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General Random thoughts and ideas. "General" does not mean random drivel, nonsense or inane silliness. |
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#49
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Re: What's for dinner?
That article looks interesting Chimpy (and how can an article with a subheading "Broccoli, Pornography and Kant" not be brilliant?). I've saved it to read offline later.
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Edit: Faster posting and greater eloquence. That's just unfair ing dok. You should only get one or the other. |
#50
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Re: What's for dinner?
I'm not saying set bamboo slivers under their nails on fire and shout obsenities about their sexual orientation or mothers at them but one should expect cheap food to be treated in kind.
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#51
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Re: What's for dinner?
But it's not cheap food unless it's treated badly. And it shouldn't be cheap food.
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#52
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Re: What's for dinner?
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Edit: I would be very open to cheap food treated properly. I want to feed my family the best stuff I can afford. |
#53
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Re: What's for dinner?
If animals could talk, and you asked them, 'Hey would you rather not die?' They would say yes. If you asked them, 'Which food would you rather eat:
A) Something tasty and easy to catch that died in pain, causes you healthy issues, contributes to the destruction of your environment, and causes starving people on the other side of the world to starve a little bit more until they're no longer able to wage war for natural resources. B) Something tasty that took some adjusting, that didn't cause anyone pain, that didn't destroy the planet for your children, didn't contribute to the starvation of people on the other side of the planet, and ultimately causes you to think about the implications of your choices, whether they are what to buy or what to eat.' You know what the animals would say? They'd choose A. Because it's easier. Even if it killed them and their children, they'd choose A as long as they didn't see the bullet coming. Choosing B would be something that only humans could choose because we have the ability to complexly analyze the effects of our choices on our environment, our bodies, our children, and strangers on the other side of the planet. Things that SuperflyTNT and others have suggested are more responsible ways to be a meat eater. There are ways to be a better meat eater. But as we all know, that's not how 99% of meat eaters behave. They want it as cheap as possible, even if it said, 'This is poison' on the wrapper. Even if it said, 'This contributes to global warming on the scale of automobiles.' Even if the wrapper said, 'For only 25 cents more you can get a healthy version of this burger,' people would still choose the cheaper burger. And that's the only reason I've been posting is because I'm sick of people thinking that vegetarians just do it because of the animals or just do it to feel healthier. Most of them us do it because it's just an easy way to make a better choice. Vote Gulp 2012. Check out Gulp's Glyphs Not Worth Grabbing and Gulp's Abilities Not Worth Activating! Very Useful Thread: The Heroscape Library "Heroscapers.com is not a charity site for the illiterate." -Gbob
Last edited by Gulp; June 16th, 2009 at 02:24 PM. Reason: I went back to add more preach! |
#54
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Re: What's for dinner?
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Going totally vegetarian, or increasing the number of vegetarian meals you eat, is another natural step. Anyone have recipes to share in either vein? The best stuff you can afford is almost certainly not factory-farmed meat, whatever your definition of best. Quote:
I did go into town; the butcher's isn't open yet. The next-door shop reckons it'll be another couple of weeks. I also went to the library and picked up Omnivore's Dilemma as I keep seeing it cited and it's been mentioned a couple of times in this thread too. |
#55
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Re: What's for dinner?
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Just to further inflame the subject - do you see any parallel/contrast between your view on animals and your view on the morality of late-term abortions? The conditions in most slaughterhouses are pretty wretched, but there's no reason that the death of a cow need be more painful than any other death any living animal suffers. Death is inevitable for all living things; life is not. If the cows could answer the question, "would you rather exist and be slaughtered, or not exist at all?", are you sure they would pick non-existence? I'm not. Meat in moderation does not cause health issues. Heck, some traditional cultures (Mongol, Inuit, Masai, many others I'm sure) have had an almost purely carnivorous diet for centuries with little or no resultant health issues. It's the particular variant of industrially-made meat eaten in excess, in the modern diet, that causes health issues. Again, a function of our peculiar ways of raising cattle. See my previous post about carbon taxes, waste taxes, etc. I would also suggest assessing much higher property taxes (i.e. fines) based on runoff contamination, which would encourage more natural ranching practices as well as no-till agriculture. Again, just provide the economic incentives to nudge people toward behaving in a more sustainable way. Quote:
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To take it even further - animals in the wild suffer what we would consider horrible deaths all the time. Does that make their lives not worth living? Quote:
--- If your argument is that I (if I want to act in a moral way) should do something now, in stead of waiting for the world to change, then my answer is that I do, by attempting to choose sustainably raised, healthy meat whenever it is available. If your argument is that these policy changes will never happen, then my response is that a wide-scale outlaw of meat consumption isn't happening either. |
#56
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Re: What's for dinner?
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While there are sufficient calories being produced at the moment to feed the world adequately, as poorer countries aspire to the diet of the richer countries things become less clear. The world does not have the capacity for six or so billion to eat the amount of meat that is the norm in the US. A future world that more closely approximates fairness than today's involves much lower average meat consumption for us. A crucial difference between professional football, say, and food distribution is what happens if the system breaks. We need food, but we don't need football (controversial, I know). The evidence suggests to me that there is a reasonably high chance of severe energy problems in the near future. We saw high oil prices cause food problems around the world last year; there is no reason to suspect that we are immune. Building local resilient food systems should be a high priority; buying local sustainably produced food---whether meat or vegetables---directly supports this goal. This is why locality is such a high priority for me in food purchasing. Edit. Actually, to echo Gulp's argument that vegetarianism has more than one motivation, that's true for localism too---it helps economically, helps alleviate energy worries, fights global warming, often tastes better,... Quote:
Last edited by ollie; June 16th, 2009 at 05:06 PM. |
#57
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Re: What's for dinner?
DOK, apparently I didn't make it clear. I'm talking about regular old meat eating. You're talking about fancy meat eating. I'm not talking about the kind of meat eating that relatively few people do, where they buy a cow that grew old on a pasture and was smothered with a pillow while it slept.
If you're doing that, that's awesome. It's much more in the acceptable gray area than trying to argue from the point of view of someone who eats fast food a couple times a week and buys the rest of their meat products from Wal-Mart or Kroger. I understand your cognitive argument, and that's why I haven't been arguing that animals have the ability to understand their deaths. Animals have the ability to understand fear and pain. If you have two buttons in front of you, and you choose the one that causes fear and pain to an animal just because you can, then that to me is excessive and unnecessary pain. I'd rather push the other button if it's all the same or better. The starvation mainly comes as a result of global warming. We have enough land to feed everyone, but where's the money in that? Also, third world govt don't have a great record of using their land wisely, esp. when they can make some money selling corn to beef producers. I haven't made a suggestion of what should be done beyond anything at the personal level. Like global warming in general, the best option at this point might just be to pour lots more money into research so that we can do a band-aid fix. The 'if animals could talk line' was just a segue into the next line of the conversation with the animal. Obviously, if adult fetuses could talk, which they can, then they would not want to die. Any animal, human or whatever, still in the womb/egg doesn't have any idea of what wanting or having a choice would be. If you want to eat cow fetus from a mama cow that was completely happy to give you its fetus, then I will support your right to do so. However, once it's passed nature's threshold, then it no longer belongs to the cow since a surrogate mother/farmer can naturally take over. Check out Gulp's Glyphs Not Worth Grabbing and Gulp's Abilities Not Worth Activating! Very Useful Thread: The Heroscape Library "Heroscapers.com is not a charity site for the illiterate." -Gbob
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#58
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Re: What's for dinner?
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I don't think that these sustainability arguments necessarily mean I shouldn't eat meat, either from a "think globally" or an "act locally/personally" perspective. Quote:
The best steak I've had in months was bought out of a little butcher shop up in the mountains that only buys from locally ranched cattle. But I lack the chest freezer to store mass quantities, and I don't think driving 3 hours each way to buy meat is the most sustainable approach. I eat very little fast food, but I must admit this has more to do with taste and the way it makes me feel than morality or even health. Quote:
(As an aside, if I could only eat one type of meat for the rest of my life, I'd pick ostrich. Fantastic stuff.) |
#59
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Re: What's for dinner?
Well, to lighten this arguement, I'd like to ask for tips.
*Johhny walks into his kitchen. He goes to the counter, looking for a snack. On the counter he sees a basket. In the basket is the vegetables from his garden. They are small and do not taste good. He loves vegetables, and knows they taste better than that. He looks sad. Suddenly a man appears.* "What's gotcha down, Johhny?" "Well, Fred, I planted a vegetable garden back in spring, but its not doing very well. I try and be eco friendly by using a rain barrel to collect water, to water the garden, but my garden still seems to grow bad produce. The soil seems to be dead, no nutrients. What vegetables should I plant to renew the soil? In what yearly pattern should I plant them? What is the best way to irrigate them? What are some good, general tips for a vegetable garden, and how much space do I need for it?" "Well, Johnny, those are a lot of questions. Let's see what the audience has to say..." I'm a F18, bro. |
#60
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Re: What's for dinner?
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The animal rights side of this just comes from the fact that our diets are already in an abusive relationship with us, our children and our planet. Adding on top that the diet is a choice, not a necessity means to me that any other 'casualties' (pain, suffering, fear, death) is just kinda mean-spirited. I'm really not interested in speculation of what an animal would prefer. We're not doing the cows a favor by bringing them into the world. We could just as easily not bring them into the world and they would be fine and dandy with the idea. And finally, I believe strongly that ostriches are strictly for riding. Check out Gulp's Glyphs Not Worth Grabbing and Gulp's Abilities Not Worth Activating! Very Useful Thread: The Heroscape Library "Heroscapers.com is not a charity site for the illiterate." -Gbob
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