Farming, The Environment, Morality And Vegetarians

[geo7x]

Tokis I think you need to see the bigger picture and see the world outside of your own before you start making judgements of other people.

You obviously dont realise how any other people live, its obvious that you cant understand it.

This is not a judgement, just an observation and some advice before you say anything else that could offend people, I really dont want to see a topic closed in the natural world section so soon

 

[William]

Directed to everyone please do not let things get personal, that was not the intention of the natural world forum. It wasn't intended for debates, I'm letting this one run for the time being but will close it if it deteriorates further. These topics tend to become really rather circular quite quickly.

 

[-germ-]

So easy to get carried away, soz mod
Debate forum opening soon?
A suggestion for a new topic then....
Vegetarian polar bear farmers and why they should all be shot.
Any takers?

 

[andywg]

Debate forum opening soon?

Sure.

Just as soon as Satan starts buying wollies.

 

[-germ-]

Think i'll be avoiding any discussions that bring out the old zealot in me from now on.
grrr...

Andy
Peas.....

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Besides this thread is primarily about where we live, not people living in third world countries and such- their issues are a completely different problem

In your first post, you urged readers to see the bigger picture about the environment. It is arrogant to say that third world countries are not part of the bigger picture. Do not take their needs out of the equation.

Seriously, people would not starve if there's no battery farmed meat- you don't think that people were starving before battery farming became popular in the 70's or couldn't afford animal products do you?

It's not about the amount of meat available, it's about the cost. We see more meat production through battery farming. More meat means lower prices. If people cannot afford the price of meat (like the pricey farm range ones), then yes, people will starve. Besides, there's an almost 40 year gap between the 70's and today. Inflation plays a huge factor. What little buying power the third world people had in the 70's is almost nil today.

And of course these people know there’s plenty of other things that they could eat. The question is, can they afford it? Do a quick scan of their local market and you’ll see pig’s ears, stomach, blood, cow skin and marrow, chicken head and intestines, even coagulated chicken blood for sale. They have utilized every part of the animal primarily because these parts are cheaper. Would they buy farm range meat if they could afford it? Most probably yes, in a heartbeat. But they can’t, so they don’t. They make do with what they have and can afford, and what they afford is battery farm meats. You can’t blame them if they want to eat, can you?

If you really want to see what you are financially supporting with your money every time you buy such farmed animal products, see here;

http/www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp

fishkiller_nomore and SuzieQPlecMama you should see the above link.
You go a long way to create a good aquarium, with happy fish which are not kept in cruelty. I�€™m sure you would never intentionally cause an animal suffering- you would never put a kitten in a box and force it to live in its own excrement, never seeing the light of day or breath fresh air.
But in essence you are doing that in a way- you might as well say �€ËÅ“�€�here, I will give you some money if you keep this chicken in a cage so small it cannot even stretch its wings and is given chemicals and hormones to produce an abnormal amount of eggs which causes it much pain and its life is generally one of suffering and hell etc. Every time you farm this way, I�€™ll give you money for it�€� when you buy battery farmed eggs for example.

Mmm thanks for the link, along with the side dish of guilt trip, but I know what battery farming is.

This is essentially what you are doing every time you buy such farmed products- what you buy is what you inevitably end up financially supporting.

Then you know what? So be it. If my money keeps the battery farming industry alive, then good. Because I know that keeping the battery farming industry alive means cheaper prices, not just for me (who happen to live in a first world), but for those people who live in the third world as well. If it helps them feed their families, then good.

I love my pets. I don’t enjoy seeing animals in pain. But animals living in pain and misery is not even remotely comparable to people living in misery and pain. If battery farming is what it takes to keep the meat prices low (and inevitably more people can afford to eat), then I’m for it. It’s sad animals had to be treated that way, but people always come first. I will never turn my back against people, even if that means a harsh life for the animals.

Is that moral enough? Choosing human life over animals?

edited for correcting quote tags.

Hmm...well my laptops fixed so i can join the thread again.
fishkiller_nomore and SuzieQPlecMama
Basically, there are of course people in this England and America who really cannot afford good food or luxuary things like fish tanks and lots of fish and computers and internet connection etc. But i think that for the vast majority of people who buy battery farmed products, they can afford to buy otherwise, they'd just rather spend less money on food out of their budget because food not as important as it should be to them (often the case with a lot of battery farm animal product eaters: if it tastes and looks good, people don't strongly care otherwise where its come from, what it supports, or whats it in it).

If you honesty believe you'd starve if you'd have to spend 20p more on some free range eggs than some battery ones, then obviously i'm not going to advise you to starve and live in poverty etc etc. But its really not difficult at all to live off a much better diet both morally and health wise even on a £30 a week food budget (i myself live on the same sort of budget, so i know it can work). I don't know if you've tried to or not, only you know whether you have or have not tried to lead a non-battery farm diet, and so is not something i can argue with you due to this.

However, surely you have the sense to realise that its the customer who controls the prices of food more than anybody else, and that if you want cheap good quality food you need to buy more of it to lower the price? Its a long term thing, but this is the way the world works. Sushi used to cost £10's a tray 6years ago but now you can find the same size trays for only £3.00's in Tescos with the same sorts of sushi- the reason why there is a price drop is because there is an increasing demand for suchi with more and more people buying it every year, so the price is thus dropping.
If you want good quality but affordable food you need to buy the food to begin with regardless of the price, only then can the price drop. If you are satisfied with battery farmed foods and only care about cheap food in the present, then stick with it. Either way, battery farming is a form of animal cruelty, and regardless of what your reasons are for buying it you are supporting battery farming and the forms of animal cruelty within it and what it stands for either way when you buy it.
Surely you want your children or grandchildren to have the choice in the future to buy good quality affordable farmed animal products? If the answer is "yes" then you need to support the right types of farming now. Otherwise, the current trends will continue- more farmers are going out of buisness than people starting farming, and the ones that seem to be left standing most of all tend to be the battery farms. This obviously has a negative effect on the consumer, who is left with less choice over what they can eat and less power over the prices they pay for the food.

Fact: 3 dairy farmers go out of buisness every week in England.

Do a quick scan of their local market and you’ll see pig’s ears, stomach, blood, cow skin and marrow, chicken head and intestines, even coagulated chicken blood for sale. They have utilized every part of the animal primarily because these parts are cheaper

Which supermarket do you go to?? I've never seen pigs ears, cow skin, chicken heads, intestines etc on for sale in any supermarkets i know of.

 

[-germ-]

Jainism's stance on nonviolence goes beyond vegetarianism. Jains refuse food obtained with unnecessary cruelty. Many are vegan due to the violence of modern dairy farms. The Jain diet excludes most root vegetables, as they believe this destroys entire plants unnecessarily. If you eat apples, you do not destroy whole trees, but for root vegetables, whole plants are uprooted.

A little example of moral differences.....
Morals are just a production of humanity and as such can be realistically ignored as false and arrogant. That does not mean they should not be followed, as voltaire said "i may not agree with what you say, but i will defend until death your right to say it" (or something similar). But judging peoples moral stances never got anyone anywhere. People can always take the moral high ground, whatever the argument, the world we individually create, or at least our perception of life, caters to no one but ourselves.....
So why bother trying to influence anyone....
Did that make any sense? Excuse me if it didn't, i'm tired.
In the words of some pathetic, stereotypical, cartoon mafioso; "Fageddabowt it"

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

If you are satisfied with battery farmed foods and only care about cheap food in the present, then stick with it. Either way, battery farming is a form of animal cruelty, and regardless of what your reasons are for buying it you are supporting battery farming and the forms of animal cruelty within it and what it stands for either way when you buy it.

So, I am immoral for supporting battery farmed foods because that's all I can afford. Since when did being poor/financially constrained become a crime? Geez I must have missed the memo on that one.

Basically, you're still financially supporting a form of animal cruelty, but only apparently because you cannot afford any better when it comes to animal products. The reason why i have questioned you so thoroughly is to help try and see if this is truely your situation, and now i believe that you would actually buy better farmed animal products if you had the money to do so (But whether you actually need to eat the products you are buying at all in the first place is another question).
Battery farming is cruel no matter how you look at it, and the reasons for someone financially supporting it doesn't make battery farming any less cruel to the animals involved. I have not and am not saying you are commiting crimes or anything like that or being financially constrained is a crime etc- don't be silly. With morality and stuff, only you know your true moral stance. But answer me this: Does it make prostitution right if the pimp is poor and can't do any other jobs? Maybe just an irrelevant question, maybe not so in others eyes.

But ultimately as a human being you don't actually need to consume many types or quantities of animal products to be healthy, so perhaps you should question (if you havn't already) whether you should cut down on the amount of immorally farmed animal products you consume just to satisfy your tastes when considering what the animals like battery chickens have to go through and all their suffering just to satisfy your cravings. Eating stuff like eggs is optional, not nesarsary, so whether you do or don't eat them, no one is forcing you to and there is no pressing need to eat them either. You say you'll starve if you don't have battery farmed products, but i highly doubt that as animal products are almost always more expensive than non-animal food products.

The price gap between battery and free range eggs is not so great where i live, but then again a lot more people buy free range eggs on a regular basis due to health/moral/environmental/quality reasons and the numbers of people doing so are increasing every year, so the free range egg prices are dropping.

 

[nmonks]

It isn't as simple as this. Levels of obesity are highest among low income groups in both the US and the UK, implying that lack of wealth isn't limiting their access to calories.

The argument that poor people can't afford fresh fruit or organic meat doesn't really stand up to medical science. The amount of meat a human needs per week is small. It may be zero if you're a vegetarian, but humans evolved to eat meat so for the sake of argument let's say we should eat a little bit of it at least. If you go back 50 years, chicken was a once a week treat, and a portion would be, say, one chicken leg or a few slices of breast. That would be balanced with three different vegetables plus some starch, say half a dozen boiled new potatoes. Any medic would tell you such a meal would be close to perfect in terms of nutrition. A portion now is half the chicken, a tonne of fried potatoes, and maybe a bit of salad on the side. The nutrition there is completely screwed up. End result: Fat America, Fat Britain.

(I might also add that a free range chicken from 50 years ago also tasted a lot better than a farmed chicken. The reason so much chicken is "flavoured" somehow with herby crusts and lemon glazes and all the rest is that the meat is bland. It's also puffed up with water to increase the weight. A real bird that's been walking about eating bugs and enjoying whatever is the chicken equivalent of the good life tastes so much better.)

You can actually look at things in a different way. If people spent the same money they spend now but on smaller amounts of organic meat, plus more raw vegetables, they'd get better nutrition and lose the weight. So switching to free range or organic food may "force" you to eat less because it is more expensive, but it actually improves the balance of nutrition and results in a healthier person. Simple as that.

I will say this though, having lived in the UK and the US, the access to free range and organic foods in much of America is far worse than in England. Outside maybe of the "land of the fruits and nuts" (California) there just isn't a huge demand for wholesome food. It's the same with beer -- while there is lots of really good beer in America, the mass market doesn't want it. It's changing, sure, but I think the US is maybe 10 years behind Europe in this.

Cheers, Neale

Again, if people can afford free range goods, they will. But most can't. And I don't understand why the trend is backwards in California. The healthier the food is (ie. organic foods, free range products, even non-fat foods), the more expensive it gets. Eating free range products is a lifestyle trend here --- if you can eat free range then that means you've got money.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

You can actually look at things in a different way. If people spent the same money they spend now but on smaller amounts of organic meat, plus more raw vegetables, they'd get better nutrition and lose the weight. So switching to free range or organic food may "force" you to eat less because it is more expensive, but it actually improves the balance of nutrition and results in a healthier person. Simple as that.

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply, but at 5'6" and 105 lbs, I'm hardly obese nor overweight. And my meals are nowhere near the proportions you were suggesting, I can't eat nor afford to eat that much food in one sitting. And people are fat not solely due to the fact that some of them do eat a lot. Exercise had a lot do to with it too. Prehistoric men were mainly meat eaters, a "tribe" would consume a mammoth or buffalo. And yet reconstructive artists always show them as muscled people. The difference between then and now is: cavemen would have to stalk, hunt, run and overpower their prey. People nowadays just drive to the supermarket and get food.

My point is: it doesn't matter whether it's battery meats or organic meats that you're eating, you're going to gain weight if you don't do any sort of exercise (specially if you have slow metabolism). Being vegan doesn't guarantee you normal weight either. My cousin's a vegan, and so is her husband. My cousin's skinny as a rail, but her husband, who's a vegan much, much longer than she was, is...chubby, to put it politely. But anyway, that's an entirely different issue/thread. To recap, battery meats is not the cause of rising obesity cases everywhere. It's what you do (or not do) after you eat that is.

But answer me this: Does it make prostitution right if the pimp is poor and can't do any other jobs? Maybe just an irrelevant question, maybe not so in others eyes.

Now THAT is a moral issue. Supporting battery farming is not a moral issue, it's a karmic one. That's like comparing apples to oranges. A vegan would be the best person to ask about karmic issues, but I'm not a vegan, so I'm not even going to try to explain it.

This thread has run long enough, and I don't see any way that the two sides (pro and con re: battery farming) could be reconciled. We could argue until we're blue in the face, but as long as battery farmed goods are the only meats that I (and other people) could afford, then I stand by it.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, and leave it at that.

Saying that eating battery farmed products is not a moral issue shows how little you actually seem to care about the subject and animals involved (just when i was thinking that you were actually bothered about it). Animal cruelty is not morally correct, saying battery farming is not a moral issue implies that you really do not see anything morally wrong with it.
Admit it: you'd much rather eat battery farmed products all the time than concern yourself over the moral issues- you feel what you fancy to eat is more important than the suffering of millions of farmanimals, and would prefer to eat poor quality battery farmed products every week than save up for some good farmed good quality animal products every now and then. You've only given me excuses, there's no reasons you've given me that i can see that actually prevents you from buying some morally correctly farmed animal products. But if you don't want to continue debating your side, then no one's forcing you to stay in this thread- you have every right to leave if you want to.

By the way, mnonks was not implying that you are fat/overweight nor has he ever done, he was making a general statement on food portions today and healthy eating (meat is full of fats and protein, thus if you eat too much of it too often and do not have a very physically active lifestyle, you will grow overweight/become unhealthy- many people believe part of todays problem with rising obesity levels is that there is too much access to fatty cheap animal product meals like the ones sold at KFC or mcdonalds etc).




BTW nmonks i completely agree with you .
I personally believe that meat and a lot of animal products in general can have a very positive effect on people's health, studies have shown that children who eat a little meat learn better;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4282257.stm

But in reality we actually need very little meat to eat to reap the benefets from it- for a lot of our evolution and recent prehistoric history, meat was not eaten on very regular basis for a lot of people, it was an occasional treat (this is true as far as the archaelogical evidence goes at least). I myself eat meat and animal products like eggs and milk or cheese etc in general, but i eat very little of such products on a not very regular basis, prefering much more to have the occasional once a month (sometimes fortnight) beef steak or stir-fry which is of very good quality beef and is free range, than stuff myself full of cheap battery farmed animal products every week.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Oh my god. Get out of the rock that you've been living under and see the real world as it is, will you? On the surface you seem to "understand" poor people's plight. But that's just it --- it's just on the surface. It's all for show. Deep down you really don't have a flipping clue how other people live, nor do you care if they can't afford to eat the free range farm meats that you're pushing so hard for. You've never been through real hardships, you've never experienced what's it like to starve, you don't know what it's like to worry whether you have something to eat tomorrow. You haven't seen crazy people wandering the streets naked, or covered in dirt and feces. Don't you know many people go crazy due to prolonged starvation? It's a common sight when I was growing up.

You were lucky enough to not experience these things. I'm trying to make you see that the world is not the way you see it. You can't just say "don't support battery farmed goods, buy free range farmed meats", and then expect people to follow it. You just COMPLETELY IGNORED other people's financial standing in life. And then you make sweeping generalizations about people who buy battery farmed meats, calling us immoral simply for the fact that we cannot afford it. How narrow minded is that???

Do you make it a habit to kick people when they're down, Tokis? Oh look, there's a poor person. He/she eats battery farm goods because that's what he/she can afford. Oh my god, he is poor AND immoral! How disgusting!

See how silly that is? And can you see how cruel THAT is? You are more worried about animal lives than people's. You have so much compassion for animals, but NONE FOR PEOPLE. Tell me, who's the heartless one between us now?

You accuse me of turning a blind eye to the plight of the animals, but you yourself turn a blind eye to poor people's situation, and that's even worse.

I hope you can see how ARROGANT, BIGOTED and OFFENSIVE you are, Tokis. I highly doubt that you do, since you seem to live in your own perfect little world where everyone has to conform to your pristine standards.

Oh come of it fishkiller_nomore, you are being a major hypocrite- on the one hand you say i don't understand you, on the other hand you are making sweeping asssumptions about me which are completely untrue. Trust me, i've been through hardships and i've starved and i do care about people lives more than animal lives- but i am not going to sit back while some person says battery farming is not a moral issue! Besides, you can make as many insults towards me as you want, i'm mature enough to keep my cool at the least.


You said "Supporting battery farming is not a moral issue, it's a karmic one". Do you even know what karmic means ??

http/www.thefreedictionary.com/Karmic

Morality is right and wrong. Regardless of your personal situation, saying that supporting battery farming is not a moral issue is like saying eating whales is not a moral issue or supporting animal cruelty is not a moral issue, or keeping fish in horrid conditions is not a moral issue etc etc.

If someone was keeping a goldfish in a 1 gallon bowl and they said this was so because they were poor, but refused to rehome the goldfish giving the excuse that they needed the goldfish as a pet because they were poor, would you just say "go ahead, its your karma" or "no don't do that, its morally wrong to keep the goldfish that way"??


You say you'll starve to death if you don't have battery farmed foods. This is not true because there are thousands of other, and cheaper, things that you can eat (Answer me that!)- stop making out you live in absolute poverty when you live in california and can afford so many luxuary things in your life that real people, who were really desperate for food, would not be able to afford (Answer me that!). I might actually believe you when you say you can barely afford to eat every day and make out that you're always on the brink of risking starvation etc if you didn't own so many luxuary goods. And either way, there are things you can eat other than battery farmed foods.

Stop playing the "i'm poor so i'll eat battery farmed foods" sympathy card. Both i and nmonks can see the simple logic that if you don't eat battery farmed foods every week, and save up for something else better, you can eat something really good (if not as often). Simple money sense. Who's forcing you to eat battery farmed foods? No one but yourself! Do you need to eat such foods? No- and if you disagree give me an actual reason why (starvation doesn't count since there's thousands of others things you can eat- its not likely you solely exist on battery farmed foods)?

ed: Do you really not care about the suffering of animals at all? This is not a question about whether you'd pay someone to torture an animal to death so you could eat it because you were starving, this is about actually caring about the welfare of animals at all in your day to day life. You seem completely oblivious to the fact that there are thousands of other foods you can eat other than battery farmed foods, the fact that you'd rather eat battery farmed foods and defend them than choose other foods (of which there are plenty) proves to me that your so called morals are only in theory and not in practice, which makes them pretty worthless in real life if you don't practice what you teach.
I cannot believe that you don't think supporting battery farming is not a moral issue! My respect for you in this area of the forum has been drasticallty lowered. Saying what you said is just as bad as saying keeping fish in horrid conditions is ok if you are poor (just like keeping the fish is optional, so is eating battery farmed animal products).

 

[bullhead]

Tokis,do you fend for your self or do you provide for a family?do you still eat of the plate of your parents?I understand the moral issues but at the sametime I must think of my family first and for most.I am not poor and I am not over privilaged either,I am middle income america,I am concerned with the moral issues of battery farming and animal rights but puting food on the table for my children is more important then all of this.When you become a parent you will understand,hopefully.I would love to buy organic and free-range produce all of the time but it is just not realistic.We spend around 2 to 3 hundred a week on groceries and we try to eat healthy as possible,but if we went completly organic it would cost at least twice this.I would prefer to eat all organic and free-range as it tastes much better also.Here in the states farmers are going broke and bankrupt on a daily basis,in fact I dont think that I've seen a farmer that wasnt poor.So I guess its just a matter of perspective.I imagine that the queen thinks its imoral to were the same dress twice and the poorest person in england thinks its immoral that someone through out that food he or she got out of the trash.So like I said its a matter of perspective.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Tokis,do you fend for your self or do you provide for a family?do you still eat of the plate of your parents?I understand the moral issues but at the sametime I must think of my family first and for most.I am not poor and I am not over privilaged either,I am middle income america,I am concerned with the moral issues of battery farming and animal rights but puting food on the table for my children is more important then all of this.When you become a parent you will understand,hopefully.I would love to buy organic and free-range produce all of the time but it is just not realistic.We spend around 2 to 3 hundred a week on groceries and we try to eat healthy as possible,but if we went completly organic it would cost at least twice this.I would prefer to eat all organic and free-range as it tastes much better also.Here in the states farmers are going broke and bankrupt on a daily basis,in fact I dont think that I've seen a farmer that wasnt poor.So I guess its just a matter of perspective.I imagine that the queen thinks its imoral to were the same dress twice and the poorest person in england thinks its immoral that someone through out that food he or she got out of the trash.So like I said its a matter of perspective.

These are my two perspectives on this;
a. If you are too poor to buy free range animal products then you buy battery ones, but;
a. Shouldn't you asking yourself whether you really need to eat this stuff at all? Considering all the hormones and high cancer causing growth chemicals etc so many battery animals are fed, and these get passed down the food chain, aren't you worried about the dangerous toxins that this meat is passing onto your family?
Why do you need to eat so much of this meat? Would you consider cutting down on it at the very least? Why spend £3 a week on poor quality animal products when you can buy the best if you save up for a fortnight instead and buy something really great- why settle for a 5gallon tank when if you saved up a little more, you could get a 20gal?






Regardless of wealth, what really gets me is when fishkiller_nomore says supporting battery farming is not a moral issue.

For fishkiller_nomore who said this, i say;

Cages so small, the chickens can barely turn around or flap their wings

Calves, lame from being forced to stand in their own excrement, waiting to die

Pigs in cages so small they struggle to find space to lay down

And you say that supporting these types of farming are not moral issues fishkiller_nomore? What gives you the moral high ground to call me bigoted, arrogant, offensive?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"Sigh"...

Look this thread has got pretty heated and personal which is not what i want.

Fishkiller_nomore sorry if i come off as quite blunt sometimes, but we all have subjects in life which we feel passionately about which we defend with a passion- one of mine is fishkeeping (which we both have in common), another is farming and animals in general, and more.


Insulting me in the way you did in my thread is wrong- if you had said my opinions were arrogant, bigoted and offensive that would be a different matter, but directly aiming your insults personally at me is not acceptable (just as i would find it unacceptable for anyone else insulting anyone that way). I have not tried to personally insult you in the thread, i have only targetted what you have said and explained my opinions, which is a lot different. With your opinions, i cannot have respect for them if you concentrate on personally insulting me instead of disagreeing with my opinions and giving thorough reasons why etc.

I do not want us to fall out this way, and i hope your financial situation improves so you can lead the life that you want to have .




The conclusion i have come to so far i my life is that if i was ever put in the situation where if i wanted to eat animal products, the only ones i could ever afford were battery farmed ones, then i would not eat any at all because i would not want to have such a thing on my conscience nor financially support a way of farming which i am strongly against for a variety of reasons.
Vegetarians have proven that one can live a life without animal products, and if i was put in the situation where i could only afford battery farmed animal products i would turn vegetarian until i could afford animal products which were farmed in a much more morally correct manner- i have even gone through vegetarian phases in my life due to this although at current i am not a vegetarian as i do eat good farmed animal products every now and then on a not very regular basis.
This is just my personal opinion/stance on the subject.

 

[Danno]

Damn Tokis, those pictures got me craving a Burger!!