Free Range FTW!

[Salka]

I've recently been reading about the way animals are reared and killed for consumption and it's pretty upsetting. Though I've always been concious about the decisions I make regarding meat and egg purchases, reading the details of the unnecessary suffering that animals go through just to produce cheap low quality meat is really upsetting and spurred me to start a thread about it, in case some of you don't already make awesome purchasing decisions when buying your meat. Yay!

I hope you guys choose your meat/eggs/milk wisely. Please always choose free range, freedom farmed meat. If you can't afford to buy free range meat then don't buy meat at all (Dan ¬¬). It's only a few £s difference and helps to support farmers who treat their animals with respect and give them a decent life before they end up on a plate.

Lots of people don't think about what they're buying. They buy the cheapest meat available without a thought to the suffering of the animal that meat came from. Please don't support this

If you want to be especially cool and sexy and awesome, you would also ask restaurants if the meat they serve is from free range animals, and you would not buy products containing eggs that you don't know are from free range hens. I admit this may be easier for me than it is for some, as I live in Brighton where people are quite conscious about this sort of thing. But make an effort anyway plx, because that makes you super extra ultra cool.

People who buy cheap intensively farmed meat are assholes. Don't be an asshole! Buy Free Range! Think of the animals! Meat from sad animals tastes bitter and salty.

When you eat a Tesco Value Chicken Breast, what you are tasting is the taste of suffering, pain, bewilderment and anguish.

Bye!

[toblix]

We actually discussed this at work today. Maybe we're twins or something.

[Marek]

Whoa, activism.

I buy only free range eggs. I also:

- Eat less meat (Grew up eating meat at dinner 7 days a week. Now eat meat 4-5 days a week. Could easily be a bit less still.)

- Mostly eat poultry meat. Pork distant second, then beef.

- Look for nearest country of origin when buying vegetables in the supermarket. (Rarely use meat when I cook myself, but if I did would probably look for the label there also.)

I do this mostly for personal health or environmental reasons, and also to compensate for the waste incinerator I have in my kitchen.

To be honest I don't think much about the poor animals when making purchasing decisions, but if they get to spend more time flapping their wings around and shitting in more than one place before they're murdered, that's really cool and worth supporting.

[Salka]

but if they get to spend more time flapping their wings around and shitting in more than one place before they're murdered, that's really cool and worth supporting.

This is a lovely sentence.

[DanJW]

(Dan ¬¬).

WTF why did I get a namecheck? I'm the most likely person to agree with you. Maybe you are getting me confused with that guy you live with.

Also Marek makes a good point, in addition to which you should only buy fruit and vegetables that are in-season.

Now, because this thread is much too serious for Thumbs:

[syntheticgerbil]

I somehow get the idea that meat and other produce purchase decisions are easier to make in the UK, because I remember watching some BBC documentary on Youtube about how stuff from US farms has way less government regulation on what constitutes a healthy hormone or chemical used to raise and feed the animal. Also there is less checking and less general caring overall.

I noticed since this new craze almost everything I can buy at a grocery store is nearly labeled "organic" or "natural" when it's really not. Sometimes I can tell and sometimes I get super confused. Maybe if I shopped here at Whole Foods, or Central Market, but a lot of the time they carry the same items except way more expensive or they cater to the stuck up rich people who love Perrier rather than just people who want to eat healthier foods.

I hate when high fructose corn syrup is found in something supposedly natural. It's corn RIGHT?!

[Nachimir]

I'm told milk from cows that suffer and are pumped full of growth hormones also has pus in it from infected udders. Pasteurised and thus harmless, but still ¬¬

the waste incinerator I have in my kitchen.

It's an oven!

[Wrestlevania]

I'm told milk from cows that suffer and are pumped full of growth hormones also has pus in it from infected udders.

Ah, so that's what "gold top" means!

[Scrobbs]

Started doing this seriously about a few years ago - now we make the extra effort to buy stuff that's grown/raised locally, failing that at least local independant shops, supermarkets come last now. It often works out cheaper too.

The quality of the meat from the local butcher is staggering, often for only a little bit more than the supermarket, sometimes cheaper.

[SignorSuperdouche]

Free range meat tastes better but that's the only reason to buy free range for me. If you think it's ok to bash in an animals head, hack it apart and eat it for no other reason than you like the taste I don't see why it's so important to make sure it's happy and comfortable up until that point. Animals aren't people.

I'm told milk from cows that suffer and are pumped full of growth hormones also has pus in it from infected udders.

I'm pretty sure all milk is likely to have pus in it whether the cow was well treated or not.

[toblix]

I'm about to drink a fucking glass of milk motherfuckers!

[James]

I'VE HEARD IT SAID that if we were all to switch to free range everything, there wouldn't be enough space in the country (well, this one (England (where I am (I like parentheses))), anyway) to provide for us all. The solution, of course, would be to consume less animal produce. But since we're being conscientious, why not just go the whole hog and turn vegetarian? I agree that it's good to have concern for an animal's well-being, but it seems a bit peculiar to do things in half measures, and I'm not sure if you* can really be absolved from blame for being nice about all the killing you're* responsible for.

I am a meat-eater, but I tend not to think too hard about the ramifications of that, because I can't really justify it to myself to a satisfactory level, but I don't think I have the willpower or inclination to give meat up. In short, I might be kind of a bad person. But not that bad, because I don't consider animals anywhere near equal to humans. Or maybe I'm just making excuses for myself.

One appealing stance to take (particularly as an atheist) is that if the animal feels no pain and has no knowledge of its own death as it approaches or as it happens, then why does it really matter? The risk with this, of course, is that it kind of opens door to killing people willy-nilly, as long as it's done in a "humane" fashion. I can't really get down with shooting guys in the back of the head as long as they don't see it coming. You could argue that such acts are not free of consequence, because people are parts of networks and communities that would be profoundly affected by their loss. But that would make it OK to track down some homeless guy who everyone's forgotten about and shoot him in the back of the head, which is still NOT COOL. Or you could just destroy the whole world without guilt, as long as it was instantaneous. One could respond that this would be denying people their futures, but you could make the same argument about the animals, and we're back to square one. Unless you place them in a different category entirely, rather than simply at a different point on the same continuum.

Sorry, I tend to assume that the world needs to know what I think, even if it doesn't actually want to.

* Non-specific

[Marek]

It's an oven!

Oooooh so that's what it's for.

When I moved to the UK I was surprised to see so many products labeled "organic". They don't do that in Holland. Does it simply mean "not genetically modified" (because that's been a bigger controversy in the UK as far as I'm aware)?

I'd like to get food from local shops or farmer's markets but I'm too lazy, so it's supermarket for me. If I lived in the US though I would definitely make more of an effort. Corporate lobbies are out of control there and regulation is often a joke. Not saying I'd be some kind of shifty paranoid hippie about it, I mean no one died from a little high fructose corn syrup, just saying that I'd make some general consumer/lifestyle adjustments in the interest of health.

BTW I am so divorced from nature that I have no idea when most vegetables are in season or not.

[Marek]

Oh to hell with this, I'm switching to a diet of mushrooms, seaweed and algae paste. Bon apetit!

[James]

I always take "organic" to mean that the thing is made from an organism, and find the implication that all "non-organic" things are actually robotic. Look at me, I'm eating robot food. The gears and valves make it tastier.

The problem with the organic fad is that it's a label that's very easy to latch onto without actually fully understanding why it's desirable in the first place. We have this vague idea that natural things are good and that artificial things are bad, particularly if chemicals are involved. Of course, there are natural chemicals, but whatever. I guess the craze for nature is a reaction to over-emphasis on technological solutions for everything, but the black-and-white view that all things natural are good and all things artificial are bad is lazy and ridiculous. I mean, if you want to live in the woods and gather food without the use of tools, whatever, go for it, but all human society is, to a certain extent, inherently artificial. Sure, be cautious about the artificial, but don't write it off, and don't forget to be similarly cautious of the natural. Modern medicine good, diseases bad.

This clip is very briefly relevant, and interesting in a more general sense. And Screenwipe, the programme it comes from, is good.

[Nachimir]

Yeah, plenty of bad things in the woods

Organic, IIRC, usually refers to things being grown without pesticides.

[James]

Fuck organic, I want robots in my cereal.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, I think Nachimir is right. It means that the food is grown/produced to very strict out standards: No chemicals (like those nasty nitrates) or pesticides were involved at any point. Even the soil used to grow vegetables must be to a certain standard for several years before it can be used to grow certified organic vegetables.

I don't know about the US, but here in the UK it's extremely strict.

Basically: Organic food is how nature intended it to be. No modern chemicals are added at all.

[James]

I think the Soil Association grants things the label "organic" in the UK. And apparently they're very rigorous about it, too. The company I work for started selling leather goods produced by the only organic tannery (according to the UK Soil Association's definition) in the world (or so I'm told). There's only one because every stage of the process is regulated, and the end result is pretty expensive. But hey, you're safe from chemicals and robots.

[SignorSuperdouche]

My understanding was that in the UK the Soil Association does have published standards for what it defines as organic however this only applies to the Soil Association's seal of approval and not the word itself.

I'm not sure how I feel about having a legal definition for organic in this context. Obviously using the word to mislead people is bad. On the other hand if it is a legitimate usage and it's just that people are ignorant of the meaning of the word how can that be wrong? It's not their fault that people are stupid.

[James]

Yeah, I think you're right, it's probably just the seal of approval.

Remember that traffic lights thing that was in the news for a while, for how healthy stuff was or whatever? They should just extend that to a more general GOOD/BAD scale, and slap it on everything. And we should take all the GOOD things and grind them into a mush and funnel it into our mouths, and take all the BAD stuff and drop it in a volcano.

What?

[ikopi]

Great thread. Have been a vegetarian for over 12 years now. It began purely for the sakes of the animals, but over time, I began to realise it was necessary just to contribute to a healthy environment. I also try to eat as much locally grown food to cut back on transportation.

It is a bit more expensive than just eating all the cheapest products, so I understand not everybody can do this every day, but it would help if everybody knew where the food sitting on their platter came from.

[Scrobbs]

I went down Leeds markets one day, and in common with most markets, there was one row that was filled with butchers. I asked about 5 of the different shops if they knew the farm the food came form or the abbatoir. If I remember correctly only 2 knew which abbatoir they came from, let alone the farm.

[DanJW]

One point to take into consideration with animal rearing, is that those species would probably be extinct if we didn't eat them. Things like sheep, cows, even chickens, would have gone the way of the European bear, beaver, or sloth wolf.

Secondly, remember that animals in the wild also suffer and die. More so than domestic animals. Quality of life for domestic livestock has the potential to much, much better than their equivalent in the wild.

The reason we should care about animal quality of life while simultaneously eating them is; (a) because we can perceive and empathize with the suffering of other creatures and ( because we can. Other than that it is just a choice. In the end a lot of ethics comes down to just having to choose one or the other.

AS for the natural/organic thing, yeah that field (!) is filled with a lot of bullshit, which muddies the water of what is actually trying to be achieved.

For instance, an organic solution to pests is 'biological control', such as introducing natural predators. Unfortunately introducing a non-native species can have terrible results (such as rabbits and cats in Australia and New Zealand).

If you introduced a non-native carnivorous insect into your field in the hope that it would eat the pest insects, chances are it would also it every other insect in the area and then keep spreading. At the extreme end this could wipe out pollinating insects like bees and all the flowering plants in your region would die off. So 'organic' can be devastating if not applied with proper knowledge.

Also note that 'Natural' is not a term used much in natural science. The common meaning of the word is normally replaced with 'wild'.

[James]

One point to take into consideration with animal rearing, is that those species would probably be extinct if we didn't eat them. Things like sheep, cows, even chickens, would have gone the way of the European bear, beaver, or sloth wolf.

Oh, this reminds me of something I forgot to include in my first post: If you are considering the potential life you are denying an animal when you kill it, you also have to consider all other potentials which you are denying by your action or inaction. So if you're not reproducing like a rabbit, you're denying numerous potential humans life. You could say that their quality of life wouldn't be very good, but if that's good enough reason to deny them life, you're basically saying that people with poor quality of life would be better-off dead.

In short, when you think about stuff too much it all turns to absurd bullshit.

You can, of course, draw a distinction between the consequences of your action and the consequences of your inaction, but I think it's an interesting consideration, nonetheless.

Secondly, remember that animals in the wild also suffer and die. More so than domestic animals. Quality of life for domestic livestock has the potential to much, much better than their equivalent in the wild.

If you want to be particularly cynical, you could say that vegetarians are more concerned with keeping their own hands philosophically clean than with the plight of animals. That, of course, would be both unkind and unfair. I guess it's an example of humanity's propensity for sentimentality. We care about things within a particular context, but put other contexts out of our mind. To a certain extent, this is inevitable. The universe has no inclination towards fairness, and allowing ourselves to become concerned with everything that's wrong would probably reduce us to sobbing wrecks.

Returning to the fondness for "nature" that we have, the harshness of life in the wild can be reconciled with vegetarianism by defining the goal as being to make minimal impact on the "natural order of things". Of course, the natural order of things is for humans to eat meat, but whatever.

I've thought on occasion about whether a world without carnivores or omnivores would be morally preferable. Not that you can hold animals morally responsible for their actions, but if we were able to choose between that and what we have now, would it be the right choice? Would it even be possible? I don't see why not, other than having to somehow prevent carnivores emerging through evolution.