about vegetarians?

[iwastooearlytobeayummymummy]

Now if you a vegan, respect to you and your choice. You have obviously considered the whole food chain as it works in the UK and set out your stall.

If you don't like the taste and texture of meat, or can't afford it, well, fair enough.

If for religious reasons your diet is a manifestation of your belief, I understand.

But if you don't eat meat because you don't like the idea of eating baby animals,but you continue to use dairy products then I just need to know why? Are you ignorant or just sentimental?

I have no issue with vegetarians/vegans etc, i have an issue with manners. When people don't tell you beforehand that they can't/don't eat x,y or z. As the meal is put in front of them they announce 'oh i don't/can't eat that' so you have to run around last minute preparing something else, because the people who don't tell you are generally attention seeking prima donnas who LOVE being 'special'

rant over - sorry, feel better now :-)

During my 20 yrs of being vegetarian I always mentioned it to the host of any dinner party invite. I remember once during a dinner even politely nodding to a chat about how tasty pheasant is because I knew the person didn't mean anything by it but was just really into cooking.

Op, sorry but the tone of your question is rude, it doesn't imply you give a rats at all but that you just want to have a go at people who are vegetarian.

?It does not harm an animal if you are eating dairy produce. The only distress a milk cow would suffer is if she was not milked.?
I'd think they'd be pretty distressed when you stole their baby away from them, no?
I'd think they'd be pretty distressed when you artificially impregnate them so that they can continue to produce milk for you. That's surely not natural either, to keep them having so many calves during their lives.
I'd think they'd be pretty distressed when they have their teats yanked by machinery or human hands as opposed to the sweet gentle mouth of their calf.

?Cheese etc is a valuable source of calcium for vegetarians and is rarely produced from stomach rennet.?
It is A source of calcium, but the research I have done has lead me to believe that it's actually not the best one. Excessive amounts of animal protein (from meat, dairy, fish and eggs) in the diet can actually LEACH calcium from the bones, weakening the skeleton and leading to osteoporosis. Dairy milk also contains saturated fat. Therefore it is much healthier to obtain calcium from plant sources.

?Makes me wonder if we didn't give children meat at an early age, whether they would choose it for themselves? I don't know.?
Put an apple and a live rabbit in your toddler's crib ? which do you think they would choose to eat?

?I know about the cruelty inherent in the dairy industry but at the moment I cannot prioritise veganism as I think I'd be doing myself and my family a disservice by not balancing our diet carefully enough. But we'll see how things pan out over the next few years - I certainly wouldn't rule out veganism again.?
There's loads of information available though, it's easy to read up on what you can eat as a vegan and thrive. Here is one link: fullofbeans.no-ip.org/drupal-6.15/?q=node/66 (site is mine, and a work in progress, but that page lists all the nutritional information you need to know). Really glad to hear you are considering it.

Didn't especially want to get on the argument about vegans vs vegetarians vs omnivores, I am posting mainly to counter the ignorance from those stating you can't get a nutritionally-sound diet by being vegan. DH and I have been vegan for ten years, and are very healthy. I haven't had a cold or even a sniffle in all that time. We are neither skinny nor pale. I have a few photos up if you want to check my profile.
I know lots of vegans who are raising their children vegan, and those children are thriving. I know a couple of vegans who have been vegan from birth, and they are perfectly healthy, and both look younger than their years. I am regularly told I look about ten years younger than I am too. ALL the research I have done (and I've done a lot) has convinced me this is the healthiest diet available (obviously done properly).
The China Study by T.Colin Campbell is a good book to start with, regarding the health aspects of eating meat and dairy. It's written by a doctor, who is the son of a dairy farmer.

If I was to be worried about animal welfare I would give up dairy products rather than the meat. I buy my meat from a farm shop-I can see it running around in the fields and know that it is humanely killed.

Pleasure, rubyrubyruby!

And thanks!

But oooh, gotta love a man in a kilt!

Message withdrawn

abfab i have breast fed and had machine remove the milk for me

I prefer the pump!

Ooh give me a bit juicy steak any day of the week (with Diane sauce!)

I respect people's choice to be veggie, but doesn't mean I understand why. The only veggies I know tend to look v ill.

i love Mumsnetters

never ones to generalise

Why are some of you ganging up on the OP?
She asked a question that has been puzzling me for a while but have been too polite to ask myself.
I'm also new to MN so be gentle, first ever post.

maybe t'was her arsey up for a scrap tone.
trying too hard to be contentious

Scottishmummy, you also came across as quite scary and a bit antagonistic in this post.
I thought she asked a direct question

i thought the question sucked

Cows and chickens would eat you given half a chance. We have to eat them to keep their numbers down and crush their dreams of world domination.

LOL 5/166 posts and im scary.oh diddums.poor wee fragile op never said owt to anyone except opine about milk guzzling hypocrites

nice

scottishmummy
you still sound scary
(hiding behind the sofa now)

aye and some folk find tattie scones scary.trot on hen

next

Now I get it.

Hi,
I used to work in a lovely restaurant, on a local farm with a farm shop. During the spring, you could see the lambs in the fields from the window of the restaurant. I lost count of the people who said 'I couldn't possibly have the lamb roast, whilst watching them gambolling in the field, poor little things'! To more than one of these people, I replied 'if you didnt eat them, they wouldnt be there!' One vegetarian lady told me she thought I was being 'naive' when Im said this!
What do veggies and 'animal lovers' think would happen to all the lovely sheep, cows, pigs and chickens if they weren't eaten? We as a human race, took these animals from the wild, adapted, changed and genetically mutated them, and now many varieties would not be able to survive in the wild. If we dont eat them, these species of domestic animal would become extinct. Would a vegetarian encourage this? We changed these animals, and IMO we have a duty to keep them going. I don't like killing things, and I dont like intensive farming methods (commercial chicken and pig welfare is something I think must be adressed), but where would these animals be if we dont eat them?
To adress the subject mentioned here, of dairy calves being culled at birth, this is often because they are the wrong breed to be eaten. Commercial farming and marketing, has persuaded the public that certain standards of meat are 'perfect'. So, we use one species of cow for milk, (often fresian) but this type of cow does not provide meat 'acceptable' in colouring, fat marbling, texture, to the shopping public.
Rather than becoming vegetarian for animal welfare reasons, we as the shopping populace, need to think less about not eating the poor baby animals, and more about buying meat which is humanely reared, kept in acceptable conditions, and stop being influenced by the supermarkets as to what is acceptable.

I entirely agree jurisfictionoperative. It makes me smile to think that farmers are supposed to keep animals and pay for food and vet's bills etc and let them die of old age with a decent burial! It would be so sad to see them all disappear and just have them in farm parks like a museum. I also wonder what would happen to the sort of landscape that depends on sheep grazing-e.g. Lake District fells. I have always told my DCs right from the first animal board books and seeing them in the fields that we eat them and it has never been a problem. It has only become a problem since we have become removed from food production-people can buy a pack of sausages and 'forget' that it has anything to do with killing a pig.
I see nothing wrong if they have a happy life and are humanely killed.
Milk production is much more distressing for a cow to be separated from the calf-hearing them both crying for each other would put me off.
I agree that eating less meat would be a good idea but 'meat free Mondays' is an absolute non starter-it could only have been thought up by a vegetarian who doesn't understand that on Monday you are using up the roast from Sunday. Any other day would do, but not Monday!

bloss and NotanOtter, at least you have that choice! And at least you aren't regularly impregnated just to continue having your breasts pumped.

lovechoc, do I look ill??? Does my husband? Many omnivores look ill to me.

jurisfictionoperative, I would think if we set these animals free, some would die - that's nature, that's survival of the fittest - but some would survive, they'd adapt to their surroundings, and live much like the other wild animals, happily grazing, and doing their thing. If I were one of these animals, I'd rather not be born at all than be born to merely be slaughtered by humans, or used for my milk.

piscesmoon, err, what is humane killing? I'm afraid those words are mutually exclusive.
And no, farmers are not meant to keep these animals and pay for food and pet's bills, and get no financial gain from them - they are meant to just let them go, leave them to their own devices, and let nature take it's course.
Your argument baffles me - isn't keeping animals, paying for food and vet's bills and letting them die of old age and giving them a decent burial what a vast number of people here do for their pets? Why is a cow less worthy of such kindness than a dog?

I would guess MeatFree Monday was thought up by someone who just liked the alliteration. Fine - have SlaughterFree Saturday then, or FleshFree Friday.

"Why are some of you ganging up on the OP?
She asked a question that has been puzzling me for a while but have been too polite to ask myself."

I don't think anyone is ganging up, mercibien.

If she wanted to start a proper debate on this she could framed it like 'I don't understand why vegetarians do x but don't do y..what's up with that?', or even 'someone explain vegetarianism to me cos I just don't get it'.

But no, she made a post that was deliberately constructed to cause offence and then got the hump when pulled up on it.

In all honesty, I cannot understand what it is about vegeterianism that gets some people so riled. It's purely a matter of personal choice. You may as well launch an attack on someone for preferring wholemeal bread to white - it really is that pointless and rude.

Abfabt. How would you be able to adapt, when your coat has been modified so it doesn't fall out on it's own, it has to be sheared every year and unless you are treated with chemicals you become maggot infested and rotten. Before we domesticated chickens, they could fly and lived in trees in the jungle. Now they are virtually flightless. So if you release all the farm animals into the wild, what happens to the thousands who don't adapt. Surely they will starve or be predated, probably suffering a lingering death. I'd rather be dispatched quickly than suffer for weeks. Like I said, we should completely overhaul the food industry. But at the end of the day, there is a food chain, and cows pigs and sheep are in it. These animals don't suffer in the farming industry because they are farmed. They suffer because people demand unreasonable things. Low prices, uniformity and constant availability. I regularly have a whole pig from the freezer, from a friends small holding. It has lived outside, in the fresh air, with freedom to roam, be a pig and unlimited food. It has a good life, and tastes the better for it. I have met it, looked after it and seen to it's welfare. It is a privelege to eat an animal such as this. There is no privilege in eating something which has never seen the sun and has been pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics.

Nature is very resilient - I do believe in survival of the fittest, and that a few of these animals will carve out a life, and within a few generations, they'll be fully wild. The instinct to survive and adapt as necessary is strong.
I'd rather think I had a chance in the wild than know the mean old abattoir worker was definitely going to get me when I was very young.
Sometimes, to me, it seems worse to end the life of a happy pig such as the one you describe, than one who is probably desperate for the end.

Yes, there is a food chain. I would eat meat if my life depended on it - but it doesn't. You don't need to cause the death of an animal in order for you to thrive. You don't eat the flesh of an animal because it is necessary to your survival - you eat it because you like the taste, the convenience, the habit. There is simply no need for it whatsoever.