...to think cutting beef out of our diet is a good idea?

[KlingybunFistelvase]

And that even the most committed of meat eaters would be happy enough to cut out beef if they could eat moderate amounts of other meat?

www.collective-evolution.com/2016/08/06/leonardo-dicaprio-calls-for-a-ban-on-beef/

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars?client=safari

Roast sirloin, pink in the middle, roast potatoes cooked around it, gravy made from the stuff left over in the tin, carrot and swede mashed together with butter, salt and pepper…

Beef stew, cooked for hours, full of vegetables, with suet dumplings, and perfect crisp-skinned baked potatoes swimming with butter…

A big, juicy burger, with fries onions on top, in a crusty roll, with chips (and mayonnaise for the chips)…

Meat and potato pie with a suet crust, like my grandmother used to make, with an extra suet crust on the side if anyone wants more…

Steak and kidney pie, full of enormous chunks of ox kidney and typed with flaky pastry…

Cottage pie, with rich gravy, beautifully ridged and browned on top, served with peas…

Beef bones, split, the marrow glistening down the centre, and little triangles of toast…

How do you make a mushroom taste like a steak? You feed it to the beef cattle

Having a beefgasm here.

The vast majority of beef in the U.K will be grass fed outside most of the year May - Oct ish weather depending. A small proportion of hardy native breeds will even stay out all year round.

I don't personally know anyone anywhere near us who has an indoor beef system. Perhaps it is more common further south? The way beef is sold and marketed in the U.K (Red Tractor) encourages outdoor based systems. Farmers and the farms are assessed on a regular basis to ensure they meet certain standards to be able to sell their products.

The number includes all animals including fish and shellfish. Cattle on its own is about 2.6 million. I just googled 'how many animals are slaughtered in the uk every year'.

Slightly less than 2 million of those 1 billion animals are beef cattle though vegmum

at a guess I suspect a high proportion of that 1bn figure comes from intensively reared chicken?

Also you have to take into consideration dairy farms etc of which there are factory farms and all dairy cows that aren't producing enough milk/are too old will be sold for beef.

cross posted. 'Cattle' includes a lot of cows that aren't necessarily culled for 'beef' so those figures are probably about right.

It includes every single prawn? That's a bit of a mendacious figure then...

Then it makes sense to eat cows not prawns, think of all those individual lives saved. one cow (450 kg) vs thousands of shellfish

Why does anyone eat intensively reared chicken?
It is so unhygienic and ethicless.

Old dairy cows are generally not sold for beef. They are a waste product and might end up rendered or in dog food, but you are unlikely to find them on your plate.

If you stood a dairy cow and a beef cow next to each other you would see why.

Dairy systems are generally more intensive even in this country. That's the trade off the consumer has if they demand cheap milk.

Yes but to that one cow, it would make all the difference if you didn't eat him/her. Go vegan

*Go vegan
*
No please stop you're stressing me

Why?

"It does however take 15,000 l of water to put 1 kg of beef on the table"

You say that as if that water is rocketed out of planet Earth. It's not.

Cows are part of the cycle of water, like all living beings. Any water they eat, drink, or otherwise ingest comes out in their sweat, breath, urine or stool. Then that water evaporates > cloud > rain.

No I won't go vegan because all those artificially watered almond trees in California are as bad as intensive USA beef production.
I'll stick to demi vegetarian and keep it local.
Give me bambi and Peter rabbit a couple of times a year and I'm happy

Yes but to that one cow, it would make all the difference if you didn't eat him/her. Go vegan smile

Really? It would be then set free to frolic in the fields and live out its life till old age in perfect happiness?

Sometimes I think there's an eerie underbelly to militant vegans. Where they would rejoice if the world stopping eating meat and high fiving each other around a pile of culled, burning bodies because there isn't a market anymore.

"ethicless"

Did you mean unethical?

I thought about unethical and decided ethicless was more appropriate.

That would be nice but obviously I know it's not going to happen. I'm not a militant vegan at all. I don't even tell people I'm vegan most of the time, only if they're trying to make me eat something with animal products in it I'll make them aware.

Eating animal products the way the world is at the moment though isn't sustainable and that is a fact. It might not effect us in our lifetime but for future generations it will.

Dairy cows (the black and white ones) are basically produced to put all their energy and growth into milky udders. The rest of their bodies are highly toned skinny, bony athletic milking machines.

Beef animals come in all shapes and sizes and colours (these ones are ginger) but the ultimate aim is a fat arse with good marbling.

I could murder a steak and onion baguette right now.

I love beef. It would probably be the last meat I gave up. I'm going to an all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant today. Their beef is incredible.

I know people love their beef/meat etc and won't give it up, no harm in asking people though

Yeah because Leonard DiCaprio is a well known expert in these matters

I would love to give up all meat from an ethical point of view but I don't have the willpower. And as others have said, a good piece of beef is a wondrous thing.

Things were bad enough for the beef industry during the mad cow/CJD crisis etc so i am happy not to be responsible for more farmers losing their livelihoods