I am a meat popsicle.
[quote]Supraman wrote:
rainjack wrote:
You eat eggs. right? You believe the family farmer wakes up every morning and takes his wicker basket out to the green green field behind his house and goes on an easter egg hunt on a daily basis?
It’s called a hen house, cage-free, with access provided to pasture (weather permitting).
As opposed to life in a cage. One cage.
[/quote]
That doesn’t work. It works as a niche, but it won’t work economically to feed the masses.
Google trichinella.
If you want the short hand, its the disease that pigs get where a worm lives in their muscle. They get it because they are raised on grass. It used to kill people until they started raising pigs on concrete and washing the pens out daily.
Isn’t the whole point of this thread what animals prefer to eat? Not what they eat naturally? If we stuck you in the wild how would you fair, and dont give me that nuts and berries bullshit. Reality is that you would be eating bark, roots, and grubs and you would prefer a loaf of bread because it has more energy for less work.
It was called the green revolution and no before that there wasn’t enough food for a population that was a lot smaller than 6 billion people. The just of it is that the world cannot sustain its human population on grassfed beef and other archaic farming practices. Productivity isn’t just to benefit the farmers, its to allow the growing population of the world to keep from starving. I’m all for animal rights, but not at the expense of human rights. And all humans have the right to eat.
[quote]Supraman wrote:
It’s called a hen house, cage-free, with access provided to pasture (weather permitting).
As opposed to life in a cage. One cage.[/quote]
A hen house is a cage. Hate to burst your bubble. Each hen has a designated “nest”.
Have you ever even seen a real farm? I’m not talking about looking in a magazine, or what you see on TV. A real live farm?
I didn’t think so.
[quote]You got me there, with the sows. But are these pigs farrowing? (see picture)
Most factory farm swine are raised indoors.
As opposed to pasture like on such a farm as this:
http://www.hurryburry.com/pigs.htm[/quote]
Most? I live around hog farms up here, and they ALL have access to the great outdoors.
Those are farrowing crates. You might not see the little buggers popping out - but that’s what they are.
Once again - you are referring to that which you have only read about.
DO you have a life? Or do your live it from pictures you see and lies that are told to you?
[quote]
A pile of flaked corn or cotton seed cake? Just like in nature… Are you kidding me?[/quote]
No - cattle graze cornfields, maze fields, and love to root through gin trash. They will devour all the corn, wheat, maize, and cotton seeds they can find before ever turning to the grass.
Of course you would have known this had you actually any knowledge at all about the subject matter.
You are making stupid points here. There would be no cattle to eat if their weren’t people that owned them, and let them graze in fields cultivated for even more human consumption.
But like I have been saying - you know absolutely nothing about the subject matter at hand.
What about the cows? I’d to see you attempt to “get started” on that one.
You do realize that cattle have been domesticated for over 1000 years. They have been eating grain, and grain products for at least that long, right?
How do you know what they are supposed to eat? Have you ever taken a ruminant nutrition class? Ever even read a magazine article that wasn’t sponsored by the Cat Killers?
If you have - I can’t tell.
Please expound you your vast knowledge of feed these items. I would LOVE to hear you try and explain just how bone and blood meal are fed to cattle. Seriously - I really want to know what you think goes on, or what you have been told goes on.
Successful? What is you definition of successful? Did people make money? Hell yeah they made money. But because of the development of efficiencies of scale, and technologies, no one does it the way they used to do it.
Now the cattle are much safer, much healthier, and much more efficient than they were even 50 -60 years ago.
What baby? What bathwater? You are spouting lies. I am not. I know what I am talking about - you haven’t a fucking clue.
Groomed? You mean in the same way you are being brainwashed by the Cat Killers?
Nope. I had my first degree long before you were even potty-trained. I no longer work in the livestock industry. I am a CPA that specializes in farm and ranch tax issues.
If you would stop getting your info from Cat Killer’s .org - you would know that the domestic cattle industry is far safer, and healthier than at anytime in history.
I do my part by keeping myself educated, and being able to smell bullshit when some ignorant kid thinks he knows about our food supply because he listened to a health food store employee tell him about “humane beef”, or watched a cat killer video on the internet.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Supraman wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Once again - what is your idea of inhumane treatment?
Debeaked chickens crammed in cages, where they can’t even spread their wings.
You eat eggs. right? You believe the family farmer wakes up every morning and takes his wicker basket out to the green green field behind his house and goes on an easter egg hunt on a daily basis?
I hate chickens, and the entire poultry industry - but I do know that the real truth is somewhere between your fairy tale image, and what PETA decided to show.
I am curious to know how PETA knows debeaking is so horrifically painful.
Care to tell me what country that particular scene was shot in?
Sows, animals as smart as dogs, who can’t turn around in their pens suffering chronic stress.
Once again - PETA (Let’s just call cat killers) are experts in the field of porcine stress levels?
You know why those smart, smart swine are kept in those crates? Do you know what those crates are called? Probably not.
Those are called farrowing crates. Do you know what farrowing means? Probably not.
I’ll give you the idiot version: They are placed in those crates when it time for the sow (mama pig) to give birth. Why? Because the noble, uber intelligent mama pig has a tendency to roll over and crush her new babies.
They are put in the crates to protect the safety of the baby pigs. Every hog operation does this - even the little family farms.
Feeding grain to cattle who are grass eaters. Even worse, feeding them blood and bone meal who are herbivores.
Now you show your stupidity. Now you are in my field of expertise. Now, I am about to take you to school.
Place a pile of flaked corn, or cotton seed cake next to a pile of lush green grass. Bring in a steer, heifer, cow, or bull of your choice.
Guess which pile of feed will get eaten first every single time. No - it won’t be the lush green grass. It will be the grain.
What? Yes that is correct - the bovine will choose the higher nutrient food every time. It’s called nutritional wisdom - and cattle have it.
What is this self-imposed cruelty?
I have my own issues with the cattle feeding industry, but you and the cat killers have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Feeding cattle grain is as old as time itself. Why? Because the cows love it, and it is far more efficient than feeding them dried grass.
You are being completely duped by a marketing scheme. If you think your family farmer doesn’t feed grain, or supplement the grass he supposedly feeds with protein (usually from cotton seed meal, or soy bean meal) - you are are delusional.
You are buying a marketing scheme designed to take advantage of your own stupidity. If the farmer is raising cattle in such quantities as to make a living from it - he is implanting, feeding grains, and injecting his cattle with viruses. He has to be, or he would have pens full of dead, diseased beef.
Who’s the propagandist anyways, slaughter-boy? You must be getting your degree in “self-denial”.
As a matter of fact, my degree is in Animal Health Management.
Unlike you - I have actually worked in this field for more than just a couple of weeks.
Unlike you - I have first hand experience that debunks the lies told by the cat killers.
Unlike you - I know why your “family farmer” is lying to you as badly as the cat killers. I’ll give you a hint: It’s green, and the more of it you have, the more shit you can buy.
And you get your information from Cat Killers, and health food store employees.
In all honesty, that’s worse than asking for computer help from the idiots at Best Buy.
[/quote]
Damn! Rainjack just took us all to school. Well done.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
jit07 wrote:
I’d say that video illustrated inhumane treatment pretty well.
I asked you to list inhumane treatment. I don’t watch propaganda.
You prove my point that you know nothing beyond what you have been told.
I would dare say that livestock producers are far more humane in the treatment of their cattle than PETA is of the cats they “rescue”.
Seriously - tell me what you consider inhumane treatment is.
Stress is the worst thing an owner can impose on an animal. You seem to think that livestock producers wake up every morning trying to think of ways to mistreat their source of income. You could not be further from the truth.
Now…about that list I asked for… [/quote]
I have never been on a factory farm, or in a slaughterhouse. I am not very informed about the livestock industry, but that video can not be pure propaganda. I would imagine there was some truth there.
If a dog or another household pet like a cat was treated like what was represented in the video I would estimate that there would be an outcry about animal abuse.
Like I said I am not very informed when it comes to the livestock industry, but I do know like every other industry the motive is profit or should I say greed. The animals suffer more than necessary because of greed.
I can’t believe you ass clowns get so riled up about people’s dietary choices.
Some eat meat, some don’t. What people ingest is sacred to some and meaningless to others.
What’s so hard to digest on this one?
Chill out.
[quote]Supraman wrote:
Like the meat and bone meal issue that you totally glossed over? Cannibalistic herbivores. That is an abomination!
rainjack wrote:
Please expound you your vast knowledge of feed these items. I would LOVE to hear you try and explain just how bone and blood meal are fed to cattle. Seriously - I really want to know what you think goes on, or what you have been told goes on.[/quote]
Let me preface my post with two things:
- I have absolutely no experience with farming, particularly cow, pig, chicken farming; as such, I am not pretending to hold any real knowledge of the matter
- I love eating meat; I don’t see how people live without it
That being said, I thought it was fairly common knowledge that dead cows - ones that die in their holding cells (see how little I know; I don’t even know the correct term) - are ground up and fed back to the healthy ones. I thought most meat-eaters knew that and just accepted it; one of those “out of sight, out of mind” kinda’ things.
Some people may have heard of Howard Lyman:
http://www.madcowboy.com/
http://www.famousinterview.ca/interviews/howard_f_lyman.htm
He’s a guy who was the fourth generation heir to the family business of cattle farming. One day he got sick of it all and began trying to expose the corporate cattle industry. I heard a radio interview with him one day (this was a couple of years ago, when the mad cow scare was in full force), and the interviewer asked him for just one example of some of the really disturbing practices followed by some cattle farms. He spoke of having “his guys” go out and scrape up roadkill to grind up and mix in with the feed.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview above:
Q - When did that Mad Cow Disease come about?
A - We never had a real threat. I believe prior to the time we ground up cows and fed them back to cows that we probably did have one case per million inhabitants of spongiform disease. But, if you take one animal that has the disease, this one in a million and grind it up, then you have the potential to infect thousands because it only takes the amount of material that covers the sharp end of a pin to transfer the disease. So, when we started grinding up cows that had Mad Cow Disease, we started grinding up sheep that had scrabbies and we started feeding 'em out there. Then we started infecting thousands of animals. From 1945 when we started that practice till today, we are still grinding out potentially infected animals and feeding them back to other animals. If you went down today to your local fast food restaurant and got a burger and took it to a DNA lab you would find there’s anywhere between 200-1,000 animals in that one 4 ounce burger. Now, with the amount of material to cover the size of a pen, just think an infected animal ground up and turned into hamburger how we can spread that in the population. We’re talking about something that takes anywhere from 10 to 40 years to show the symptoms. I personally believe that we have hundreds of thousands of people in the United States today that are incubating the spongiform disease.
Propaganda? Who knows. Is this guy a quack? I don’t have the slightest idea. Was he getting drilled by the competition and feeling like he wanted revenge? Perhaps. It should be said that he is a vegan; I don’t think that alone, however, is a reason to discount everything someone says against meat. I’m not saying I believe everything he has said, either. But the NCBA tried to sue him and lost. Maybe they just didn’t have enough evidence…
I do try to buy my meat from sources that claim their animals are free-range and fed organic feed. Do I think they’re completely innocent in how they treat their animals? Not really. But I guess it makes me feel a little better…and that’s probably naive…
Eh well, sorry to add fuel to the fire, but I felt this discussion warranted mentioning it. And again, I have no personal knowledge on any of this. I am just as ignorant as the next guy. Carry on.
[quote]jit07 wrote:
Like I said I am not very informed when it comes to the livestock industry, but I do know like every other industry the motive is profit or should I say greed. The animals suffer more than necessary because of greed.[/quote]
Providing food is greed? I won’t deny their is a financial gain to be had by producing safe, healthy food. You have created that market through your own laziness.
You don’t have a farm. You depend on others to raise the food you eat because you have better things to do with your time.
I am still looking for proof that animals suffer more now than they did back in the 19th century.
You know how they used to kill chickens? They would go into the hen house - pull out the hen that failed to lay any eggs, and wring their neck.
Humane, huh?
Please don’t insult me with your attempts at passing ignorance off as logical thought.
I have been around the beef industry in one capacity or another for over 20 years. I have never ever heard of anyone “grinding up road kill” for feed.
Can it happen? probably. Has it happened? I am sure. Is it an ongoing practice? Absolutely not. At least not in my dealings with feeding cattle.
You guys have to understand that they don’t just take a dead cow, grind it up, and put it in the feed bunk.
There is a niche industry that specializes in picking up dead animals. The one around here is called “The Used Cow Dealer”.
They take these dead cattle and process them.
They also take cripples, and chronics, and cancer eyes. The live cattle are called “railers” because if sent to a USDA inspected packer, they will be put on a side rail, and the owner is docked for the cost of processing them.
What kind of processing do they do?
They separate the meat from the bone. They collect the blood, they salvage what hide they can, They take the entrails. All of these are separated at their plant.
Why? because the meat makes excellent dog food. What is unusable is dehydrated and ground up. The blood is dehydrated and milled, the bones are dehydrated and ground. All fat is rendered off and collected.
Now - These items are used in the feeding of livestock. But, contrary to the popular notion that they are fed a steady of dead animals - the byproducts listed above are used as micro supplements. Calcium (bones), iron(blood), fat (fat). Fat is used to increase palatability.
Imagine that - cattle love the taste of rendered fat. It makes them want to eat more.
I have never fed meat to a bovine. But the other ingredients are fed in levels as high as a pound per ton. Just in case you are doing the math - that is .05 %.
Why do they do this? Because the minerals found in the blood meal and bone meal are already in the most bioavailable form.
They don’t allow the feeding of blood meal anymore, nor do they allow the feeding of bone meal, if I am not mistaken. This is all due to the mad cow scare.
I have no clue what the health management practices are wrt other countries, but the US has the safest, and healthiest food supply in the world.
The problem is not with how we do what we do. The problem is with people that have no clue what they are talking about. Have never spent any time to find out, and think that every animal should be treated just like the family dog.
All livestock are commodities. Just like cotton, wheat, soy beans, corn, and all of the other crops that are grown and raised for the specific intent of feeding someone.
To think of them as the family fucking pet is to show how utterly out of touch, and ignorant some of you are.
But call me names - ignore common sense. You are safe because you can always depend on a food supply, and not have to concern yourself with the dirty details of actually killing and cooking your own meal. Even the vegans are murderers and rapists of the environment when they pay money for the non-meat food they shove down their hypocritical pie-holes.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I have been around the beef industry in one capacity or another for over 20 years. I have never ever heard of anyone “grinding up road kill” for feed.
Can it happen? probably. Has it happened? I am sure. Is it an ongoing practice? Absolutely not. At least not in my dealings with feeding cattle.
You guys have to understand that they don’t just take a dead cow, grind it up, and put it in the feed bunk.
There is a niche industry that specializes in picking up dead animals. The one around here is called “The Used Cow Dealer”.
They take these dead cattle and process them.
They also take cripples, and chronics, and cancer eyes. The live cattle are called “railers” because if sent to a USDA inspected packer, they will be put on a side rail, and the owner is docked for the cost of processing them.
What kind of processing do they do?
They separate the meat from the bone. They collect the blood, they salvage what hide they can, They take the entrails. All of these are separated at their plant.
Why? because the meat makes excellent dog food. What is unusable is dehydrated and ground up. The blood is dehydrated and milled, the bones are dehydrated and ground. All fat is rendered off and collected.
Now - These items are used in the feeding of livestock. But, contrary to the popular notion that they are fed a steady of dead animals - the byproducts listed above are used as micro supplements. Calcium (bones), iron(blood), fat (fat). Fat is used to increase palatability.
Imagine that - cattle love the taste of rendered fat. It makes them want to eat more.
I have never fed meat to a bovine. But the other ingredients are fed in levels as high as a pound per ton. Just in case you are doing the math - that is .05 %.
Why do they do this? Because the minerals found in the blood meal and bone meal are already in the most bioavailable form.
They don’t allow the feeding of blood meal anymore, nor do they allow the feeding of bone meal, if I am not mistaken. This is all due to the mad cow scare.
I have no clue what the health management practices are wrt other countries, but the US has the safest, and healthiest food supply in the world.
The problem is not with how we do what we do. The problem is with people that have no clue what they are talking about. Have never spent any time to find out, and think that every animal should be treated just like the family dog.
All livestock are commodities. Just like cotton, wheat, soy beans, corn, and all of the other crops that are grown and raised for the specific intent of feeding someone.
To think of them as the family fucking pet is to show how utterly out of touch, and ignorant some of you are.
But call me names - ignore common sense. You are safe because you can always depend on a food supply, and not have to concern yourself with the dirty details of actually killing and cooking your own meal. Even the vegans are murderers and rapists of the environment when they pay money for the non-meat food they shove down their hypocritical pie-holes. [/quote]
I am glad we have someone here who actually has some experience with the industry.
As I generally suspected, I always thought the truth was somewhere between what the cattle industry wants the general public to believe and what people like Howard Lyman say. Your post indicates that.
I can understand, however, why industry insiders would not want details like those you listed above to get out. It’s very easy to take something like “[t]hey take these dead cattle and process them” and completely distort it. Most people hear that, and that’s all she wrote. A lot of people don’t want to take the time to find out the truth.
RJ…amen man. Amen.
Play Harvest Moon: Friends Of Mineral Town for the Game Boy Advance, or any Harvest Moon for that matter. You can own cows and chickens and stuff, but you can;t kill 'em and they live in big coops and you have to brush them and feed them special food. Sure, they can live off grass outside and-
Basically the point I’m trying to make is, while all that sounds nice, it’s a game (one that’s kept me on the toilet for hours) and not viable in real life, like communism.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
You guys need to visit a farm, and quit swallowing the PETA drivel.
How about visiting a slaughterhouse?
After I had to have one of my dogs put down I couldn’t eat meat for a long time. Just looking at it turned me off.
I have. In fact in getting my B.S. I had to slaughter a steer for a grade.
I have no fucking clue where you took your dog - but I can pretty much guarantee you he wasn’t killed in a USDA inspected slaughter facility.
Besides - the animals are dead within five minutes of entering the kill floor.
What in the hell does your dog have to do with this?
[/quote]
My point is that maybe eating meat is a necessity but don’t try and paint some romantic image of what the animals go through.
I slaughtered animals in high school and before that I had seen my father and uncles do the same. I felt bad for the animals every time. Even though my dog was put down humanely it still bothered me and I am glad about this. If I had no feelings for any of those animals I would not be the person I am. It’s easy to talk about eating meat and how it doesn’t bother you at all but I doubt anyone here would choose to work in a slaughterhouse for any amount of money.
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
It’s easy to talk about eating meat and how it doesn’t bother you at all but I doubt anyone here would choose to work in a slaughterhouse for any amount of money. [/quote]
I wouldn’t do it just because it is a smelly, dirty, nasty job. Not because of my feelings toward cows. I feel no remorse for animals killed/slaughtered for consumption because their death means life for others. It’s just too bad for them for being lower on the food chain.
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
I slaughtered animals in high school and before that I had seen my father and uncles do the same. I felt bad for the animals every time. Even though my dog was put down humanely it still bothered me and I am glad about this. If I had no feelings for any of those animals I would not be the person I am. It’s easy to talk about eating meat and how it doesn’t bother you at all but I doubt anyone here would choose to work in a slaughterhouse for any amount of money. [/quote]
Like I said earlier - livestock, that is animals bred, and raised for the production of meat are not pets. They are a crop. They are grown just like a farmer would grow wheat, or corn, or soybeans.
No one - least of all me - is trying to make the cattle industry more romantic than it is. We feed cows and we kill them when they have eaten enough.
I have very good friends that choose to work in packing houses. The pay is excellent, and the work is steady.
Looking down your nose at those that do what you haven’t the stomach for is quite disingenuous, not to mention quite hypocritical when all you have to do is buy the meat of murdered animals in pre-cut, plastic wrapped portions.
If you read the Testosterone shirt thread you’ll all know I ran into my ex fiance (she who shall not be named). Well she was excited to see me (I could have had her if I wanted all the t-man and alpha’s know what I mean).
Anyway she said she stopped eating meat, now this girl used to love nothing better than to have roast beef at foxwoods. She said it offhanded and I just nodded my head and what I noticed was she looked a little thicker than I had remebered. She was 5’5" 120ish size 3 with big arms I’m wondering if it has to do with her new boyfriend and his life choices as why she won’t eat anything with a face anymore.
As having been a vegetarian for seven months (damn, it’s hard to recover without easy forms of protein like meat) and also worked in the meat industry, I feel some authority on the topic.
I eat meat. I killed baby pigs. In killing them, I took no joy. They’re as smart as my dog. Meat is delicious and nutritious. I am strong because of the animals whom I have eaten, and I thank them.
I’m on the Left. I think greenhouse gases from combustion engines are a threat. Industrial agriculture results from the logical development of human industry. Eating kosher meat, where live animals get their throats slit, is far worse than eating an animal who just got stunned unconscious.
I was a vegetarian because I thought it was more ethical and would be healthy. It was neither. Read Nietzsche.
Thanks y’all for reading.
And it’s spelled “vegetarianism.”
What do all these hippie vegans think their Birkenstock sandals are made from?