Rollingstone Feature on Animal Cruelty in Meat Industry

[autopilot]

 

I wouldn't try to disprove that you want animals to have rights because it's obviously true.

 

And I would say there are nutritional benefits to avoiding animal products.

 

 

Good. What are they? This is the direction we should have gone a page ago.

 

And I would also say that morality is based on valuation (e.g. killing humans is wrong because we value human life) and that your dismissal of animal rights even possibly being a moral concern is silly.

 

 

Like I said previously, my viewpoint is colored by the fact that all the vegetarians I've interacted with in the past have been on a moral high horse and been obnoxious about how they're "better" than people who eat meat, so my natural response as devil's advocate is to go that far in the other direction. I apologize for my tone and for getting you riled up. I was high on internet argument. Also because I dated some of those people, there's that baggage subconsciously affecting me as well.

 

If you'd like to debate the nutritional benefits of vegetarianism, I'd love to hear it. I've been studying nutrition pretty heavily the last 3 years and have personally concluded that eating meat is the most efficient & resourceful way to get protein, as well as being delicious and able to be prepared in numerous artful & enjoyable ways. To me, though, the only real logical reason to be vegetarian or vegan, given the nutritional knowledge we now have & the access us first-worlders now regularly have to humanely raised & slaughtered meat, is "I don't like the taste/texture of meat". We can end factory farming by voting with our wallets.

 

I'm totally on-board for anti-dairy though. It's not good for you and it is cruel to hook an animal up to a perpetual tit-sucking machine. Let's be friends.

[Guest A/D]

Being alive is a violent act. It precludes other life.

 

The meat industry is the snarling teeth of our species - our collective hunter-killer module.

 

I'm complicit in it. I support it with my money.

 

I fully believe plants have emotions, and I eat them too. Someday my flesh will be eaten. It's the way of things.

 

Vegans and vegetarians are cool with me. I support that too.

[sheatheman]

I don't even need to talk about it out of moral concern for the animals, but of course it is completely sick how we value life. Of course I care about the animals, but it is much more worrying with respect to the evils our dreams, desires, and ultimate gluttony have summoned up.

 

Sure nature is brutal, but no where near as brutal as humans can be. Give me a tiger killing a baby turtle any day.

[autopilot]

Are you saying that humans aren't a part of nature?

[LimpyLoo]

Being alive is a violent act. It precludes other life.

 

The meat industry is the snarling teeth of our species - our collective hunter-killer module.

 

I'm complicit in it. I support it with my money.

 

I fully believe plants have emotions, and I eat them too. Someday my flesh will be eaten. It's the way of things.

 

Vegans and vegetarians are cool with me. I support that too.

 

Why do you always have to come into every thread and be polite and reasonable? Sheesh.

[LimpyLoo]

Are you saying that humans aren't a part of nature?

 

In a sense everything is natural. But I think the line is usually--and quite arbitrarily--drawn at culture, or even at humans themselves.

[joshuatxuk]

is anyone else here not a vegan/vegetarian but is also horrified and disgusted by the way animals are treated in factory or mass farming?

 

and in response to eugene, most animals at least in the united states are fed corn stock, which yes is technically a plant but doesn't have the amount of balanced nutrition compared to naturally grazing grass eating cows or other types of grazing animals.

 

I certainly eat less meat than usual and buy natural fed chicken when at the grocer. We rarely eat out but when travelling I do eat a fast-food establishments. To echo A/D I'm way too complacent to toot my own horn nor outraged enough to go vegan or be strict about where and what I eat.

 

I will say this, the general state of food consumption and nutritional intake (i.e. lack thereof) is dismal in the U.S. Animal cruelty in the meat industry is just one aspect. Some pockets of the country have very little options for food-wise. It's incredible how different the stocking of shelves varies between grocers of the same franchise depending on where you live. The HEB (Texas grocery chain) I go to in north Austin has like a half aisle of soda and sugary drinks. It was a full-blown aisle at a smaller store out in the ex-burb town of Elgin, just 20 or so miles away.

 

As a vegetarian, I am healthier/stronger than most meat eaters I know, though that may come from natural strength.

 

And Ha Ha! at the notion that soy farming is more detrimental than the cattle industry. Talk about ignorance. The VAST majority of soy output goes to feed cattle and other livestock to fatten them up for quick slaughter. A small portion ends up in tofurky and morningstar. And having to work harder in a plant based diet for protein is far better than eating quadruple the fat on the average meat diet. Most of my meals have zero fat. That fat I do get is from dairy, eggs, (which I pay as much as I can afford for), and avocado, plus small amounts of oil some meals.

 

The global corporations of today have worked hard over the past fifty years to convince hundreds of millions of people that they need to eat beef and chicken every single day. You see, it isn't for the nutritional benefits -- you can live off of 60g of protein a day easily, all of which can easily be gotten by mixed grains and fruits and greens -- it's about selling psychological wellness to the masses. You think you need meat because that's just what they want. Cute of you.

 

I have no problem with animal husbandry, as this was intended, but the issue is that everything is a commodity, and life should not be treated like stock. It's deeper than a moral issue, it's a spiritual one.

 

I don't have a problem with eating meat either, but we need something of the Old World model, where mostly it is each person that is responsible for her/his own animals. Less specialization will be required in the coming decades, and more self reliance.

 

I eat less meat and consume far less grocery dairy products than any other time in my life and in general I feel healthier than ever. My most hardy meals are often meat-free completely. It's amazing how cheap vegetables, fruit, and various grains are if you seek them out.

 

I hope farmer's market and more self-sufficiency on the part of individuals increases as a trend. One of my goals for next year is to expand our garden and possibly build a chicken coop for eggs.

[lumpenprol]

 

 

To further the discussion with Eugene. Animals can feel pain, yes, and cruel factory farming is terrible, and anyone who has the financial means should try to eat free range/grass fed. We're just assuming that because plants don't have localized central nervous systems that they don't want to not die, which simply isn't true. You have to kill things directly or indirectly every day to stay alive, and all the vegans/vegetarians I've interacted with have believed strongly that their preferred form of life-sustaining-death is morally superior, this thread included.

source? Plants seem impervious to pain to me. Where have we proven they unleash a subsonic timestretched scream every time a carrot gets plucked?

 

is anyone else here not a vegan/vegetarian but is also horrified and disgusted by the way animals are treated in factory or mass farming?

 

yes and it seems to be a no-brainer to treat animals you are about to eat humanely.

 

If I had the balls I'd go vegi, but I like the taste of meat a lot and also when I restrict my died I tend to get depressed; for me eating counteracts depression, which is why I'm overweight.

 

Edit: also I quite agree with Eugene's earlier post. By definition a veggie diet has to be greener/more earth conscious than eating cow, due to the (I've been told very) inefficient transfer of energy from veggies into cowmeat. Can't see how a vegetarian can consume more crops than a cow. Would be very interested to see the (pseudo?) science that autopilot seems to be accepting as gospel.

[autopilot]

 

 

 

To further the discussion with Eugene. Animals can feel pain, yes, and cruel factory farming is terrible, and anyone who has the financial means should try to eat free range/grass fed. We're just assuming that because plants don't have localized central nervous systems that they don't want to not die, which simply isn't true. You have to kill things directly or indirectly every day to stay alive, and all the vegans/vegetarians I've interacted with have believed strongly that their preferred form of life-sustaining-death is morally superior, this thread included.

source? Plants seem impervious to pain to me. Where have we proven they unleash a subsonic timestretched scream every time a carrot gets plucked?

 

is anyone else here not a vegan/vegetarian but is also horrified and disgusted by the way animals are treated in factory or mass farming?

 

yes and it seems to be a no-brainer to treat animals you are about to eat humanely.

 

If I had the balls I'd go vegi, but I like the taste of meat a lot and also when I restrict my died I tend to get depressed; for me eating counteracts depression, which is why I'm overweight.

 

Edit: also I quite agree with Eugene's earlier post. By definition a veggie diet has to be greener/more earth conscious than eating cow, due to the (I've been told very) inefficient transfer of energy from veggies into cowmeat. Can't see how a vegetarian can consume more crops than a cow. Would be very interested to see the (pseudo?) science that autopilot seems to be accepting as gospel.

 

 

Lol @ timestretched scream.

 

I didn't say that plants feel pain, I said that plants want to stay alive, which seems pretty obvious to me, otherwise they'd be dead. All non-suicidal living creatures want to stay alive. There's some more new-agey scientific research that implies that plants actually do feel pain, or at least have a rudimentary form of emotion, but as I'm trying to maintain an air of legitimacy I'm not going to rely on it to prove a point. I believe that anything that tastes good and provides nutrition is meant to be eaten, and we're just applying abstract human moral constructs we've developed in our first-world lives of privilege & ideological identification to these foodstuffs.

 

As for the energy transfer, you have to take into consideration just how much meat a single cow produces. If we're regulating our caloric intake properly, a single cow can provide enough meat to feed a family of 4 for a year. The cow can go their whole life eating from the same grass from a single pasture. This is far lest wasteful agriculturally than growing large amounts of soy to create the same quantity of meat substitute.

 

And just to be clear, I'm referring specifically to grass fed and humanely raised & slaughtered meat in my arguments, not touting the merits of factory farmed meat as some seem to have interpreted.

 

I've been into nutritional science for a minute now, and I'm not digging up old research for the sake of a messageboard argument. Nobody has provided any sources of studies countering anything I've said so I don't feel obligated to take the debate to that level just to feel validated. If you're genuinely interested in the information, you have access to the same Googles that I do. Happy hunting!

[Hugh Mughnus]

I'm not a scientemologisticsi like most of you but there are several studies showing a higher incidence of Alzheimer's, dementia, and other brain disease to deficient intake of animal products. Several, several studies. (Edit: there are also studies that show HEAVY meat eaters have an increased risk of these diseases).

 

There are also several, several studies showing that large scale farming of vegetables (specifically organic) is not sustainable. Organic farms are generally extremely over-tilled (since no pesticides are usually used) and this causes extreme soil erosion rendering the land unusable for 20+ years.

 

There are arguments in favor of eating meat and in favor of not eating meat.

 

But I often find vegetarians to hold their dietary habits above meat eaters and come off very elitist.. not sure if that's intentional...

 

I'm not sure what direction this thread is headed in really.

 

Can't we all just get along?

 

watmm pls..

[autopilot]

I'm ready to bury the hatchet.

 

 

...in a bird's neck.

 

[LimpyLoo]

I'm not sure what direction this thread is headed in really.

 

 

I'll suck your dick for $20.

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

I'm not sure what direction this thread is headed in really.

 

 

I'll suck your dick for $20.

 

 

lol $3.25 and you have a deal

[LimpyLoo]

ooh guys WATMM should have an X-rated CHATMM

[Hugh Mughnus]

ooh guys WATMM should have an X-rated CHATMM

 

password protected or invite only.

 

feasible.

[may be rude]

 

animals raised for meat also eat (plants), so theoretically getting the same amount of energy from plants can't be more detrimental to env. than getting it from cows and such who sort of act as a middle man and losing their energetic value in such scheme.

 

animal are creatures that can feel pain, they have some sort of consciousness and are capable of enjoying freedom, i don't think the same can be said for plants/trees. that's why killing them for food is immoral/inhuman.

 

'Freedom' is a human idea that you're projecting onto animals, which is based on the assumption that they can imagine anything other than the present that they are experiencing (which is a thing only humans do). Though I really appreciate that you're using phrases like 'theoretically' and 'I don't think' instead of speaking in absolutes, as well as not implying that people who eat meat are like purse thieves.

 

 

autopilot, where did you get the idea that only humans can think about moments other than the present? what about when my dog thinks we are going for a walk because i have earbuds in? what about elephants mourning their dead? what about crows using tools to retrieve other tools that they can use to attain food? what about monkeys who chose not to accept food when they learn it will cause their fellow monkey to be shocked?

 

is your idea based in some study or body of academic work?

[luke viia]

As for the energy transfer, you have to take into consideration just how much meat a single cow produces. If we're regulating our caloric intake properly, a single cow can provide enough meat to feed a family of 4 for a year. The cow can go their whole life eating from the same grass from a single pasture. This is far lest wasteful agriculturally than growing large amounts of soy to create the same quantity of meat substitute.

 

I've been into nutritional science for a minute now, and I'm not digging up old research for the sake of a messageboard argument. Nobody has provided any sources of studies countering anything I've said so I don't feel obligated to take the debate to that level just to feel validated. If you're genuinely interested in the information, you have access to the same Googles that I do. Happy hunting!

 

 

i'll bite...

 

from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment...

 

Agricultural production, including livestock production, consumes more fresh water than any other activity in the United States. Western agricultural irrigation accounts for 85% of the fresh water consumed (29). The water required to produce various foods and forage crops ranges from 500 to 2000 L of water per kilogram of crop produced. For instance, a hectare of US corn transpires more than 5 million L of water during the 3-mo growing season. If irrigation is required, more than 10 million L of water must be applied. Even with 800–1000 mm of annual rainfall in the US Corn Belt, corn usually suffers from lack of water in late July, when the corn is growing the most.

Producing 1 kg of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than producing 1 kg of grain protein (8). Livestock directly uses only 1.3% of the total water used in agriculture. However, when the water required for forage and grain production is included, the water requirements for livestock production dramatically increase. For example, producing 1 kg of fresh beef may require about 13 kg of grain and 30 kg of hay (17). This much forage and grain requires about 100 000 L of water to produce the 100 kg of hay, and 5400 L for the 4 kg of grain. On rangeland for forage production, more than 200 000 L of water are needed to produce 1 kg of beef (30). Animals vary in the amounts of water required for their production. In contrast to beef, 1 kg of broiler can be produced with about 2.3 kg of grain requiring approximately 3500 L of water.

 

Originally found in the SF Chronicle:

 

 

 

John Robbins, author of the book, "Diet for a New America," reveals some interesting statistics on America's production of animal flesh and fluid:

 

If humans switched from a meat-based diet to a plant-based one, the world's petroleum reserves would last 260 years, as opposed to 13.

 

Raising animals for food requires more than one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels in the United States. If we all adopted a vegetable- based diet, only 2 percent of raw materials would be used.

 

The creation of a single hamburger patty (often containing the flesh of up to 100 different cows) uses enough fossil fuel to power a car 20 miles and enough water for 17 warm showers.

 

More than half of the U.S. water supply goes to livestock production.

 

If water used by the meat industry were not subsidized by taxpayers, common hamburger meat would cost $35 a pound. You need 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat -- 2,500 gallons to generate a pound of meat.

 

 

and from a BEEF! article @ globalissues.org...

 

 

 

The issues here raise another perspective on things like vegetarianism, or reducing meat consumption, from practical, social, environmental and economic angles:

Vegetarianism (or a large reduction in meat consumption) indirectly would help free up land for other uses such as growing food for others to eat as well—or in the case of beef consumption, help to reduce the pressures on natural forests such as the Amazon. Vegetarianism (or a reduction of meat consumption etc) in an indirect way, could be a choice for those wishing to play a part in helping combat world hunger, environmental degradation etc.

 

(fwiw I eat meat, though somewhat sparingly)

[sheatheman]

 

 

 

 

To further the discussion with Eugene. Animals can feel pain, yes, and cruel factory farming is terrible, and anyone who has the financial means should try to eat free range/grass fed. We're just assuming that because plants don't have localized central nervous systems that they don't want to not die, which simply isn't true. You have to kill things directly or indirectly every day to stay alive, and all the vegans/vegetarians I've interacted with have believed strongly that their preferred form of life-sustaining-death is morally superior, this thread included.

source? Plants seem impervious to pain to me. Where have we proven they unleash a subsonic timestretched scream every time a carrot gets plucked?

 

is anyone else here not a vegan/vegetarian but is also horrified and disgusted by the way animals are treated in factory or mass farming?

 

yes and it seems to be a no-brainer to treat animals you are about to eat humanely.

 

If I had the balls I'd go vegi, but I like the taste of meat a lot and also when I restrict my died I tend to get depressed; for me eating counteracts depression, which is why I'm overweight.

 

Edit: also I quite agree with Eugene's earlier post. By definition a veggie diet has to be greener/more earth conscious than eating cow, due to the (I've been told very) inefficient transfer of energy from veggies into cowmeat. Can't see how a vegetarian can consume more crops than a cow. Would be very interested to see the (pseudo?) science that autopilot seems to be accepting as gospel.

 

 

As for the energy transfer, you have to take into consideration just how much meat a single cow produces. If we're regulating our caloric intake properly, a single cow can provide enough meat to feed a family of 4 for a year. The cow can go their whole life eating from the same grass from a single pasture. This is far lest wasteful agriculturally than growing large amounts of soy to create the same quantity of meat substitute.

 

For the record, as I have said earlier, I think everything should be eaten too, but it should be done so with a reverence and understanding of life, not in a frenzy to feed the mouths of people with a $20 in their hand. If we raised the meat we ate, everything would be solved.

 

Also, everything wants to survive, it's just instinct. If rabbits happily jumped into the mouths of wolves, their would be ecological collapse. But picking up a piglet and slamming it down on the ground with brutal force is not the same thing as picking an apple and slicing it. The apple may be up high, but it requires no malice to pick it. If I set you in front of a pig in an apple orchard and told you to either kill the pig with an ax or pick an apple, I expect you'd pick the apple

 

~~

 

Now. Your glaringly contradictory soy argument is going on unchecked, and it must be stopped. The meat industry relies more on soy than tofurky, morningstar and boca combined.

 

Yes, grass fed beef is awesome and delicious an 90% lean, but it takes more than twice as long to raise a cow on grass than with soy/corn/bone meal. If all cows were grass fed and healthy and treated with respect, most of us vegetarians probably wouldn't have a problem eating the occasional grass fed steak. But because so much is not, we abstain from all to send a message. Paying with our wallets as you say.

 

The problem is that we have let the distended body of rampant capitalism encroach on the sanctity of life, and a huge portion of soy crop plus over half the corn crop goes to livestock feed to so the meat can reach the diseased bowels of consumers as quickly as possible. Faster is better: that's what I'm against.

[sheatheman]

uh oh, i may have destroyed my credibility with that stray their...

[delet...]

There are more efficient animals for protein, and i'm not advocating insects that idea can get fucked, i'd rather eat fungus and beans, mostly because when people taste insects on tv they're like "oh this doesn't taste like very much", so you might as well not be eating them at all then. Rabbit, chicken, even pork, if considered instead of beef would change those stats around which are skewed greatly by beef production. Sure it's still not super efficient but if we ate less, like i already do, and more locally it would be fine. My breton grandparents used to keep rabbits for food, fed them on the leftovers from their vege patch, i don't see how you could say this effected the global oil supply one motherfucking iota. The main problem here is the ridiculous demands of an out of control increase in global population leaving us with a future with not enough arable land, so they want us to get ready for a time where we really can't eat meat any more. So put a cap on human breeding, plow over the housing developments that were built on the decent farmland that fringed the cities and get people to cultivate food in their backgarden and we've got no reason to stop eating the odd burger.

 

As to the, lets be fucking nasty to animals just because we are going to eat them and if you disagree with this you are an hypocrite whereas i'm just being realistic, schtick. Pretty disappoint at some of you.

[sheatheman]

 

As to the, lets be fucking nasty to animals just because we are going to eat them and if you disagree with this you are an hypocrite whereas i'm just being realistic, schtick. Pretty disappoint at some of you.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODvNbFOwCKo

 

Honestly I wish I was at this shoot so I could have curb stomped those little freaks. Even though we aren't gonna eat them.

[may be rude]

thanks, limpy, for the article. i had been putting off learning about this. i think i'll be able to eat my left-over chicken curry later, but while i was reading that article i was thinking i don't want the meat that was part of the creatures experiencing that suffering to be assimilated into my body.

 

this article is eye-opening regarding how fucked up human society is. yes i know nature means feeding on animals, i am ok with that. i am fine with eating an elk i kill myself. the cruelty these animals are put through is horrific... on par with the inquisition or the holocaust.

 

animals have feelings and thoughts and their own forms of intelligence. humanity has an edge with intelligence in some ways, but it's mainly our hands that allow us to make shit, and the trick of written language that we happened to pick up that led to our superiority on earth. without the tools afforded by proliferated knowledge about shit to make, does a human in the jungle have any reason to think he or she is superior to the leopards that hunt them?

 

i realize that fixing the situation means higher costs. i know that is unrealistic in this world in which, even in the developed areas of the world, most people struggle to get by. to my perspective, where that leaves us is... we should just bear in mind this terrible atrocity and let it motivate us to smooth out the wrinkles of society so that we can reach a point where it is feasible to accommodate humane treatment of livestock. with technology we have the potential for there to be plenty. the challenges facing us right now are purely pschological, idealogical, and sociological. i truly believe a utopia in which even animals have rights, whether they are eaten or not, is possible.

[autopilot]

@ luke viia - It's absolutely more efficient resource-wise to grow grain than raise meat. Those articles are correct. The problem is that grain really isn't good for you, it's just a dietary staple as a result of economic necessity for many.

 

@ sheatheman - I'm all in favor of raising/hunting our own meat. I still feel like you think I'm arguing in favor of factory farming, which I'm not. Sorry if that's how I'm coming across. I agree that fruit is meant to be eaten, that's actually it's evolutionary model (seeds are distributed through feces). I have no problem with you abstaining from eating meat, and apologize for generalizing vegetarians earlier. I have a problem with vegetarians thinking they're better than people who eat meat, since they do equally destructive things on a daily basis just by virtue of being alive (like burn oil, use electronics made with conflict minerals & slave labor, exploit wage slaves for consumer goods, etc). Abstaining to 'send a message' implies, to me, that you consider yourselves moral arbiters that have to show everyone else the proper way to be, which is hubris masquerading as enlightened morality.

 

@ delet - I think we can all agree that everything would be better if the planet had 4-6 billion less people on it. Who here is actually advocating intentionally being nasty to animals? Feeding a creature the food they instinctively like to eat their whole lives and giving them a swift instant death is hardly 'being nasty'.

[luke viia]

I am less concerned with the diet of humans than I am with the health of the planet, hope that seems reasonable!

[jules]

I love animals

 

 

they're delicious