Giving up being a vegetarian

Gorgeous_George

doddy9111 wrote:

I'm going to go boil up some of your family for a stew. If humans weren't meant to be eaten they wouldn't taste so good. If humans weren't meant to be punched and killed, it wouldn't be so fun. I could go on.

There's no such thing as "two-thirds" vegetarian, you either are one or you're not. And if we were all vegetarians there would be dairy cows and laying hens, sheep who give wool, and so on aswell as farming vegetables and fruit and such. And believe it or not, farm animals CAN be kept as pets, given the chance. A lamb enjoys the same fuss and attention that a cat would enjoy, or a dog would enjoy. The same would go for any young animal that is then raised as a pet. You give an animal the chance to be trusting of your friendship, then their personality will truly show, but rarely are farm animals given this chance. Nor are they socialised enough with humans, hence they're fear of humans. And what's truly sad is even the most high up of welfarist farms treat the animals like objects to throw around. I recently saw sheep being dragged around by their back legs, and then thrown to the ground violently in a race between to men to see who could sheer the sheep fastest. This was at a farm that prides itself on high welfare standards.

There's no such thing as "animals are food" because they blatently are not. We do not need to eat animal products to survive unlike your average omnivore, so therefore animals are not food, but more so there for those who think with their tastebuds and not with their mind.

Two thirds means I eat meat and two veg. It's called humour.

As for dairy cows. Do you know how farmers get the milk? You have to keep the cows pregnant and the offspring are sold as meat (veal). So, dairy farming is possibly less palatable to the sensitive townies than beef farming. How much would wool costs if farmer's had to keep their sheep till death (of old age) and then dispose of the carcass.

As for keeping a cow or two as pets - some areas have enough trouble with dog poo.

Sorry, gotta go. Daisy needs a walk!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

GG

Ted_Hutchinson

doddy9111 wrote:

Of having one less grassy field that cattle aren't even grazed on. :rolleyes:

Please don't think I'm totally against what you are saying. I'm all for people Eating healthy and Eating Green I've previously posted links to the “Score your Diet” calculator and the “Eating Green” calculator so I'm always encouraging others that they should be eating a lot of fruit, choosing grass-fed instead of grain-fed beef, buying the locally produced meat, so they can improve their health, the environment, and animal welfare.

But I cannot go the whole way. I have a field and it's currently being grazed by some very nice cows and calves. See here. They aren't my beasts but the farmer who owns them has said I can have a quarter of one (for a price) when they go for slaughter. I know how well these animals have been cared for. My neighbours prefer having a grassy field with grazing animals to look at than a field of turnips, peas or potatoes. Managing pasture is all I can cope with. Round here more and more fields are simply being neglected as farmers find they are not able to grow wheat economically viably and the land isn't suitable for other crops. Having empty neglected unused farmland is wasteful IMO apart from the fact that it looks a mess. I'd rather have a green landscape and buy my lamb and beef directly from those farms where I can see it's been cared for as well as possible. Just look for the Lincolnshire Quality meat label.

We can have sustainable farming and healthy food if people take more care over the purchasing of their meat/fish and don't simply go for the cheapest intensively reared stuff.

Bertville

My wife doesn't eat meat but does eat fish and it isn't that much hassle cooking different meals for each other.

The thing I don't understand is when people give up red meat because they feel sorry for the cows, pigs & lambs but keep eating chicken and fish. Chicken and fish have the most unpleasant deaths of all animals killed for food, especially the fish who have to basically suffocate.

Also, on another point, although she doesn't eat meat my wife suffers from IBS and a lot of bloating so it's not necessarily caused by meat eating. She has far more ill health than I ever have.

I think if you go back to meat you may find it difficult to digest but maybe if you have a little at first you could gradually get used to it.

Mrs_pbradley936

doddy911 did you read the link on post 12? I believe you to be very sincere but you are going to be bitterly disappointed if you think your stance will change the world. That is what I meant earlier about the maturity aspect. Vegetarians are not always such nice people – Hitler is reputed to have been one and look what he did! Mother Nature is often very cruel to humans and animals. By holding your views you are distorting nature and the food chain, do you think you could reason with a lion that it could just as easily be satisfied with grass rather than a zebra?

grimelda

Hi pbradley936. Hitler wasn't a vegetarian. His doctor apparently put him on a vegetarian diet in 1931 to treat his flatulence and chronic stomach complaints, although it's reported he wasn't strict about it. His cook in Hamburg in the late 1930s wrote that one of his favourite dishes was stuffed squab and several of his biographers have noted his fondness for sausages and other meats.

I agree mother nature is cruel but much of human law and custom is based on the idea that we as humans have the choice not to be.

To the OP. I have been a vegetarian for about twenty years, since age twelve. The idea of eating meat is so completely foreign to me that I would not consider it even if someone convinced me to abandon my moral principles. I don't find vegetarianism boring, either. There are hundreds of fruits, vegetables, grains, eggs, and other things to eat but only a couple dozen species of animal.

So I don't have any good advice to help you make the transition back to eating meat. You can have a healthy, balanced and interesting diet without meat. There's no reason to eat meat unless you like it.

Good luck whatever you do.

[Deleted User]

There's no such thing as "animals are food" because they blatently are not. We do not need to eat animal products to survive unlike your average omnivore, so therefore animals are not food, but more so there for those who think with their tastebuds and not with their mind.

Domesticated farm animals are only in their current form because humans eat them as food. Do you think cows evolved naturally like they are? Nope, they we domesticated 6000 years ago. We eat them because we bred them to be tasty.

I'm not for causing unecessary pain to other creatures, but please don't put mankind up on a pedestal of goodliness. We're just an animal that's reach a rather advanced state of biological and social evolution.

Right, i'm off for a medium rare rib-eye steak

Mrs_pbradley936

doddy, I think you are part of what is euphemistically called the “lunatic fringe”. You have obviously never been in a position of having to prioritise your attitudes towards fellow sentient beings. I met a Buddhist monk a few times (he was giving meditation lessons) and he was always going on about karma and that we should not take life etc. I will say to you what I said to him “ If we follow your line of argument to its logical conclusion we will stop putting bleach down the toilet in case we kill any bacteria” . He agreed. As I said earlier lunatic fringe.

jellyhead

but nirvana sang that it is okay to eat fish because they do not have feelings

there are all kinds of triggers for IBS. onions are my worst, pork my second worst.

does anyone buy freedom food?

vik6525

I was a veggie for nearly 15 years.. But then one day I took my ds on a country walk, and got chased by a bull. At that point I realised I actually dont like animals very much at all, and that very afternoon I went and bought a steak. I havent looked back since!

bluemoon_3

grimelda wrote:

I agree mother nature is cruel but much of human law and custom is based on the idea that we as humans have the choice not to be.

I just wanted to quote this, grimelda, because it's one of the most well-considered, thoughtful things that's been said in this thread and I wanted to give everyone a second chance to see it.

For me, I try to face each meal with the simple question: what am I prepared to pay for this? Is the taste of this chicken worth the taking of a life? Is the convenience of this cheese sandwich worth the mistreatment of the dairy cow the cheese came from (and the fate of her calf)?

I label myself a vegan for simplicity because my answers to the above questions tend to the negative 99.9% of the time. But even after a number of years, mentally I still take each day at a time (though it's rarely a struggle, or boring).

We make these little decisions multiple times in a week, even if not consciously, about all sorts of consumable ethical issues - Is it worth spending extra on fairtrade, local or organic food? Is the greater expense of buying clothes that are guaranteed to have been ethically produced worth it? Should I spend my limited clothes budget on charity shop clothes instead of on clothes made in a sweat shop? Do I buy soymilk made from soy beans grown abroad, or do I buy cow's milk directly from a local farm? Do I spend more on fairtrade bananas, eat fewer bananas, or buy those with questionable ethical origins? We make different decisions based on the weights we place on our own ethical 'weighing scales' (if you'll excuse the metaphor!) and on our own knowledge, judgement and circumstances.


I suppose the reason I'm writing this is to say - it doesn't have to be cut-and-dried, all-or-nothing. I think a lot of the guilt and feelings of deprivation come from that sort of attitude. You can take a more 'holistic' approach to ethical, considered consumption, which doesn't mean ignoring ethics entirely, but does mean taking each situation as it arises. I've never told myself I can't have this or can't have that.

On another matter, IMO, it's silly to make general statements about all veggies being healthy or unhealthy, just as it is silly to say all vegetarians are all skinny because they don't eat enough protein or that they are all fat because they eat too many carbs. As with omnivores, macrobiotics, pescetarians, ready-meal junkies, raw-meatarians or whoever else, you can still make good or bad nutritional choices within your personal dietary framework. An excellent book about vegan nutrition is 'Becoming Vegan' by Davis and Melina.