Vegetarian's guide to talking to carnivores

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by James R, Aug 29, 2011.

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  1. Anti-Flag

    Anti-Flag Pun intended Registered Senior Member

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    I like you. When we run out of other meats your death shall be quick and painless.

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    Anti-Flag, Sep 7, 2011
    #121

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  3. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    James have you every herd of salt bush lamb?

    Do you know why its called that?

    Salt bush lamb is lamb that is raised on the salt bush and other plants which grow near the ocean. You litterally cant grow crops there, simply wont work. To strong winds, to much salt in the air and the ground.
     
    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #122

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  5. Orleander

    Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    so its already pre-seasoned?
     
    Orleander, Sep 7, 2011
    #123

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  7. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #124
  8. quadraphonics

    quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    See also: goats.

    A lot of places in the USA, herds of goats are used to replace landscaping crews. Instead of paying illegal immigrants to push around gas-burning lawnmowers and edgers and so on, the local 4H (kinda like Boy Scouts for animal husbandry) brings a herd of goats around once a week, and they eat up all the underbrush and weeds. After a few years, when they're mature, they're sold off for food, the proceeds are used for 4H activities, and the cycles repeats. Note that there is no real "land use" impact here - these goats are raised and fed entirely on developed urban or sub-urban developments (usually, big housing developments and industrial parks).

    Chickens are similarly used at a lot of urban gardens to keep the pests down and the fertilizer up. Rather than displacing vegetable production, they enable it by replacing the pesticides and fertilizer it would otherwise require.
     
    quadraphonics, Sep 7, 2011
    #125
  9. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Environmental effects of meat production
    Source

    According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a "massive scale" to deforestation, air and water pollution, land degradation, loss of topsoil, climate change, the overuse of resources including oil and water, and loss of biodiversity. The initiative concluded that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." In 2006 FAO estimated that meat industry contributes 18% of all emissions of greenhouse gases. This figure was revised in 2009 by two World Bank scientists and estimated at 51% minimum.

    In a world of diminishing safe water supplies it is worth bearing in mind that animals fed on grain need much more water than grain crops. In tracking food animal production from the feed through to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. The result is that producing animal-based food is typically much less efficient than the direct harvesting of grains, vegetables, legumes, seeds and fruits for human consumption. A person existing chiefly on animal protein requires 10 times more land to provide adequate food than someone living on vegetable sources of protein.

    The environmental impacts of animal production vary with the method of production. A Grazing-based production can limit soil erosion and also allow farmers to control pest problems with less pesticides through rotating crops with grass. In arid areas, however, it may as well catalyze a desertification process. In a world that utilizes around 30 percent of its surface to raise livestock, it is important to recognize the potential effects grazing has on the soil.

    In July 2009 Nike and Timberland stopped buying leather from deforested Amazon [9] a few weeks after Greenpeace report demonstrated the destruction caused by Amazon cattle ranchers. With relation to global warming the Carbon Dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane has about 21 times more Global Warming Potential (GWP) than Carbon Dioxide and Nitrous Oxide has 296 times the GWP of CO2. The livestock industry is a major contributor of these gases.​

    See the link for more. Just for starters.
     
    James R, Sep 7, 2011
    #126
  10. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    James, i will point out from your own link the proof of what bells and i have been saying for the last uptine pages

    It also doesnt require irigation because grass doesnt need as much water as crops do ESPECIALLY RICE. They also dont need fertilisation

    further more there is the soil salinity problems
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_salinity
     
    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #127
  11. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

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    Well if it makes you feel any better, I value my dog and cat more than I value you.

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    Not at all.

    My value judgement is based on what is important to me... myself.. and I..

    Your values don't factor into how I live my life and definitely not into what I eat.

    I'll put it this way Enmos, I don't hold funerals or weep uncontrollably for every bug I step on..

    If my kids get nits (damn schools spreading the little bugs) I will work my fingers to the bone killing each and every single one of them on their heads. If my house gets termites, I get a pest control person to come in and kill them. and I do it gladly.. Hell, I even pay to have things killed and/or removed. That is my value judgement. You are free to disagree. As I said, your values, wherever you are, will not affect what I eat or how I live.

    Because it's a chicken.

    There are some humans I would rate below a chicken on the worth saving scale..

    But it is a chicken.

    If you are going to try and sit there and tell me that a chicken should have equal rights to you, then yes, I will laugh at you. Painfully.

    It's actually really nice. I never have to do anything with it. It's pretty much the only lamb we eat when we do have it. Our local butcher sometimes stocks it, so when he does get some, he calls his regulars and we stock up pretty much.

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    For the Australian environment it is very sustainable type of meat agriculture as it grows very well in drought areas and requires no fertilisers or pesticides. It is a native Australian shrub that thrives in the arid areas. So the sheep that eat it are pretty much what we would call free range (ie. not intensive animal farming)..

    There is a place in the UK, I cannot for the life of me remember it's name, where sheep are bred on a tract of land which are basically salt marshes, and there are also herbs grown there naturally.. so the sheep feed solely on the weeds and natural herbs on these marshes and the meat, as my mother in law recounts, is the best lamb she has ever had as it is so flavoured.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2011
    Bells, Sep 7, 2011
    #128
  12. chimpkin

    chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Chickens are really brainless animals, and instinctive cannibals. They will attack, kill and eat a wounded flockmate.
    This makes sense, they are originally a jungle fowl from Southeast Asia, and the wounded bird would draw predators down on the whole flock.
    But they are not the most sympathetic of creatures.

    An acquaintance of my wife does not eat any meat item but chicken...she grew up on a farm and considers them "really fast vegetables."

    My pet chicken, a rooster that I nursed back to health...was then dumb enough to try to beat up on everyone, including the dogs. I came out to find one dead rooster and a pair of very guilty-looking dogs. I'm afraid I was a bit relieved, he was obviously turning into a really mean rooster.

    Cows and pigs, by comparison, can be smart and become friendly...My friend's mom's cow decided to let all the other animals out once by opening the latch with her tongue...and then kindly shut the gate back.

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    chimpkin, Sep 7, 2011
    #129
  13. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    You should.

    Yes, of course, but why do you hold these particular values?

    Of course not.

    Nor do I. Funerals are for the living. As for crying uncontrollably

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    rolleyes

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    , I don't do that either but I do feel bad if I accidentally kill a living being.

    Parasites are a different story, I won't be the one to tell you that you can't defend yourself. I kill mosquitoes, lice or ticks if they try to bite me.

    Seriously? That is your argument? Because it's a chicken? You aren't even trying... :bugeye:

    I don't think I brought up equal rights. There is such a thing as practicality. However, there are some rights that imo do apply to all living things, such as the right to live, the right not to suffer, the right to live freely not affected by anything outside of their natural environment, etc.
    These may seem unpractical but if you adhere to a simple rule it is not:
    Do not killl or harm any living being unless it is reasonable for you to do so (for example self-defense).
    This means for example not to squash a spider that wandered into your home, and poses no immediate threat, but to catch it and put it outside.
    Or to step over a bug that you see on the pavement. If you keep animals, either as pets or as stock animals, treat them right.
    Etc.
     
    Enmos, Sep 7, 2011
    #130
  14. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    So your criteria for respect is intelligence? More intelligence equals more respect?
    There are major differences in intelligence between humans. Do you mean to say that you value a dumb humans less than an very intelligent one? Does that mean that you think that it's less bad to kill a dumb humans than it is to kill a very intelligent human? Can very intelligent humans kill dumb humans unpunished?
     
    Enmos, Sep 7, 2011
    #131
  15. chimpkin

    chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    I certainly like intelligence more...but chickens have the capacity to suffer too. I would not willfully harm a chicken for no good reason...I just happen to think they're rather stupid and vicious.

    I would come to the aid of a stupid and vicious human if I saw them in harm's way, but if I found out a stupid and vicious human had gotten themselves..."Darwinned," well...if I didn't know them personally, I'm afraid I'd probably snicker.

    I don't know that I'd eat a particularly stupid and vicious human...maybe if I was really hungry...and had lots of ketchup.

    We all of us don't know what we are capable of when faced with starvation. I'm a pretty-much vegan now, and pleased to be so.
    But...despite my recurrent hankering after death I seem to have a strong will to live, so there's no telling what I might do, what or who might end up on the menu if I really get hungry enough.
     
    chimpkin, Sep 7, 2011
    #132
  16. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    "i need to eat" IS a good reason
     
    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #133
  17. chimpkin

    chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Right now I don't need to eat meat and dairy, it seems to have made my health somewhat less crappy to not eat it, and it really does take less resources. Also tends to make for cheaper food.

    I guess the critters I have get the meat I would have ate in their kibble...
    Vegan catfood has to be very exotically manufactured...so it's expensive as heck...and vegan dogfood ain't cheap either.
    My guys get the cheapest stuff that has chicken bits as the top ingredient.
    But the cats are pure carnivores, and the dogs still do better with meat in their diet. I just blow up like the goodyear blimp on it.
     
    chimpkin, Sep 7, 2011
    #134
  18. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    actually on food prices, i just did the shopping for the next few days. It actually cost me alot more to buy the fruit and veg than it did for the meat and fish.
     
    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #135
  19. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

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    Oh I do.

    You're asking me why I hold values which amounts to my considering a chicken to having less rights than a human?

    Seriously?

    An ant is a living being?

    I'm sorry, you want me to try to do something that really, I doubt most could do.

    It is a chicken. Yes it has less rights than a human.

    If you were faced with running down a chicken or a person, you'd pick the chicken.

    And my right to live, not to suffer and to live freely within my natural environment involves eating meat.

    Or to consume to ensure my wellbeing and survival.

    And guess what I am having to dinner tonight?

    Chicken!

    If there is no one to go near it to remove it, I either run screaming from the house (depending on the spider and its size) or I kill it. Sorry. My house.. my rules.. It is my right to live without fear inside my own home.

    Sorry, I don't walk with my face pressed to the pavement.

    And I value my pets and no I do not beat them.

    Waterboarding however is not always out of the question...

    Kidding...
     
    Bells, Sep 7, 2011
    #136
  20. chimpkin

    chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Hmm, I usually don't buy fresh stuff that costs over a US dollar a pound, except for maybe the salad greens.

    I tried treating my dog's skin condition by feeding him raw meat for a while-didn't work but he was a happy dog indeed...and I was highly annoyed at the meat prices.
    I was happy if I could find chicken at a dollar a pound, when I was hoping for cheaper. Sometimes they had whole fryers for 70 cents a pound, but not always, and then that meant I had to cut the chicken up.

    (I forgot to sanitize the counter really good once and got the trots from feeding the dog)

    If depression were not kicking my butt as much I could hit the farmer's market and beat those prices, but I'd have to get up very early, as some of them pretty much stop selling by 11 am.

    I could be getting $0.50 per pound salad tomatoes, for instance...

    (Between my depression and the drought...and an outbreak of powder fungus... our garden did poorly, save for malabar spinach vine and habaneros...smokin'...)
     
    chimpkin, Sep 7, 2011
    #137
  21. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    the good quality mince i just bought cost me $5 kg (for premium lean mince i might add), the lamb shoulder was $6 kg

    Compared to the veg prices which ranged from $3 a bunch for herbs, $5 for 2 mangos, letus mix at $12 kg, strawberries $5 for 2 punets

    Ect, i could go through the whole list but you get the piture

    edit oh on tomatoes specifically $7 kg and i have to pay for the stawks too which is waste where as there is no waste in the mince
     
    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #138
  22. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    technically the most expensive plant i bought today was $12 a GRAM for safron

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    Asguard, Sep 7, 2011
    #139
  23. chimpkin

    chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah...Mexican Saffron, which is probably a related plant or some such, $4 a pound here...rock on Mexican Saffron. Tomatoes in the supermarkets have been kind of pricey this year...I have trouble getting them for below a $1.25 a pound...I stick to whatever fruit's in season mostly, and melons, always cheap until the apples hit. Dried beans, potatoes-the candy of vegetables...beets, carrots. Ginger I pay a premium for-it's anti-inflammatory, my allergies get worse without it.
     
    chimpkin, Sep 7, 2011
    #140
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