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?

VeganCow

You say Vegan here and have never asked others to become - but you want to put meat beyond many people's means and force them to become at any rate veggie - or do you want milk and eggs to be far more expensive too?

You may not like modern farming methods but they have improved the standard of living by putting meat on the table of people who could not otherwise afford it. You don't want meat, fine, don't buy it, but get off the backs of people who don't share your views.

Andrew, people can afford to eat better reared meat, just eat less of it. The other days of the week, eat vegetable based meals. Meat is not a requisite part of a meal. People wont die if they eat less of it.

VwganCow

And the people who even at Iceland prices don't buy or eat much meat?

I suppose they can do without.

Do you have any notion how arrogant your last post was? You sound like the Lady of the Manor telling the Deserving Poor how to cope.

Insofar as it rests within the power of the State all food should be kept as cheap as possible (and never taxed) - including food which some prefer not to eat, or think other people should not eat. And food which may be harmful if taken to excess.

Branleuse has got it spot on.
The factory farming of many creatures has led to poor health for them and consequently for us (for example beef fed on grain is much worse for OUR health than that fed on grass). We should respect our farmed animals and ourselves by ensuring that we don't go for quality over quantity.
Personally I have noticed the difference in my own health by eating more veg, less processed meat. And, actually, it's cheaper too. Surely that's no bad thing - and we shouldn't get all uppity when people venture to suggest it may be a good thing.

...Andrewofgg, I don't think that's right.. all food should be as cheap as possible. Not if it does us harm. For example if you stuff chickens full of hormones it might might make the meat cheaper, but surely we don't want to endanger our health???

You both have valid points vegan and andrew. You can be reasonably ethical animal wise without changing your budget eg beef has a better quality of life than pig/chicken products at the bottom end of the market. And cooking a free range chicken and potatoes from scratch goes further than the same spent on Iceland breaded ones and chips.
However not everyone can actually cook. And while we eat little meat, it's a rare day we don't have cheese instead, so if we were replacing meat with cheap dairy it's ethically no different. And eating vegan for one day healthily is more expensive than a bit of ethically produced meat.
Really we need to turn it round to where housing was less expensive and food more so

Andrew I am far from arrogant. I believe all food should be cheap but not if that means animals suffer.

Squeegle I am content with e.g. banning hormones which are harmful to human health, but Vegan seems to want to make food more expensive on purpose which I consider just, plain, wrong.

YANBU for asking - the damage our meat consumption is having on the environment does call for change. There is also the ethical issue re the horrendous mistreatment of animals in some places of the world.

However YABU if you expect everyone to be on board with you or force your opinion on them.

I am a vegetarian, trying to transition to vegan (cheese and mayo, damn you...) I acknowledge this way of life is not for everyone but I do think we should all take more responsibility on try to decrease our meat consumption even if it is one day less a week.

Yes peonies the meat consumption is on its way to being nearly as bad for the environment as plant production. Good news is it's got a way to go before it's that bad.
Agree on the ethics of cheap animal produce though.

not explaining myself any more Andrew because you obviously dont understand my views

I find this whole debate fascinating.You could spend a lifetime researching all the issues.
The more I find out the more I rejig my views -I think that we need to constantly ask where our food has come from,who has profitted from it,etc etc,whether it be animal origin or otherwise.
There's so much going on to enquire about.

I cannot for the life of me fathom why people would shoot pheasants then leave them to rot,and throw them away.
Neither can I understand how it could be wrong to eat the eggs from my very spoilt free range chickens.

The op at least is asking us to question what we eat.

That can't be unreasonable.

We may not like,understand,or agree with the answers others give to our questions,but the actof thinking about what is on our plate,how it got there,and how it impacts our health and the environment must have value.

I'm a slack vegan in that I will quite happily eat eggs from chickens which are kept as domestic pets. Those are the only animal-derived products I will (knowingly) eat, as I believe that they're being well looked after and are as happy as chickens can be.

Questioning how processes work can be an interesting process in itself.

I love that term 'slack vegan'. I can't get it out of my head and next time I meet a vegan I will be wondering if they are a 'slack' one.

I'm late to the thread but I think that one way for people to address issues of intensive farming is by eating more meat. Better meat, more cuts of meat, using all of an animal. If more people were buying their meat from local producers, and buying different cuts, there would be increased demand for more 'ethical' farms.

So maybe we shouldn't be eating less meat, we should be eating different meat.

Mehitabel6 I claim the label proudly - perhaps I should make a badge with it on I also don't ask too many questions when eating at a restaurant; if the dish does not specify any meat/fish/dairy/eggs and seems unlikely to contain anyway (i.e. chips), then I assume it's ok. I also don't grill the chef over whether a separate pan of oil was used to prepare my chips so as to keep them in their virgin meatless state.

My aim is to avoid consuming (in every sense of the word) animal-derived products; as a consumer, refusing to consume is a powerful weapon. I'm not so bothered about the potential presence of traces of the things I'm avoiding in my products/food, so long as they are not a stated, intended component of the whole, but I will preferentially buy/eat things that are certified animal-free. Hopefully this will drive producers to make more stuff for me and my people. Capitalism - make it work for you!

Oh and I think seffina has a very valid point!

If you've got to eat it, at least make sure it's from happy cows. Many vegans will sputter and tell you it makes no difference at the end as the cow still dies, but I'm pretty damn sure that it makes a difference to the cow.

"If you've got to eat it, at least make sure it's from happy cows"

What is that? Seriously, has anyone here ever seen a cow? They graze (slowly). They moo (sometimes). They don't have a very rich life. If they are happy, excited, intellectually stimulated, and fulfilled, they don't show it much.

Can you tell me how I'm supposed to know that the ground meat I buy at a butcher was once the leg of a happy cow or a depressed one? What about the lamb chops we love? Was the lamb happy or sad in the five weeks it lived? I buy from a butcher that sources its meat from a good ranch nearby and really don't think it's necessary to then worry about whether the animals were terribly happy or not before they became food.

'slack vegan'

Just say you are a fussy eater and be done with it

You're not being unreasonable, but maybe people are getting their backs up a bit at the tone of your post. People don't have to become vegan. Frankly, I actively disagree there is anything wrong with eating honey. Likewise, I don't see any problem with dairy products.

People will never stop doing things they want to - even if those things are inherently selfish and are contributing to the world's demise on a global scale.

It's just a case of selfishness - people are ready to jump up at what's "owed" to them, but get very pissy when asked to make changes themselves.

It's like population control. If people were to make sensible changes now, then the whole world wouldn't need to become vegetarian. It's because virtually no-one is willing to do fuck all now, that future generations will be stuck with strict one child policies and eating insects, because by then there will be no other choice.

cote, I feel that you are deliberately misunderstanding my use of language - you seem to do this a lot,at least with me. I use the word 'happy' to indicate the level of welfare that the cow experienced prior to slaughter. There are different levels of welfare involved in animal husbandry and I believe that animals which experience higher welfare levels are indeed more likely to be 'happy'. I'm not eating them myself because I don't agree with the concept of eating animals to start with, but I realise that not everybody will agree with me on that. Therefore, a suitable compromise would be for the people who do wish to eat animals to ensure that those animals have experienced high welfare standards during their lives.

I do not believe myself to be a fussy eater. I deliberately seek out and choose to consume food which has not involved animal-derived products in its production (and also no cruelty to humans, come to that). To me, a fussy eater is someone who can't let their mashed potato touch their broccoli. I have been known to eat bits of broccoli off the floor FFS!

I'm not misunderstanding your posts, deliberately or otherwise. I am pointing out the misrepresentation going on in this debate and not just in your posts. You don't know what makes a cow happy and neither do I. We don't even know what happiness means for a cow, or if it has any consciousness of that 'happiness' as a state of being aside from very basic impulse/satisfaction routines in its little brain. Yes, I agree that we should not torture any living being and so there should be a basic level of care for animals being reared to be butchered, but there really is no pressing need to ensure the 'happiness' (whatever that may be) of a lamb in the five weeks its going to stay alive until it becomes the lamb chops on my plate.

Since you don't think animals should be eaten for any reason and under any circumstances, I don't expect you to appreciate this distinction but all this anthropomorphising going on regarding animals further down the food chain is not terribly meaningful.

"It's just a case of selfishness - people are ready to jump up at what's "owed" to them"

Yes, just like the lion is being selfish when it eats the gazelle

We are animals and we are rather high up on the food chain. That sucks for the prey, but it is no different than in the rest of the animal kingdom. It's not about "what's owed", this is not about entitlement, and it is not selfish to eat for sustenance the stuff that our bodies have evolved to eat over millennia.

Eat what you want - nobody is telling you to stop being silly with all the protein shakes, nutritional yeast etc and eat real food. It would be great if you could return the favour and stop proselytising, and if at all possible, calling the rest of us who eat as is natural, like our ancestors have all eaten names like "selfish" and "greedy".

Cote when I got my rescue chickens they were unhappy.They displayed behaviours such as feather pecking,and egg eating,and they had mites.
Free ranging them clearly made them happier.They certainly lead a better quality of life.They no longer egg eat.They no longer have mites because they have dust baths.They no longer feather peck each other to the point of bleeding and baldness through boredom.
They roam about finding tasty titbits,and stretching their wings out luxuriously while basking in the sun.

Its not rocket science .

Yeah, we're animals. That doesn't mean we have to continue to act like them. The technology that we have created allows us to choose a different route.

You're happy acting like an animal. I am not.