To believe that eating meat should be illegal?

[BySpoonyBlueScroller]

The environmental damage and animal cruelty outweighs the cultural or personal benefits. AIBU to think it’s time to outlaw meat production?

Awa bile yer heid min.

If you can’t afford to eat ethically sourced meat with higher welfare conditions then the answer is simply to eat less meat, not continue to support the mass suffering of millions of animals caught up in unethical and cruel mass production farming.

The truth is people eat far too much meat, more than they need and more than is good for them. If increasing welfare standards drives a cost increase then a corresponding reduction in consumption can only be a good thing. For our health as much as anything else.

They obviously want others to write their dissertation!

What a ludicrous post!

@BySpoonyBlueScroller If the world decided to become vegetarian tomorrow all the farm animals would be killed, they take up a lot of land and resources and cause many environmental issues, such as methane production. It is so nieve to think if we stopped eating meat we would just let the animals go free. We would kill them and build houses on the farm land.

I wish we could eliminate dairy farming. Before anyone asks, yes I do eat dairy products, but I wish I didn't and I wish nobody did. Eliminating dairy farming would stop us!

I also wish we could change the mindset that meat should be cheap. It is impossible to produce meat that is both ethical and cheap.

For some people that isn't enough. There are plenty of articles about people returning to meat after years of veganism and doctors unable to help with their ill health. If only it was as simple as a tablet.

No, they'd just eat the ultra-processed crap, because a lot of people are really busy and/or don't have the time/inclination to cook everything from scratch, let alone go out and catch it themselves. Plus if you live in urban areas, which most of us do, you'd be restricted to catching rats or foxes. Yummy.

I am vegetarian and I think YABU. We are omnivores and are meant to eat meat. I don’t because I don’t like the thought of eating a dead body but my health isn’t as good as it could be as I miss out on certain nutrients. I wish I could eat meat but I just can’t do it.

There’s a lot wrong with the world that can be fixed by people being less greedy and wanting stuff so much but since the beginning of time humans have eaten meat. If they didn’t then we wouldn’t have survived as a species.

This always produces such a defensive reaction. I really think it's one of the things that will massively change, ethically. Perhaps not in our generation but certainly in the future.

The cognitive dissonance required in enjoying the bodies of sentient beings is gradually, very gradually crumbling.

That's all still saying one thing; meat for the rich, none for the poor. If that's your stance at least be honest about it.

Don't pull the environmental card. It's simply not true if you want to convert the whole world, but not then force them to eat locally sourced, seasonal food.

In fact the best impact we could have would be to return to village style sharing of produce including locally sourced meat and veg.

But anyone looking to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet for environmental reasons may also want to consider whether there are some plant-based foods that also come with a heavy price.
“Nothing really compares to beef, lamb, pork, and dairy – these products are in a league of their own in the level of damage they typically do to the environment, on almost every environmental issue we track,” says Joseph Poore, a researcher at the University of Oxford who studies the environmental impacts of food. “But it’s essential to be mindful about everything we consume: air-transported fruit and veg can create more greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram than poultry meat, for example."

I am a veggie of 30 years now - however ethical approaches require wide agreement- eg we widely agree on ethical and moral stances on rape, murder, child abuse and other crimes but I do not think you would get the consensus for what is a wide impact change on an ethical basis - this would impact huge parts of people's lives and health (people are very linked to their diets on many levels including emotional) and there are also huge industrial changes- whole industries and therefore people's livelihoods impacted- and possibly beyond what you can imagine where other industries rely on animal products. And it would require a huge cultural shift.

And people do not all view animals in the same way - so you would be unlikely to reach consensus on the ethical point at all.

You definitely would not get global consensus at all.

I get a fresh mixed random delivery from a local supplier every week. I do top up at the supermarket, and will also buy soya milk, pasta, bread etc, but we do it very wholesomely, as much as possible, with the odd treat night out to Wagas or Express, but definitely trying hard to do the right thing. And sure, the occasional sweet treat like chocolate and Easter Eggs when in season. Not big on avocados in this house, not almond milk (actually don't like it at all). If everyone gave up meat and dairy, we'd have better supplies of alternatives. A farm near where we used to live grew all sorts of exotic produce in large clever modified glasshouses - it was truly amazing what they could grow.

Can be a bit dry at times but nothing a decent sauce can't fix. I'm also sure I'm unusually aggressive these days on account of the odd stray fragment of shot. I consider this a good thing.

This, absolutely.

Well it is great you can all manage to eat a wide variety of foods with no need to source vitamins and nutrients from non food sources not everyone can

I bet you're fun at parties.

Nonsense.

There is protein in legumes, cereals, grains. seitan, and tofu.

I think the lack of variation in the diet puts a lot of people off.

That's a misconception.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/budget-vegan-recipes

I would gladly serve time if it was a result of being caught eating illegal bacon butties.

Would cows, sheep and pigs really just exist in the wild if nobody owned them?

They're not a lot of use to humans if we can't eat them or their products; probably not that attractive as pets either. With no human interest or input, sheep would go unshorn, any disease would go unmonitored, animal mothers would be left to their own devices, unaided, when giving birth - and so may well die painfully and traumatically if there are any complications.

They would obviously need to find food for themselves, which I'm sure they could; but they may then just become useless competitors to humans for the crops - so even if we can't eat them, we still may well kill them (deliberately or accidentally) to prioritise those crops for us, just like we do now with fieldmice and combine harvesters.

As a farmer, this type of thinking drives me insane.

The answer is not no meat, the answer is meat that is carefully and thoughtfully produced in a manner that is both good for the environment and for the animals we look after.

we own a very small farm. This has been returned to the farming practices used in the days before intensive farming. we did it as there's no way to make this place pay buying feed and fertilisers and using a tractor a lot. we send our meat to the very discerning who are prepared to pay and who are very fussy about where it comes from.

so my fields are now meadows, which is a 'seral' environment and requires animals grazing it to continue to survive. Since the 2nd world war we have lost 97% of meadows in the UK and the impact that thats had on the insect populations and then birds and bats is just awful. this summer 11 species of bats were 'heard' here.

so please stop saying that what we do is the same as the meat bought in supermarkets. 100% grass fed beef is a very different proposition than supermarket grass fed.

I run a closed herd and use an abattoir within 15 minutes. normally this is their first and only journey.

tell me I should lose my income.

by the way my fields are not suitable for arable. not all fields are created equal.

I agree. My children have many vegetarian friends, and a handful of vegan ones - it shows that times really are changing.

Where are daisy and Larry going to get their food from without the farmer facilitating it? I mean Jesus sheep are constantly trying to get themselves killed and that’s with a lot of looking after. There would be piles of dead sheep everywhere. I don’t think k they actually know they are farm animals!

Why do we need global consensus?