To wonder if you know that the meat you buy could have been raised in a factory farm...

[MsWonderful]

And that the animals could also have been subjected to horrific cruelty even if the farm is Red Tractor approved?
www.daventry.radio/daventry-farm-suspended-from-red-tractor-scheme-amid-animal-welfare-concerns/

@MoiraRosesTransAtlanticDrawl

Not in East Anglia their not.

I’m in east anglia

The fields are full with cows and sheep.

Where the hell are you living?

Curiousaboutsamphire

You know exactly what I meant by that comment and the point I was trying to make
The point was we don't need to drink cows milk there are alternatives and there will be more and more alternatives as plant based diets grow
That's the point which I'm sure you are aware of

Farmers in this country ARE losing their taxpayer subsidies, by 2027, most of them voted for it whether they realised it or not
What probably ALL farmers want is a fair price for a good product.
Consumers lead the way - if more people demand organic, or free range, or home-grown vegan protein (we will have to wait for climate change to kick in a bit more to give us a UK climate suited to producing this well though, or resort to true factory farming - artificial lab-based protein manufacture) then farmers will grow it.
Contrary to what some posters on this thread think, farmers aren't farmers because they get a kick out of abusing animals. They are farmers because their families own or rent land, have done for generations, and they want to make their living from producing food for us to eat. So let's help them do that to a high standard.

40andginger do you think plant-based (oats, I'm assuming, as we can't grow much else in this country) will really replace milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt, cream?
What area of land would we need to grow oats on to satisfy UK demand?

@40andginger

Curiousaboutsamphire

You know exactly what I meant by that comment and the point I was trying to make
The point was we don't need to drink cows milk there are alternatives and there will be more and more alternatives as plant based diets grow
That's the point which I'm sure you are aware of

The problem with plant based milks is that they're mostly nutritionally shit. They're just fillers to make coffee more palatable and breakfast cereal soggy. OK there is soya milk but many people avoid soya. Commercial slmond milk is a bit of a con, as it contains very little almond, families on a tight budget certainly can't afford it and increasing almond production enough for it to become more than a niche product is a disaster waiting to happen.

Don't get me started on the abomination that is cheeze.

Curious are YOU offended by a group of people who don't want to abuse animals,? Huh? Weird!

As I said, it isn't the topic that is offensive but the tone and the attitude.. and the twisting, oh the twisting - as you did right there!

You know exactly what I meant by that comment and the point I was trying to make Yup, but I was amused by the error

I was more bemused by the continued lack of understanding how various vitamins etc are made. And the odd discussion about formula, again with a seeming lack of understanding as to how it is made and what it is made of!

And I was brought up in East Anglis, have friends and famly there still - lots fo sheep, cows and pigs free ranging!

I suspect if you expect to see intensive farming then that is all you will see!

@40andginger

Curiousaboutsamphire

You know exactly what I meant by that comment and the point I was trying to make
The point was we don't need to drink cows milk there are alternatives and there will be more and more alternatives as plant based diets grow
That's the point which I'm sure you are aware of

What plant based alternative is acceptable as a full nutritional replacement for milk?

This research is quoted by the BBC and others when comparing footprints of different types of food production - it's too lengthy for me to read & analyse on my phone but I'm sure we will all find it interesting
science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

@Scrowy

Meat that people are buying in the shops is not all from the UK. Although there is a ban on hormone treated beef in the UK, that's not always what people are buying. Much of the UK's supermarket meat is imported.

you cannot buy hormone treated beef in the UK, regardless of its origin. The imported beef is mostly imported from Ireland.

UK farms feed their livestock with grain from other countries. There is not enough land in the UK to grow all of the grain needed to feed livestock. It would require the total destruction of entire cities.

Actually UK farms feed their livestock with mostly grass and silage. We don't need to feed our livestock grains because we are capable of growing enough grass to feed them through summer and winter. I'm starting to think you are just making this stuff up off the top of your head. Did you even bother to google what cows in the uk are fed?

If you spent some time watching some of the documentaries I suggested in a preview post, they direct you to various forms of research from highly regarded and impartial sources. That's instead of the animal agriculture business and other sources who have cleverly hidden funding arrangements which disguise the true bias of information available to the general public without a great deal of digging

Follow the money. Most of the funding for the documentaries you think are so great comes from people who have an interest in selling soy/ vegan products. Not impartial. Two can play that game.

Animal agriculture is big business and farmers certainly don't want any of their taxpayer subsidies cut. Animals are raised for profit, not because farmers care for a second about their wellbeing

Apparently most farmers voted in 2016 knowing full well a Brexit vote would mean the end of subsidies...

Feel free to explain to any sheep farmer where their profit is coming from as I'm sure they would dearly love to know. Most break about even by not paying themselves a wage.

Heaven forbid some people want to promote and sell vegan products. Products which avoid killing innocent animals. What monsters

That's true. But having an Aldi at the end of your streets where you buy a chilled and prepared chicken can hardly put you in the same category as indigenous tribes.

You can't be serious?
No, it's true, buying an oven-ready chicken isn't the same as catching a wild bird in a snare or with a bow and arrow, plucking it, gutting it and then roasting it over a smoking fire, but the end of result of meat eating is identical.

If Our bodies are not designed to eat meat please explain why every single human culture that still lives at a stone age level eats meat and eggs. If we're 'not designed' for meat, why aren't these cultures - which live in a vast range of environments - shunning it? If we're 'not designed to eat meat', why all those scenes in Stone Age art of people hunting? If we're 'not designed to eat meat', why all those bones at Stone Age sites which show clear marks of butchery or have been cracked open to extract the marrow. Why the evidence that at least one culture arrived on some islands and promptly wiped out the megafauna (the Moa was exterminated in NZ)?

There's even a theory that one reason that Homo sapiens was so successful was that we ended up hunting with dogs, which made us much more efficient.

The World Health Organisation have said that processed meat (including bacon and sausages) is a carcinogen. Like, literally causes cancer.
It's a low increase in risk, and you have to eat quite a lot of it. See here

They also hunt, kill and prepare what they eat. We don't
A lot of the meat in this house comes from deer that DH shoots and that we butcher at home. Last winter I took home pheasant other people had shot (I didn't shoot myself, but I was part of the process) and breasted them out myself. Not everyone is completely disconnected from the lives and deaths and carcasses of the meat they eat.

So no not all farm practices are good in fact if these industrial sized farms are feeding the majority of the UK and not the nice small farms which we pass when driving through the countryside (which are clearly the minority)
Most sheep and most cattle in the UK are raised in pasture and (in some cases) overwintered indoors on silage.

Just because some farms treat their animals poorly doesn't mean all farms do: it would be like closing all care homes because some are terrible.

Personally I'd love to see dairy production improved & diversified - more sheep milk, goat milk, higher quality cow milk, plant juices.
In my experience in a livestock-heavy part of the country, dairy production has the biggest impact (slurry & maize), followed closely by veg (potatoes, swede, broccoli, cauli, cabbages) & daffodils. Beef & lamb barely troubles me at all. Arable production IS mostly for livestock consumption because we don't have the climate to produce much stuff good enough for milling, let alone for pasta.
Maybe we will be able to grow rice in the future, but if we really want to increase our domestic vegan production, it's going to mean soil tillage, glasshouses and poly tunnels over a lot of our countryside.

we don't have the climate to produce much stuff good enough for milling, let alone for pasta. Pasta????

Is that a benchmark for something nowadays?

We have plenty of fine quality meal for bread! Why focus on pasta?

Pickachew
The cheese is shit I can't argue with that
The milk is so processed anyway for formula that adding a few more nutrients isn't unthinkable

Ihaventgottimeforthis
Oats would be a good substitute I would imagine as we can grow them here and they are also easy to import and export being that they are ambient
I don't know how much we can grow in the UK to meet the demand but I also don't know if everyone would want to use oats there are other alternatives
Myself I like oat milk, butter substitute marg etc are usually veg oil based

So all can be grown in the UK but I don't know to what extent I don't know anything about the land quality etc

There seems to be plenty of experts on this thread tho

Oat milk has less nutritional value than animal milk and most of nutrients are added during manufacture.

Doccomplaint
Yes I know this!
but cows milk is linked to all sorts of health issues
We don't need to have alternatives for everything! I don't try n replicate steaks with vegetables or beans!
I use oat milk because I'm not keen on black coffee and because cereal is a bit dry without it
It's not a staple in my diet
The only thing you need that you can't get from plants is B12 and I actually think they have found it in particular seaweeds now!

Obviously babies can't eat all the foods that would help them grow healthy so they need it via breast milk/formula but other than breast milk it's all fortified anyway

I focused on pasta because it's a staple of diets nowadays, and an example of how we can't always produce grains suitable for human use.
If farmers could grow good milling wheat & get paid for it, I'm sure they would do that in preference over feeding it to livestock. But it many parts of the country we can't do that.
40andginger oats would be a viable crop if there was a demand for it. But it's just not suitable for so many things that cow milk is used for. Liquid milk is one small fraction of dairy consumption.

Ihaventgottimeforthis

Suitable in what way?
I'm genuinely interested and not trying to be a dick
I use it for a milk substitute my DD has used it for yoghurt I also use it in baking
And making white sauces etc
So I'm unclear on what it can't be used for that milk can? I know fake cheese is shit but butter alternatives are pretty tasty

You can’t use it for formula. Have you tasted (or smelt) a totally artificial formula?

Genuinely couldn't care less if my meat is factory farmed. I shop for price - not animal welfare.

@40andginger

I think this is where people are arguing as the red tractor scheme obviously isn't working in this case. The UK standards may be higher but its not always adhered to especially when imported meats are used because its harder to enforce the UK regulations! Mislabelled products! Horsemeat! BSE And also there are alot of industrial sized farms in the UK alot more than I thought! Especially for chicken which we all know broiler chickens lives are shit

So no not all farm practices are good in fact if these industrial sized farms are feeding the majority of the UK and not the nice small farms which we pass when driving through the countryside (which are clearly the minority) then I highly doubt the standards are anywhere as good as the local farm shop either!
I get that people enjoy eating meat and some make their living out of it that's not the issue! This post is about the welfare of the animals
There has been way too much undercover filming in these places to be one offs! There is a problem!
You can call people stupid or ignorant but unless you work for an agency who checked the standards of these places or in one of these intensive farms then you can't comment on other people's sources

Calling it vegan propaganda! That's what the dairy and meat industry has been doing for years!

Bottom line is the standards have to be adhered to and work and not fail same with anything! Because it happens in all industries of course

Small family owned farms are NOT the minority in the UK, they are the majority.

The average size of a farm in the UK is 87 hectares.

There are 212000 farms in the UK, of which around 800 are classed are intensive/mega/factory farms. The vast majority of these intensive units are pigs and poultry.

What farming looks like and how land is used is vastly different across different regions. There's a good summary here

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/866807/regionalstatistics_overview_20feb20.pdf

Regarding income/ profit from farming I suggest you see this document

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/847722/fbs-businessincome-statsnotice-21nov19.pdf

I think you would agree that farming wouldn't appear to be a way to make your millions. That also doesn't take into account the fact that most farmers don't take a proper wage from the farm. On my farm during lambing time the hours we put in for the 'wage' we pay ourselves each week amounts to us working for 22p an hour.

There you go @London1066, I got tired of waiting for you

I think the versatility of it - creams, ice cream, yoghurt, powdered for use in baking (especially manufactured products), formulas, the range of choices.
I'm sure it can be done in time, but it will be an uphill struggle to build demand I think, beyond the straight liquid use.
I'm googling now to try to find out where oatly, mlkman, provitamil (?) Etc source their raw materials, and if & why it's not grown in UK without much luck. Whether it's a sectoral issue, climate problem, supply chain challenges etc, I don't know.

stylishmummy there will always be some consumers who value price over quality & safety but hopefully you're in a minority. It's why we end up with unregulated horsemeat in lasagnas.

This is interesting about Oatly (from wikipedia) - I guess vegan doesn't automatically mean ethical!

In 2020 Oatly sold a $200-million USD stake to the Blackstone Group, which has financed companies driving extensive deforestation in the Amazon, as well as driving road development into the depths of the jungle for export of foodstuffs.