[IslandCrow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('albente', 'H')ere a pic of my wife as she gave birth to a piece of meat:

[rushdy]

It isn't right to kill on an industrial scale. If people want their meat, they should do it themselves - they should choose the animal, kill it, butcher it, and then eat it. If they can still do that and still eat meat in obvious excess, then they are welcome to it.

I live in the countryside, near a lot of farms. Barely a week passes by without me seeing sheep or cattle being transported to the slaughterhouse. It makes me feel sick to watch them looking out of the side of the truck, and full of life, and to think that within the hour, they'll probably be dead. And that isn't nice, it makes me feel extremely sad. I was on a bus not too long ago, and we followed one of the trucks down the moterway for about 20 minutes. Some of them were looking out the back watching the bus, I didn't feel very comfortable.

Now don't get me wrong, I do eat meat (a little), and I don't kill the animals myself - but every time I do eat it, it's very difficult. People can eat meat in excess because the meat they buy has little mental connection to the animal, and how it has been killed. It's very easy not to think about it, or to just think "thats how it is". I think it's better for all of us (myself included - I don't want to be hyprocritical) if meat isn't packaged for us on the supermarket shelves, and we have to do it ourselves.

Ethically, I think the best thing (though not very achievable at the moment) would be a system by which small-scale farming provides peoples for most peoples needs.

[Ludi]

I don't have a problem with eating meat, but I have enormous problems with the grossly cruel and wasteful way it is produced in conventional farming.

I eat no beef, pig, sheep, or other red meat, and very little non-home produced chicken. Very little fish.

[killJOY]

I grow my own meat, SO THERE.

[Sleepybag]

According to these figures the USA average meat consumption is 187 pounds a year, or about half a pound a day. (233 grams daily). It must be able to reduce this figure without starving to death.

[FossilFool]

Having all grass-fed meat is not feasible at all.

Organic, grass-fed beef: more than a niche? 08/01/03 ...
At present, grass-fed has barely 1 percent of the US beef market. And it's destroying the West for that small percentage.

http://www.theindependent.com/stories/0 ... te01.shtml

This has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with the oil consumed. Would you rather have a job which is probably in some way dependent on cars and trucks or something you don't actually need to live- meat?

Not that I think any leaders will actually adopt a strategy to limit meat consumption. I think it's too late to do much at all maybe. But all this talk of suburbs and heating homes and whatever misses a HUGE chunk of oil consumed. No conservation measure would mean anything if it didn't severely limit meat consumption.

Beef, 1 kg = consumed by driving 76.2 miles.

http://www.culturechange.org/issue18/oilcrash.html

I have no problem with people preparing by having livestock. If its not grassfed, it could be very hard to do in the future though. Chickens have a lower meat to grain ratio. So, they are the best. Personal chickens are popular in Asian countries of the poor which we all will be in the future.

I'm talking society-wide to avoid a crash if it is possible.

[FossilFool]

I'm surprised so many here have so much faith in the market. Didn't the market get us in this mess?

The way I see it Jevon's Paradox accounts for the problem with letting the market handle it, but not if it were limited by enforcement.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'h')ow meat is produced in our society

[aldente]

If you ask the average Joe why he eats meat the response will likely be
'because it tastes good'. There you have it in a nutshell. Can't even argue with that!

Why do we drive cars? Because they move our buttocs - same thing!

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FossilFool', '
')At present, grass-fed has barely 1 percent of the US beef market. And it's destroying the West for that small percentage.

[oilfreeandhappy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FossilFool', 'P')roducing just one hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles. Of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S., more than one-third are used to raise animals for food.

Of all agricultural land in the U.S., 87 percent is used to raise animals for food. That's 45 percent of the total land mass in the U.S.

http://www.taxmeat.com/ecological.asp

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oilfreeandhappy', 'I')'ve been a vegetarian for 20 years. I have only one reason for being a vegetarian, and that is that I can't think of one good reason to eat meat.
Jim

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') don't have a problem with eating meat, but I have enormous problems with the grossly cruel and wasteful way it is produced in conventional farming.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'W')e're all meat eaters yeah!

[oilfreeandhappy]

[quote="pstarr"]Boy do I love the taste of juicy fatty succulent meat. I don't care if it is pork, beef, lamb, or chicken so long as it is slow cooked and dripping off my fork or fingers. I would as soon die as not eat meat.

I never argue with "personal taste". Going VEG was easy for me because I never really enjoyed meat anyway. Of all things though, I seem to miss the Popeye's cajun hot chicken breast. MSF's veggie buffalo wings are close though.
Jim
http://home.comcast.net/~oil_free_and_happy/

[FossilFool]

Yes, industrial plant production isn't that great either, but would the farms be this gobbled up by agribussinesses if we did have the hierarchal structure and produce so much. And that affects how industrialism developed and grew to what it is today. Driving small farmers into industry.

The reward to our bodies isn't that great when you consider all the health problems and diseases from meat eating. Vegetarians are less likely to get just about everything.

We may be omnivores, but that might even be a development of the ice age and not an evolved characteristic as our bodies are much more like herbivores than omni or carnivores, but that's not the point. They consume more oil.

The conventional farming was made to produce a lot, and we have to have such hyperefficient (oil-inefficient) farming because we use so much of the land for grain to give to livestock. Just because the plants we eat are grown in a bad way doesn't mean that meat isn't a if not the major factor in creating that way.

Oops! I found something below and I guess that taxmeat website is lying about how much fossil fuels livestock consumes. Well, don't I feel stupid.

http://www.worldwatch.org/features/cons ... 004/07/07/

David Pimentel of Cornell University estimates that the United States devotes about 17 percent of its fossil fuel consumption to the production and consumption of food: 6 percent for crop and livestock production, 6 percent for processing and packaging, and 5 percent for distribution and cooking.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'B')oy do I love the taste of juicy fatty succulent meat. I don't care if it is pork, beef, lamb, or chicken so long as it is slow cooked and dripping off my fork or fingers. I would as soon die as not eat meat.

[eastbay]

Eating animals is vile, disgusting, and grotesque. Plus it's wasteful. Those of you still doing it really need to seriously consider stopping this horrible and filthy practice.