

Go and research what happened when horses were replaced by tractors in farming. And the fact some breeds almost did die out, despite the fact unlike farmed animals the same types of horses were also employed on a smaller scale elsewhere. And bear in mind when you do, that there are far more horse lovers around and far more money in the horse world than say compared to those into chickens or pigs or cows.
We may well need to explore alternatives, but offering veganism isn't a remotely sensible one even if people were willing to. And I'm sorry if you see stating facts and an educated reason why not as 'poking fun'. Perhaps though if you researched what you were talking about first your opinions might hold some credence and be of use, rather than being amusing in their ignorance.

Oh! Good Grief!!
HayDay - Not one single person on here has said they would agree with that particular treatment of an animal. For goodness' sake - melodramatic or what?

Evens Unfortunately that in the cold hard truth of where our meat comes from. How am i melodramatic. By pointing it out?

Sorry, evans, I missed your question before.

There are wild cows in Saudi - as far as I know they don't disturb anybody and stay away from urban areas. India has feral cows which do roam the streets in a way that wouldn't be acceptable here. I suppose in the UK some cows might be kept in small heritage herds, or there may be some feral herds. Or we may end up with none at all. I think that would be preferable to preserving them just to torture them.

I do have leather shoes and wool clothes because I haven't always been vegan and think it's better to use what has already been made rather than thrown those items away. But yes, it's almost impossible to make a good choice for the planet. There's no perfect option.

"Carrying on as we are isn't an option"

Really? Omnivorism has worked rather well for the human species for millennia.

You can say what you like but human biology disagrees with you - We have evolved to eat, digest, and hugely benefit from animal protein as well as fruits, nuts, etc.

Most commercial cat food is only 4% or so meat.
Cats are obligate carnivores so what can a good pet owner do but feed them the food that sustains them? Humans don't have to eat meat and can make an informed choice not to.

"Those Who Believe Eating Meat Is Unnatural"

Surely nobody believes that. What do they think our ancestors ate before 12000 BC?

hayday isn't being melodramatic (though I'm not sure about the chicks and the blender) Animals are treated horribly on farms.

Anyway, this is a good explanation of permaculture for those who are not aware of the principles. m.youtube.com/watch?v=qVBYgg013KM

"Cats are obligate carnivores so what can a good pet owner do but feed them the food that sustains them?"

Never had a cat then? Mine ate whatever I did, which could be pasta, cheese, bread in sauce, and of course meatballs, chicken etc. He loved pistachios.

"Humans don't have to eat meat"

Well, we don't have to, but our bodies are made to and they benefit hugely from it, so the rational thing to do would be to eat it rather than sprinkle smoothies with protein powder, nutritional yeast, or whatever "wellness" advocates advocate at the moment in place of real food.

CoteDAzur omnivorism may have worked well for the human species but it hasn't worked out so well for the planet in general, has it?

Hay day isn't being ott about intensive farming, although I believe with male chicks they are dead first (although I don't actually have any firsthand or relevant experience to debate whether it still ends up that some are still alive). Chickens in theory are meant to be dead by being hung and beheaded but the system does have errors so that's not always the case. However as nobody to my knowledge was debating the humanity of intensive farming it was melodramatic to bring it up.