If another child told yours about meat and the meat industry

[SkyWalker95]

I saw a post on FB today of a mother having a full blown melt down over the fact another child had explained to their 5 year olds that the cows they see in the field are killed, drained, and butchered, and thats what was in his sandwich. Therefore her child no longer wanted to eat it. She was talking like it was such an outrageous thing to tell him and that somehow the other kids was wrong to tell him. And shockingly all the comments where in agreement with her. This can't be a normal reaction surely?

Oh well, if said child asked for further details then fair enough. Is the child's mum a veggie/vegan? Seems like they're often keen to over-explain whereas meat eating families feel "meat is a dead animal" enough of an explanation.

"Stressed mammals don't give milk' - bollocks, I was really stressed out with DS2 and bf fed him for months.

I'm no veggie but the meat and dairy is cruel.

I reckon don't sugar coat it. I'm honest to my children about meat etc

We live in the country and regularly shop in butcher's etc and eat whole fish so I thought my kids were pretty clued up, however my dd accidentally saw a butcher sawing off a pigs head age 5. It's put her off meat and we have had to have a lot of chats. I'd rather they knew though as I think being a conscious carnivore is the only acceptable way of consuming meat.

You mean people like, oh farmers and butchers say. Well, I guess you move in different circles to me then.
I would say the evidence goes fairly close to 100% against that opinion. People who really know where their food is from are very happy to eat it.

"Why do we eat animals, Mummy": Because they're so tasty, also we can digest meat.
"Why do we eat chicken, Mummy?" Because otherwise the fox would. If we were herbivores then our teeth would be different and our bodies wouldn't make the enzymes to digest it.
"This fish didn't want to die for us, Mummy": I don't think fish are very good at thinking, but it's tasty and we can be appreciative of the food we have.

When my friend went vegan after watching the sad cows. " X, not only have I milked cows for money, I've breastfed my kids- stressed mammals don't give milk."

I love that almost all of the 'evidence' you use to refute opinion is basically opinion!

Yes humans can digest some meat but we can't survive on meat alone. Meat-only diets can cause protein poisoning, we can survive on vegetarian-only diets, but meat alone can kill us - we're not that adapted to it.

Grizzly bear diets are about 70-90% vegetable, pandas almost 100% - they definitely have carnivore dentition. Humans have nowhere close to true carnivore dentition (see all those flat grinding molars you have, and the lack of carnassial teeth) so you tooth example is basically bollocks. At best we have poor omnivore teeth.

"I don't think fish are very good at thinking" - so that would be your opinion then? Based on...?

Dairy cows have been highly selectively bred for high yields and will produce way way above natural milk yields even when stressed. Though their yields do improve when unstressed, to say they don't produce when stressed is hugely flawed - have you done any reading on the stresss response to maternal separation in cattle. No thought not.

To me it sounds like you're pretty deluded about human biology and also where your food comes from. So you pretty much proved the PP's point!

VulvaHeadMistress. Sorry to disappoint you but I am ridiculously well acquainted with farming life and know field to plate and the dairy industry inside out.
Aye, go on, show me your leopard like canines! Thought not.
There's nothing high welfare about killing something that doesn't want to die.
Oh, and I could recommend a good coup to protect your chickens from the foxes. What kind do you have?

I grew up on a farm too but that's not the same as a slaughter house at all.

Madness not to say meat comes from animals, fair enough details of slaughter don't need to be discussed but if you eat it you should know what animal makes it, my sons second favourite animal is a pig as he loves ham and sausages lol, his first favourite is a Panda, we're not sure what they taste like but have pondered if they are a bit like beef x

Are you Michael Gove, Vulva? He's a bit of a fanny about the farming industry too.

It isn't all that long ago (in the U.K.) that if people wanted to eat meat they had to wring the chickens neck themselves... and guess what. They did, because they wanted to, and they knew it tasted good and that meat protein can be part of a healthy diet.

That is true and a fair enough point. But not really relevant to what you said earlier. No i don't award myself a morality bonus for being vegetarian - I do however believe that sneering at your vegan 'friend' and making get up 'evidence' to mislead your son, is fairly morally dubious. I've worked in slaughter houses and killed animals myself. I am aware of the realities of death, which is perhaps why I choose not to financially support it.

As PP have suggested I think that if you choose to eat meat it's important to be honest about the reality of that choice. Not make up false justifications to placate your child when he asks reasonable questions.

Sounds like your friend's 5 year old's friend (is that right?) is well informed and articulate, and I applaud their parent(s) for their honesty in not sugar coating the world for them. If children are aware of these basic facts from the get-go, then there doesn't need to be a dramatic reveal later on. Just like information about sex etc - if children know basic facts as a matter of course then there's no need for the drama of having 'the talk' at some point.

The question of whether "killing, draining (impressively accurately described!) and butchering (as in processing from carcass into cuts of meat) is too much info - well, it's all true. Would those who feel it's unnecessary, also feel it was unnecessary for a child to know that bread not only comes from wheat, but that wheat is harvested, milled into flour, mixed with other ingredients and then baked to make bread? It's just about how food is transformed from its raw state to the packets we see on the supermarket shelf. If people feel uncomfortable about the details of how meat ends up in packets in Tesco, then they need to be examining their own ethical choices in my opinion. Because their dietary choices necessitate those things happening, so they should be able to accept that and not just pretend it doesn't happen. If you can't accept it, you don't have to eat animal products.

And FFS eating meat is not like bloody Santa. One is a daily fact of life. The other is a fairy story.

By the time I was 5 I'd already gone hunting and fishing countless times with my dad and seen animals killed and on our plate later. I knew where food came from. Also lived on a farm so I'd seen the life cycle.

It's a part of life. Nothing to be precious about. Don't like it? Be vegetarian. I am l!

Exactly, if he had explained bread she wouldn't have batted an eyelid. It's a ridiculous double standard

It's a mother who doesn't want to parent. Parenthood is not just taking kids to the park and singing happy songs. It's also explaining awkward stuff.

And ranting against another child is just pathetic.

Ha ha! Wait till they've been a few years through school and other kids tell them all sorts of things that they come home and ask you to explain!

At end of the day why hide a basic truth from a child. DD grew up knowing meat was animals and she just accepted that. No biggie.

DD responded to one friend criticising her meat-based tea with 'but it's so tasty'! The friend no longer claims to be veggie because she has always eats fish. As a PP said, this type of unnecessarily detailed explanation usually comes from the parent

There are a couple of vegetarians in my DD's class at school and a lot of the children take a non-gelatine sweet in for them now when it's birthday treat time which I think is nice.

Children are all going to find out at some point that little Larry lamb in the fields running around is going to be eaten, so as long as what the child said was factual I don't see what the parent is moaning about.

Some parents though do lie to the children about this stuff, just why. If your eating meat and are comfortable with doing so it shouldn't be an issue should it really

And this is why we've already explained how the meat industry works to our DC; so it can't be sprung upon them at an inopportune moment.

Small Son has a rather self-restricted diet as it is, and I have neither the time nor the energy to argue with him at every meal about why his new vegetarian diet isn't providing enough protein.

When he's older (with a better developed palate) , I hope that he can make an informed choice over vegetarianism. Now is not that time.

Mind you, he was the child who dropped the Father Christmas bomb at his nursery...

Mind you, he was the child who dropped the Father Christmas bomb at his nursery...

Similar to the dairy farm next to ours, Vulva. The male calves still go bye-byes pretty pronto.

Gerda I'm not sure what you mean not enough protein. You can only get protein deficient if you're calorie deficit. Your statement confused me?

I first took mine fishing aged 2 or 3; they knew that we have relatives who hunt for food and breed animals for food (to perfectly acceptable welfare standards). We have a diet that is relatively low in meat and are fussy about what and where we buy, but I certainly wouldn't have a problem with wringing the neck of a chicken; I don't have a problem with breaking the neck of a mackerel.

I'm surprised that a 5 year old wouldn't know that tbh. (not necessarily hanging the meat and draining the blood bit but the rest is common knowledge surely?)

One of my 3 keep ds didn't eat any meat products for a year when he found out what happens. He was age 3 and had seen fish in the supermarket so wasn't shocked by that but didn't want to eat meat products because they came from animals that used to be alive and he thought that was gross.