The latest from PETA ...

[bubble99]

I heard a representative from PETA this morning on 'Farming Today' on R4 (yes, I get up at stupid o'clock with DS3)....saying this. I can't do links, but if you Google 'PETA meat child abuse' it will show up.

Valid points about additives, hormones etc used in intensive farming. But this is outrageous scaremongering, IMO. And to link something as awful as child abuse to dietary choices is just wrong.

mum2monkeys, many of the people who have been farming for generations are already getting out. Emigrating or finding other ways to earn a living. Foot and Mouth and Defra's farm payments balls-up have done it for many.

My friend's family gave up their farm, which they had had for generations, just before foot and mouth (luckily). They just couldn't make it work - she was having to go out to work to fund the farm. They were living on what was left over which just wasn't enough to feed a family on.

As a vegetarian, I wish PETA would stop being so ranty and headline-chasing.

To clarify, you are edam made with non-animal rennet?
Franny, thanks

That's the one. Don't eat anything made with gelatine, either.

Good, good. Howabout E120? 'Tis crushed beetles, y'know

Just asked farmer about killing male calves.
If they are a certain breed used for milking, then they will be shot because they have little meat on them as adults and are therefore useless, as it would cost more to rear them than you would get back from them. but if they are crossed with limosin for example, they are sold for a few quid and fattened up and sold as adults as meat, so at least they have some life. The other thing to tell you is, that the governement used to give subsidies to the farmers for these male calves, but no longer do this, therefore they can be useless and that is why they are shot. Not saying its right, just what goes on in real life. I love animals very much, but I do beleive in the food chain, and as long as the animals are cared for responsably then, I think we as humans should eat meat, and that vegetarians have a total right to choose to not eat meat, just dont preach to me to stop, as its no-one elses business what I do. (not suggesting anyone on this thread has done this by the way)
but PETA doing this bloody advert really boils my blood

meat should not be cheap.

traditionally it was eaten once a week.

eating it everyday is not good for you.

eating organic humanely reared meat once a week or even twice a month should be possible for most families and is a hell of a lot healthier than eating it every day.

You can't get me on that one either my mum told me about cochineal and food colourings when I was very small (she worked for McCormick spices and later with trading standards - so we never ate mechanically recovered meat, for instance.

Not sure whether E120 is still made out of insects, though.

Well said Sophable

Same here, Soph.

And as I've already said, if PETA campaigned for ethical livestock farmimg instead of an end to all meat/milk/egg production, I would be right behind them.

me too bubble.

extremism in this arena does no good at all.

"so there won't be loads wandering around, will there? "

rabbits and rats aren't farmed and there's plenty of htem wandering around.....

Congratulations, QOQ. I've just seen that you're on the ante-natal threads.

eaten once a week or even a month????

ermm - where in the world was that then - and in what century - I suppose the cave drawings of men hunting for food were drawn because it was so incredbily rare was it.......or was it because it was normal???

thanks bubble

actually hqh....our grandparents weren't in the habit of eating meat every day. ask them. it was a treat.

well I know my Grandfather didn't have it every day but it certainly wasn't as infrequently as once a week or month!

and probably also had a LOT to do with the fact that most of our Grandparents were alive during at least one of the WWW's - and rationing!

we had it once a week when i was little and tbh my grandparents fed us as much as my parents (was an extended family circumstance). we didn't miss it, but it was lovely to have a sunday roast and then the benefits of the stock that lasted all week afterwards.

and how do you explain that 'standard' fare (fair?) in Residential Homes is "meat and 2 veg" - because that's what the eldery have always had and like to eat????

after the war innit?

and they are being fed horrible meat filled with god knows what.

i'd rather eat good mean filled with nothing but meat (iyswim) once a week then crap that they could just as well give to dogs every day.

I think the trend, ceratinly according to my mum, was for families to have meat on Sunday and the left-overs stretched into various meals during the rest of the week. So I suppose people did eat less meat in total?

yup. that is exactly what it was all about bubble.

and it wasn't full of shit meat either. things hadn't got there yet.

Just found this - about the history of the Jersey Roayl Potatoes

"IT was just a meat and two veg dinner round at farmer Hugh de la Haye's house, and it made history.

The story of the Jersey Royal potato began in 1880 when Hugh invited some friends for supper."

I always understood the 'traditional' Meat and two veg came from Victorian times????

That's the thing, soph. My mum kind of rolls her eyes at what she sees as my 'organic stuff.'

When she was young she lived in Dorset and remembers chickens wandering around farms and living a good-life. ie. ethical. I'm sure she thinks that chickens are still reared in the same way and therefore can't understand why I would want to buy organic.

I do wonder how much of the limited meat intake by our parents, and perhaps some of our Grandparents was the result of rationing - which was in place during both WW's???