Some Observations...(all are welcomed)

[PvK]

StarShadow said:
It's not that the vegetarians are untrustworthy. It's the perception of bias. It's akin to getting your information on the negative effects of smoking, from the tobacco industry.

No, it would be like getting info on the negative effects of smoking, from nonsmokers.com.

[PvK]

Imperator Fyron said:
PvK said:
...people who care about the treatment of animals.

Why should I care about them? They only exist to become food, afterall. I don't want to see excessive production waste just because it makes the animals "happier."

You should care about them because you are compassionate and would like to reduce suffering.

[PvK]

This discussion has been interesting to me, not just for the topic and to hear people's reactions, but also as an example of the effects of overstatement. Particularly when I think others are overstating a case or writing something that seems ridiculous to me, I am often tempted to respond with overstated sarcastic and ironic humor that only I (or those on my rarified wavelength, but not often those I'm responding to) am likely to get, and that can lead to misunderstandings getting out of control.

Anyway, Renegade 13, I'd like not to upset you with miscommunication, so I'll try to respond as clearly as I can and maybe explain better than I have been.

I was making sarcastic remarks about not trusting vegetarians because the replies from you and Fyron seemed to say you wouldn't trust any information from a URL with "vegetarian" in the domain name. I thought that was pretty remarkable, and was trying to express it with sarcastic humor. Perhaps I was responding unclearly to something I somewhat misunderstood, just getting us circling each other.

It seems that at some point in history some people on the "animal" side of this issue have made some people on the "meat" side (sorry if my terms are offending anyone) quite annoyed and skeptical, though this seems like a very polarizing topic. I guess I was trying to express too that I find it hard to understand how people could get to the point where they trust corporations with tons of money at stake over people who are trying to help animals, to the point that they'd just disbelieve anything with the word "vegetarian" in its name. For my part, I've gotten to the point that I distrust most corporate and corp-media messages, and expect corporations to frame animal rights activists much more readily than I'd expect activists to frame farmers. It's an extreme example of people getting upset at "the other side" and overreacting and hurting both communication and their own cause, leading to lots of mistrust and entrenched sides.

I was trying (and apparently, failing) to reflect what seemed like your illogic back to you. (I'm still surprised how rarely that approach works, but I guess I shouldn't be.) I was not really meaning to say I thought you abused or neglected or didn't care about animals. I just meant to show the same level of illogic and intolerance I seemed to be getting. All it did was make you frustrated in the same way your replies frustrated me, but without you understanding (or at least, not accepting), what I was trying to express.

I wasn't saying the whole meat industry was wicked; of course it's not. Again, my expressions tended to reflect illogical and incorrect expressions from the other side. Again, it didn't get understood. My mistake more than anyone else's.

I hope though that you would realize too that the same is true of people on the other side of the argument. There are some who do bad things and say bad things, but that doesn't make them all bad or wrong either.

I understand about beak trimming. My understanding is that sometimes it is done by burning, but that's not necessarily a significant detail if we're talking seriously. I have seen many arguments on both sides about how humane it is or isn't in different specific cases. I was guilty of overstatement in the way I expressed it, but again this was because I was reacting to overstatements to the effect that it never happened, would never happen in the USA, etc. But two wrongs don't generally make a right, nor do they reach an understanding.

I don't know the details of the "starve" comment - that was the New York Times writing that.

"Vegetarians are primarily people who have lived in cities all their life, and not been in touch with the real world, outside of cities. "
- No, vegetarians are simply people who don't eat meat, for a wide variety of reasons.

"Vegetarians have been raised watching Walt Disney movies"
- Fascinating.

"Vegetarians [...] think that all animals are harmless and nearly the equal to people. They're not, never will be."
- "Equal" in what sense?
- Some people, who may or may not actually be vegetarians, even think that they prefer animals to people in some ways.

"If you couldn't go to the grocery store and buy all your organic, non-meat products and you actually had to grow and kill what you eat rather than go buy it, you would eat meat. If you didn't, you'd die."
- Er, no. Many Asian cultures (and, see "Buddhism") have been largely or almost entirely vegetarian (in the not-animal-eating sense, not in your strange Disney-raised sense) even before significant contact with Western cultures. They did just fine, and many continue to do so.

"You'd also see that animals are just that; animals. They are not on the same level as a person."
- In what terms? I've had plenty of contact with animals, and I respect and appreciate them quite a bit, and certainly prefer many of them to many humans I've known.

"Killing and eating animals does not make people 'evil'."
- Who (on this thread) ever said it did?

I don't think we really disagree on the main issue here. Seems to me we agree that there can be humane meat farming, and there can be abusive meat farming, and there are at least some cases of abusive meat farming, and that's bad. Where we disagree is maybe what counts as abusive, how common abuse is, what should be done about it, and so on. None of which we really want to discuss in detail here.

PvK

[PvK]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
According to my dad, who was raised on a farm, eight chickens cannot be crammed into an 8x8x8 sized encloser.

Based on my own understanding of the dimensions of a chicken, I doubt you could fit a single chicken in there.

Narf, what are you referring to? The low end was 40 or 48 inches square per chicken, not per eight chickens. 48 would be about 7 x 7 per chicken (if it were square, vertical unspecified), and the wonderful concession is a gradual increase to 72 which is more like 8 x 9 inches (flappin' 4 joy (tm)). There are generally several chickens per cage though, so an 8-chicken cage would be 8 times as big, with 8 chickens. There are pictures on the net of course if still curious. Just do a Google image search for: chicken "battery cage" ... or not.

[Captain Kwok]

I find it interesting Regegade13 that you complain about the generalizations made by vegetarian groups etc., and then you go and make a half-dozen generalizations yourself. PvK already addressed most of these items, but let me assure you there are large populations of people who live in rural communities that do not eat animal products and they survive just fine. Just because your experience is more noble, doesn't mean that people who don't eat meat for some of the reasons mentioned in this thread are without reason.

If anything, people in North America generally consume more meat than is healthy, particularly of beef and pork. If you look at some of the top causes of death in North America, many can be attributed to this diet. Instead of consuming bacon in moderation, we'd rather genetically engineer pigs to make lower cholesterol bacon...

Of course, many of these animals wouldn't exist if it weren't for the demand for their meat, but that doesn't justify that they need to suffer. Fyron should hope that the animals that are raised for his consumption are happy, because it certainly makes a difference in the end product that he will see on his dinner table.

There is nothing wrong with not eating meat because you don't like the general treatment of animals in the meat industry. It's your choice and good for you. Of course, there are always the few people among any group that are preachy and irksome, but that's the same for any body of people that have a "cause".

[Glyn]

Meat Meat Meat!!!

Doesn’t anyone care about Plant rights!

Plants are people too! Or would be if they had a central nervous system.

When was the last time you hugged a plant. Poison ivy need love too!!!


Seriously,
Vegetarians are simply choosing not to consume a product for what ever reason. Some believe so strongly that they may violate others rights in the process to enlighten non-vegetarians. Some people who are economically tied to the meat industry may also use extreme measures.

Several studies that have come out recently are supporting the Idea that animals raised in more natural environments eating more natural food (IE. grass vs grain for cattle) make for healthier food for humans. IE Less cruel treatment = more economic sense.


There was a news story about a dairy farmer who installed waterbeds for his cows. Apparently, the cows liked them. I don’t known if the cows produced more milk or higher quality milk.

In July 2001, the Heindel family built a barn on its 2,200-acre farm that came equipped with four robotic milkers, a 26-fan ventilation system, two cow back scratchers, about 280 cow waterbeds and two automatic scrapers that work to remove manure from the building.

The battle on behalf of the poor beleaguered laying hen has, over the past 30 years or so, been fought by the consumer with some passion and, if not won, then at least fairly honourably drawn. Free-range eggs (as opposed to battery eggs laid by hens in tiny cages), now account for about 50 per cent of all UK egg sales to the public

[Fyron]

Captain Kwok said:
Fyron should hope that the animals that are raised for his consumption are happy, because it certainly makes a difference in the end product that he will see on his dinner table.

I've yet to encounter any "organic" (or whatever the appropriate term in this case is) chicken/eggs that was any different from other chicken/eggs. Maybe for animals that do not produce bland and insipid meat, but chicken?

PvK said:
You should care about them because you are compassionate and would like to reduce suffering.

Why should I extend compassion to food products? There is plenty of human suffering to be compastionate about; compassion for what is going to be on my dinner table soon enough is wasted effort.

[Captain Kwok]

A lot of chicken you'll encounter in the grocery store is pumped with a solution of salt, water, and phosphates to help counter stress-induced meat characteristics and present a nice visual (not to mention increase the price with extra water weight!). It's so prevalent that having unpumped chicken is probably a rarity for most consumers.

Also, with high volume operations, processors tend to use various concoctions of antibiotics/hormones in feed etc. to help prevent disease and promote growth etc. - these items do make it to the shelf (and surrounding environment) in some quantities.

For Beef it does make a lot of difference. You'll note that all the highest grade beef comes from generally smaller producers that raise their cattle more naturally vs. the large producers.

[PvK]

Imperator Fyron said:
Why should I extend compassion to food products? There is plenty of human suffering to be compastionate about; compassion for what is going to be on my dinner table soon enough is wasted effort.

Because you're grateful, gracious and humble? Because you're a nice person who doesn't like suffering? Because "none of the above" is one of the multiple-choice options for "who would you like to suffer a miserable existance?" Because you reflect that if you were raised for food, you'd rather be given better treatment than being packed shoulder to shoulder with others in a dark cage before being slaughtered and turned into human McNuggets? Because the risk of serious new disease strains and human malnutrition may be greatly increased by some industrial farm practices?

[Renegade 13]

I understand what you're saying PvK, and actually agree with most of what you've said in your last post.

My position has (obviously!) been a little dogmatic and closed-minded. Obviously there are extremes on both sides of the arguement, and the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, as I suspect it is in this case.

And now that I actually think about it, rather than just trying to defend my position, I guess a vegetarian's choice to not eat meat is their choice to make (and their loss in my opinion ) and really doesn't affect me too much. Though I must say there are several essential nutrients found in meat that are not found in vegetable food sources. Kinda argues for an evolutionary reliance on eating meat (if you believe in evolution of course).

As for how animals are treated, I can only say what I know to be true, which is how animals are treated in my direct experience and observation. Which, of course, is how they're treated here in Canada, where we have an absolute abundance of space to allow animals to roam somewhat freely. In the States, or other countries, I dunno. As for chickens...well I don't like eggs so I don't eat them and chicken isn't my favorite food anyway (I prefer hamburger or a nice juicy steak )I really don't know how they're treated (though I'll always have my doubts about the position espoused by animal rights activists. After all, they have an agenda. As, obviously, big corporations do as well. Seems people really can't believe anything that they themselves don't have direct experience with.

As for Disney movies, where else do people get the idea's that bears are cute, cuddly, harmless animals? Bears are not in any way harmless. Yet a lot of people in cities seem to believe they are. How did that notion become so prevalent??

Around here, animals such as bears and coyotes are shot on sight. If you don't, they kill your livestock, ruin your crops. Many people without experience outside of cities (and the movies which they were raised on) don't understand what animals such as bears are really like. They'd just as soon eat you as look at your. Granted, the difference between bears and food animals is quite significant, but the principal is the same.

Kwok, you're right. I was going a little overboard on the generalizations. Also correct about how companies pump chicken full of liquid so they can sell less chicken for a greater price. A stressed animal has a much lower quality of meat than one that doesn't know anything's wrong until it dies. Which is one reason why I have my doubts that food animals are horribly mistreated.

Anyways, I think I've stated my points far too frequently recently, and doubt that anyone on any side of the arguement will change their mind, so I think it's rather pointless to continue!!