> The aftermath of the tragic fire revealed that a staggering 18,000 cattle died - nearly three times the amount of cows slaughtered each day in the US.
That number sounds too low. According to [0]:
> According to the USDA, in May 2019 2.94 million cattle were slaughtered in the U.S. This equates to roughly 95,000 cattle being killed per day during the month.
If you're a meat eater, this shouldn't shock you at all. Hundreds of millions of cows are killed for food each year and even if not killed for food but used for milking, their conditions are horrible mostly.
If anyone in the US ever wanted to become vegetarian, I suggest they drive through Greeley, Colorado past the lines of cattle cars waiting to enter the slaughterhouses. Their nose may curse them, however.
It's a common mistake to think all farming is done like american industrialized farming.
If you want to start eating meat again, I'd recommend you come to France's Morvan to see Charolais cattle in the green pastures, living a semi-wild life away from any stress. Or in the Alps, where the cows spend their summer eating grass and flowers outside, with only a guard dog taking care they don't get lost.
If you are eating meat in the US and aren't going significantly out of your way to get meat not farmed "that" way, you're getting meat farmed "that" way, whether or not that offends your sensibilities. The pretense that you can wishfully pretend that your Aldi's steaks and McDonald's burgers were farmed in some preindustrial idyllic georgic is offensive to a degree that cannot be overstated.
> The pretense that you can wishfully pretend that your Aldi's steaks and McDonald's burgers were farmed in some preindustrial idyllic georgic is offensive to a degree that cannot be overstated.
First of all, eating at McDonalds is 100% optional and nobody is pretending anything, so calm yourself down. Lots of farmers still raise cattle this way.
Omnivores definitely can find meat raised in fairly decent conditions [1] and at an affordable price (remember also than omnivores don't eat only meat). Just ask your trusted butcher about the origin of the meat or read the fucking tag showing the origin of the product.
[1] On the other hand, not all the fruits that vegans happily consume where cultured in "utopia", but for some reason we never talk about that.
> Omnivores definitely can find meat raised in fairly decent conditions and at an affordable price (if not, remember than omnivores don't eat only meat). On the other hand, not all the fruits that vegans happily consume where cultured in "utopia", but for some reason we never talk about that.
Doesn't mean omnivores don't also consume said fruit, as you said, "remember than omnivores don't eat only meat".
If consumers were signaling their demand for meat from ethical farming, then be sure that American capitalism would change plenty of things to improve animal conditions.
Because vegetarianism is mainly a habit of the wealthy in the US, it may even increase the share of industrial farming, as the ethical farmers lose their natural customers with enough spending power to buy their products.
It doesn't take wealth to be vegetarian. It takes eyeballs and a brain to realize it's suicidal and omnicidal in the way of vulture capitalism to continue to eating meat. (No pun intended.)
See, 8000 doesn't seem like enough. Only eight million people eat a portion of beef on a given day?
Obviously it doesn't quite scale like that - not every cut of meat is a prime steak, some of it you'd chop up and stew. But a big pot of stew will feed a dozen people, and doesn't use a lot of cow, and what it does use is not an expensive bit.
Right now livestock is the best thing we have for turning stuff humans can't eat into stuff humans can. I can't eat grass. Sheep can. Cows can. Hens eat everything.
> Right now livestock is the best thing we have for turning stuff humans can't eat into stuff humans can. I can't eat grass. Sheep can. Cows can. Hens eat everything.
Almost all humans can live healthily without eating animals.
> Because there are so many protein-rich plant foods, you can easily get enough protein on a vegan diet. Plus, experts agree that a well-planned plant-based diet provides all of the nutrients you need, including protein (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source).
Obviously I didn't advocate for eating grass as humans can't digest it. Have a look at [0] for a diverse list of foods that don't involve animals. It's nutritious and delicious. And no cruelty involved at all.
- Animals have pain receptors like we do. Richard Dawkins even thinks animals feel pain more severely than we do.
- Feeding ourselves with animal products requires multiple times more resources than sticking to a mostly plant based diet. It produces more green house gases - not something we should be doing during the climate crisis where the IPCC is urging the world to limit global heating to 1.5C to 2.0C. Currently we are on a path that's above that with catastrophic consequences if we don't act and reverse this trend.
- Responsible slaughtering requires stunning the animal before killing it.
- In many countries/biotopes, livestock farming is the only type of farming you can do, because the earth is too poor to have something else than pastures. As such, stopping it may be a net-negative in terms of food production.
- Stop thinking that the only way to breed animals is through factory farms. Not everyone is american.
- Meat, and animal products (milk, eggs...) are a much better protein source than any plant-based alternative. Be it natural, or the chemical/GMO trash that is served by new foodtech startups.
Again, just like you find giant pickups only in the US, many countries outside the US eat meat and breed animals responsibly. You should ask for ethical alternatives, rather than a complete abstinence.
Factory farms exist in other countries, not just the US. They exist in China, Europe, etc.
The reason why factory farms exist is because it's the cheapest and efficient way to provide animal meat to the masses. You can't do that with grass fed free roaming animal farms. It would be too expensive and require even more land.
Why is meat and dairy a better protein source? We don't require tons of protein to thrive [0]. What's important is to have a wholesome diet with a variety of nutrients, not just this obsession with protein. In fact dairy is not ideal for human consumption, see https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/he.... PCRM is a group of medical experts providing evidence based health information.
Animals know when they are about to be killed - even with 'responsible slaughtering', it's still an act of immense cruelty. Do you want to be stunned and have your throat slit or a bolt shot through your head? Do animals freely give up their life so we can have some temporary pleasure moment in our mouth or do you think they would fight for their life?
Why inflict cruelty on sentient beings and destroy our biosphere when we don't need to? We humans have given up other cruel practices so why not give up killing and torturing Billions of animals each year and progress towards a more humane society?
If you have no other food sources or have medical issues and need meat to survive then ignore the above.
— You are using an all-or-nothing rhetoric, which is ideological, not rational. If animal well-being were your concern, you'd seek ethical alternatives, not advocate for abstinence. Yes, factory farms exist everywhere, but you don't have to eat meat from them, especially if you're a dev on HN, I guess you have the spending power to buy alternatives.
— Meat and diary have the best protein profile, with no bottlenecks. A young man needs between 1 and 2 grams of protein per kg per day, which is very hard to get with a vegan diet, and implies other problems, such as a surcharge of carbs in your diet.
Your link shows tofu as a suitable alternative – it's not, as the phytoestrogen content is an endocrine perturbation for men.
— Killing and being killed is normal in the animal world. Animals are often quite cruel, I had a cat when I was young and living in the countryside. I remember seeing him play with mouses and bird that were clearly in pain and about to die.
Anyway, if you live in a rich country, your way of life probably causes a lot of pain to humans, too. You know, the people who have to work 12h/day 6 days a week to make the cheap consumption goods you own. The poor laborers that pick your vegetables for a minimum wage, or even less, and will get an early cancer because of the pesticides' exposure. The business consultants who have to face extreme pressure and insane working time to produce a few % more for the retirees that own their company's stock each year.
This, just like electric cars, gender issues and climate-change advocacy, is mainly just virtue-signaling from affluent people who do not want that society questions their way of life. You just want to constrain others to assert your domination on society, not solve problems. On my own, I will continue to eat french cheese from the farm near my parent's house, where goats come to the farmer to be milked and are in pasture 8 months of the year. This caloric intake allows me to eat fewer vegetables from slave industrial farms from southern Spain.
> Killing and being killed is normal in the animal world. Animals are often quite cruel, I had a cat when I was young and living in the countryside. I remember seeing him play with mouses and bird that were clearly in pain and about to die.
Animals like cats are carnivores, they need meat to survive and they act on instinct. And since you are comparing yourself with a cat then please eat animal flesh raw - don't cook it or season it to make it palatable. I doubt you would be able to eat raw flesh every day to sustain yourself.
We can choose between inflicting or not inflicting suffering on animals. So since we don't need meat to thrive - I mean high performance athletes do without [0] - then why inflict suffering on animals if we don't need to? The only reason is because it tastes good. So does your insatiable hunger for animal flesh justify the suffering and death of an animals?
> Yes, factory farms exist everywhere, but you don't have to eat meat from them
The point is if we want to feed the world using your 'happy farm' method - it wouldn't be possible, because we don't have the land or resources required to maintain our current meat consumption using your method. So the goal is to abolish factory farms. The type of farms you describe would probably continue to exist, but the price would increase even more.
> This, just like electric cars, gender issues and climate-change advocacy, is mainly just virtue-signaling from affluent people who do not want that society questions their way of life.
Please don't conflate all those different topics and assume it's about virtue signalling.
> You just want to constrain others to assert your domination on society, not solve problems.
Where did I talk about domination? Abolishing factory farms and encouraging people to reduce or avoid meat & dairy completely is part of solving the problem of the climate crisis. This is a scientific fact, but of course you can choose to bury your head in the sand and ignore the dangers of going beyond 2.0C global heating.
- Many animals kill out of pleasure/instinct, not to eat. Ask any shepherd, wolves will often come, kill a sheep, and leave it. Humans cook meat to increase their caloric intake, which reduces the amount of meat needed to eat. I don't see any problem with this.
- Your link regarding "high performance athletes" isn't really relevant. F1 Racers are not athletes - they have to be as slim as possible to fit in the car body. Also, nothing is told about performance, just random facts about cardiovascular health, something that doesn't affect athletes, as they're already doing a lot of exercise. Last, there is a lot of difference between red meat full of fat and the lean, white meat that most athletes consume. Same with antioxidants, eating meat doesn't prevent you to eat berries on the side.
Ah, and plant-based diets are usually full of carbs, which are metabolized into fat, so their last point is another example of vegan pseudoscience.
- The "happy farm" method could exist by reducing our meat consumption. You can also greatly improve industrial farms if you accept price increases, which is I think a reasonable solution.
- It's virtue signaling. I met so many vegans earning top 5% income lecturing me about global warming and taking planes few times a year for their holidays, I now know the drill quite well. You know what? The best predictor for your CO2 production is your income, which is associated to your consumption level. You want to reduce global warming? Withdraw 80% of your salary in cash and burn it. Stop using a fridge, as well.
>> Many animals kill out of pleasure/instinct, not to eat. Ask any shepherd, wolves will often come, kill a sheep, and leave it. Humans cook meat to increase their caloric intake, which reduces the amount of meat needed to eat. I don't see any problem with this.
What you describe is surplus killing. It's not because they get a kick out of torturing or seeing another animal suffer. Here is the definition: "researchers say animals surplus-kill whenever they can, in order to procure food for offspring and others, to gain valuable killing experience, and to create the opportunity to eat the carcass later when they are hungry again". Also see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229928398_Surplus_k...
I think what the former special forces guy explained in the video I shared previously applies to you. You use a flexible morality. When it suits you, you compare yourself to wolves or other carnivores to justify your actions of supporting cruelty. When it doesn't suit you, you say we shouldn't compare ourselves to animals. So what is it? If you want to be like a wolf then kill and eat the animals raw - no cooking or making it taste nice.
Most people would feel sick watching an animal being butchered. That's why the realities of butchering are hidden from society. In the US they have AG gag laws - it's not allowed to film what's going on in factory farms or slaughter houses. I wonder why.
There were many reports of small children not wanting to eat animals once they realized they eat Peppa the pig. Or the recent cases of kids crying because the farm animals they made friends with are being taken away and being slaughtered. We are not carnivores. We are not hunter gatherers anymore, most of us don't need animal flesh to survive anymore. What differentiates us from other non-human animals is that we can choose. We have the ability to progress. Future humans will look back at this time the same way we look back at when we enslaved other humans and 'othered' them.
The core question really is not whether animals are the same as us, but it's whether they can suffer like us. And the answer to that is a resounding YES. But you might be OK for animals to suffer so you can have temporary mouth pleasure and convenience.
>> Your link regarding "high performance athletes" isn't really relevant. F1 Racers are not athletes - they have to be as slim as possible to fit in the car body. Also, nothing is told about performance, just random facts about cardiovascular health, something that doesn't affect athletes, as they're already doing a lot of exercise. Last, there is a lot of difference between red meat full of fat and the lean, white meat that most athletes consume. Same with antioxidants, eating meat doesn't prevent you to eat berries on the side.
What do you think an athlete is? So anyone who is slim is not an athlete? Marathon runners are not athletes according to your definition.
How come you left out the other types of athletes from the article, like NFL players. Do you think NFL players are not athletes?
If you want to see other athletes and how they thrive and perform on a plant based diet then watch this https://gamechangersmovie.com/
I bet your argument against this will be that the most performant athletes in a certain category of sport are not on a plant based diet. But are you trying to be the best athlete in the world and you need to carefully fine tune your diet to maximize performance?
>> Ah, and plant-based diets are usually full of carbs, which are metabolized into fat, so their last point is another example of vegan pseudoscience.
>> The "happy farm" method could exist by reducing our meat consumption. You can also greatly improve industrial farms if you accept price increases, which is I think a reasonable solution.
We kill Billions of animals each year. How do you reduce the demand for animal flesh?
>> It's virtue signaling. I met so many vegans earning top 5% income lecturing me about global warming and taking planes few times a year for their holidays, I now know the drill quite well. You know what? The best predictor for your CO2 production is your income, which is associated to your consumption level. You want to reduce global warming? Withdraw 80% of your salary in cash and burn it. Stop using a fridge, as well.
So yours is anecdotal evidence and you make the same mistake many others make (I make the same black&white thinking mistake and try hard to avoid it) - assuming that all people advocating for animal rights and for a more plant-based diet... that they are all virtue signalling.
I don't own a car. I haven't flown for over 5 years. According to the WWF carbon footprint calculator my score is below the world average. So please don't assume that all people who don't eat animals are all the same.
In conclusion, I think we agree on one thing - that animal factory farming is bad and that we should reduce our animal flesh consumption. How do you propose we do that? How would you abolish factory farms?
What we don't agree on are ethics. You don't seem to believe that animals don't have the right to live and it's fully justified to kill them against their will even if our survival doesn't depend on it.
I'm curious, if we could grow animal flesh in the lab without having to grow a full animal and making it suffer, would you eat it?
Anyway, thank you for trying to keep this discussion civil ;)
> I think what the former special forces guy explained in the video I shared previously applies to you. You use a flexible morality. When it suits you, you compare yourself to wolves or other carnivores to justify your actions of supporting cruelty. When it doesn't suit you, you say we shouldn't compare ourselves to animals. So what is it? If you want to be like a wolf then kill and eat the animals raw - no cooking or making it taste nice.
I'm not a wolf. I'm explaining that animals kill in nature. Omnivore animals do kill, too, even if they could live by being vegetarians. Also, as I told you, I have stated my point already, it's not flexible. It's ok to breed and kill animals for their meat. Useless suffering should be avoided, as it's unnecessary and spoils the produce. This way of thinking would actually improve much better the situation than your overall ban.
Don't believe me? Well, veganism hasn't stopped industrial farming, however organic farming and diverse labels to nudge the consumer gave birth to better practices and an awareness about more sustainable farming. You're putting virtuous farmers out of business, I'm helping them improve their work.
> What do you think an athlete is? So anyone who is slim is not an athlete? Marathon runners are not athletes according to your definition.
F1 drivers' hedge is mainly in the nervous system and their experience. It's stupid to compare them to marathon runners or gymnasts working the olympic rings. Those last one need proteins to build up muscle/heal it, which is hard to get using plants, because plant protein profile has a lower quality than animal produce.
Yes, sorry, but I don't respect the authority argument, especially after COVID-19 where all the “experts” told us that by jailing everyone we'd be safer, while hard data from Sweden was showing that it was clearly false.
The fact that they say that plant-based diet has less fat, which is better, is clearly a misunderstanding of carbs->fat metabolisms. Otherwise, drinking coke wouldn't make you fat. Anyway, we had before the "fat is bad" dogma, now it's "carbs is bad", what comes next?
If you want to know, I ate an almost plant-based diet for a while, full of proteins (lentils + rice, nuts, etc etc), while exercising for endurance and strength 5 days a week. I was logging my data on the ergometer every day. At some point, I started eating meat twice a day, after workout. I suddenly made big gains over the next three weeks, while I was plateauing before. Same workout.
I lost weight, stopped having carbs cravings, got better focus at work and my mood improved. This evidence is worth 100x all the "experts" that you'll find on the internet. It happens that it also meets the experience of millions of athletes across the world - not those cherry-picked by your lobbying group.
> We kill Billions of animals each year. How do you reduce the demand for animal flesh?
Meat isn't an inelastic good. Stringent regulations = lower supply = higher price. I know, I know we aren't yet in a communist economy, so maybe the market will work it out?
> In conclusion, I think we agree on one thing - that animal factory farming is bad and that we should reduce our animal flesh consumption. How do you propose we do that? How would you abolish factory farms?
*animal meat. You can improve factory farms. The Americans are, as always, extreme to suck profit out of everything. You can give more space to animals. You can give access to sunlight and outdoors. You can improve the food. You can have smaller slaughterhouses near the breeding grounds to reduce stress. You can forbid halal/kasher-type of slaughtering. etc etc.
You can also stop subsidizing the exports of low-quality meat the US produces.
Love your comments on F1 drivers! Do you know any? Do you know the G forces they encounter during hiur long races? I've always heard they were extreme examples of human fitness compared to the average human.
Ok good that you confirmed you're not the same as a wolf. But then also please stop using their behavior as a reason to justify that it is OK to continue killing billions of animals and making them suffer and creating huge environmental damage at the same time.
Here from the UN [0]:
"... meat and dairy provide just 18 per cent of calories consumed but use 83 per cent of global farmland and are responsible for 60 per cent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. As that report’s lead researcher, Oxford University’s Joseph Poore said: “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”
This was echoed by an IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land last year which stated that if we don’t rapidly change the course for our food systems, we won’t be able to prevent the climate crisis."
So scientific studies clearly show we can't continue like this or our kids and their kids will inherit a harsh world. So what's more important- that we can have some burgers & french cheese and the illusion of getting 'complete protein' because otherwise we can't be a top performing athlete or keeping our world inhabitable for future generations? If top athletes can thrive on a plant-based diet, so can we.
Also you mentioned the words ban, communist and some other highly charged words that have nothing to do with this discussion.
Nobody is talking about banning animal flesh. That's not possible. The world is too addicted to it and people like yourself will keep up the demand rather than advocating for more sustainable and ethical alternatives and continue to perpetuate the myth that factory farms can be better or we could feed the entire world with 'happy animal' farms.
The way to change behavior is to show the realities of large scale animal farming and its impact. Show it in schools. This would help to reduce the demand for animal flesh & dairy.
Kids instinctively want to cuddle and play with animals. They don't want to shred them to pieces. What do you think would happen if we showed children how pigs and other animals are treated and slaughtered? How do you think they would react to all the blood and screaming? Even most adults can't look at this as it makes their stomach turn. In comparison, how do you think children would react to vegetables & fruits being chopped up? Would they react with the same horror?
We are not hunter gatherers anymore. We have the brains and technology to come up with better food systems that require fewer resources and are more gentle and that can scale without destroying our biosphere.
>> Yes, sorry, but I don't respect the authority argument, especially after COVID-19 where all the “experts” told us that by jailing everyone we'd be safer
Not to go off topic, the only country I know of that quasi jailed their citizens was China.
Sweden's strategy in hindsight was not much better than other western countries.
- It now has up to 10 times as many COVID-19 deaths per capita as its Nordic neighbors.
- Sweden also didn't fare much better economically, suggesting its gamble didn't pay off.
*meat. Stop using "flesh" for food : the right term is meat.
You're not better than the guy who work in slaughterhouses that you despise if you want to push your ideology on kids, while they're still vulnerable. Quite a carnivorous behavior, truly.
Or please, we'll show to your kids Iraqi children dying from malnutrition and from depleted-uranium induced cancer each time you use your credit card.
Also, your UN report is quite laughable. Why would such a solution should be imposed everywhere on the globe? There are places where you can't do traditional farming (e.g pastures). Again, you're thinking like if we were all overweight Americans.
Regarding Covid-19, my country prevented me to go outside for more than 1h a day and used helicopters to find hikers camping in forests. Many other countries did the same: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-stay-home-restrictions
>> *meat. Stop using "flesh" for food : the right term is meat.
You are eating animal flesh - that's a fact. Yes I deliberately didn't use the term meat to illustrate a point and you helped me prove it. We invent these new words to distract from the reality of where meat comes from. For example saying 'I had chopped up baby sheep for dinner' doesn't sound as nice as 'I had lamb chops for dinner'.
>> You're not better than the guy who work in slaughterhouses that you despise if you want to push your ideology on kids, while they're still vulnerable. Quite a carnivorous behavior, truly.
Again - you're making the mistake of limited binary thinking. Where did I say I'm better than a slaughterhouse worker? Tell me what is ideological about raising awareness about the horrors of animal factory farming or how it majorly contributes to the climate crisis.
Here's another fact for you. Slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD [0]. What do you think having to kill hundreds of animals a day does to the human psyche? Demand for animal flesh creates this situation.
If you had no job options but these two: a) day in day out kill animals, see and smell blood and feces. b) pick, pack and chop up vegetables all day. Which option would you go for?
Another example - this person [1], which most people would describe as tough - former MMA fighter Michael Bisping - could not work in a slaughterhouse because it's too horrible and drives you mad.
Are you really so attached to your cheese and eating animal flesh that you don't care about any of this or your child's future life on this planet? Are all the climate scientist pseudo scientists?
We are humans and we should strive to be humane, which definition is 'Characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion.' Tell me what's kind about animal factory farms? Tell me what's compassionate about killing sentient beings against their will so you can have a burger?
Why not look for better and more humane food system solutions that will ensure we don't destroy our biosphere?
>> Or please, we'll show to your kids Iraqi children dying from malnutrition and from depleted-uranium induced cancer each time you use your credit card.
Yes agree - we should teach about the realities of war. Good point. So why not teach both?
>> Also, your UN report is quite laughable. Why would such a solution should be imposed everywhere on the globe? There are places where you can't do traditional farming (e.g pastures). Again, you're thinking like if we were all overweight Americans.
Most of the animal flesh produced is from large scale animal farming. This is not talking about your small & happy slaughtered animal farm.
The point is it's not sustainable to meet the current demand of animal flesh. It needs to be drastically reduced and replaced with more sustainable alternatives - if we want to have a chance at limiting global heating or at least avoiding the worst outcome.
So FEE.org is an economic think tank. What do you think they care more about, the economy or public health? Of course they will write from the perspective of the economy. Please see this rigorous study instead [2].
>> How's your 5th booster going by the way?
I don't need it and I'm grateful that Science gave us vaccines.
"Stuck in such a life, Butler described how it would make them ‘more prone to violence’, and ‘much more likely to physically attack whatever or whoever you are mad at’ – and described in detail some of the ‘games’ workers would play with the carcasses of dead animals. In one such game, slaughterers would apparently rip the heads off live chickens, place the heads on their fingers and use them as puppets. In another, they would start so-called ‘shit fights’, where they would squeeze a live chicken so violently that its feces would squirt out onto another person."
Oh and for your neighbours goat : ask him how long they live, how they are put down, what happens to their children and how often they are inseminated and forced to give birth. Just a few things to keep in mind when compared to the life of that same goat in a sanctuary or in nature, when thinking of all the "suffering" you're preventing by exploiting them.
> I'd love to see a paper on the sponge with hormones, I've never heard of that. Please send me any link to this claim.
You can find many experiments regarding fertility using sponges. Regarding the milk production, sorry I don't know the precise english verbiage. Here is a paper in French regarding the “extended lactation” practice. It's from a professional body, with real-life testimonies:
https://vienne.chambre-agriculture.fr/fileadmin/user_upload/...
> Keep in mind the other questions as well, if you please. How long do they live, compared to a life in nature? Don't guess, actually ask him.
Probably much longer, given that they don't have to face predators, and the humans provide food in winter and medications for them.
> Giving birth is indeed a part of life, but forcible insemination is not. Do you think most milk doesn't come from forcible inseminations?
It does come from insemination – extended lactation allows you to reduce insemination. However, goat milk is not an invention of the modern time – you can also let males do their thing with the goats.
> I doubt you've spent much time on real farms, instead of hobby farms.
Thanks to a long experience in cheese making, which sells at a premium, the French can make a living out of small herds. I grew up chasing the semi-wild Charolais beef living the best of their lives in the Morvan's pastures. I happen to have a few friends who make a living out of cattle farming, so it's definitely not a "hobby" for them. Sorry if it's not the case for you, maybe it's a time to rethink your business model?
And feom working in farms : most of the issues and suffering are kept behind doors and are simply not seen. There are many steps and practices done to animals to exploit them, they don't just magically make what you need.
- An all or nothing approach is reasonable when discussing life-and-death situations. I'd love for you to find a "suitable alternative" that doesn't exploit animals for profit. How is abstinence unreasonable today, for the average person?
- I'm fairly certain you have no background in nutrition, please inform yourself before spewing nonsense.
- Phytoestrogen is proven to have no measurable impact on hotmone levels (because it has nothing to do with estrogen, it just looks like it, it's a plant compound while estrogen is made by animals)
- Your whataboutism afterwards is just handwaving the issue. Be honest and address it - I doubt you honestly believe that factories to slaughter millions of animals everyday are fine and not an issue - or even relatable to the slave labor you speak of.
- It's not a life and death solution, humans have become what they are because they could eat animals. I don't share your opinion about "exploiting animals for profits" - why is that bad? Will you stop using other humans for profit, too?
- Nutrition is one of the least scientific domains, with theories coming in and out every decade. You can leave solely on a plant-based diet, but there are many drawbacks. It's not like if it was just like changing your shirt's color. Plant proteins profiles are inferior to animal protein profiles. Period.
- You decide that animals are equal to humans. I decide that it's not the case, which is the common perspective held in western societies since they exist.
I don't think i exploit other humans for profit. What makes you think I do?
- again, you have no formation and are spewing nonsense. And adding "period" at the end. And you know it too, you're saying yourself that nutrition science is unscientific.
- I'm unsure what you mean. Do animals have no moral value? When should we care about animals? Why care about a dog's suffering and not a pig's? They have the same nociceptors, just as we do. I'm just being consistent with not causing unnecessary suffering. I don't know where "equal" was said? I even said "relatable" as in there is no relation between your mentionned slave labor and animal exploitation. You drew a parallel to feel better about exploiting animals.
> I don't think i exploit other humans for profit. What makes you think I do?
Unless you live in the forest, with no identity card and no social security, eating mushrooms and berries, you have transactional relationships with other humans, where you create a profit out of their work. More generally, most of the consumption goods you consume are made in sweatshops in poorer countries, where industries arbitrage health & working regulation to extract more values from workers.
If you live in the US, well you fund wars across the globe to fund your country's prosperity, tied to the hegemonic status of the dollar.
> again, you have no formation and are spewing nonsense. And adding "period" at the end. And you know it too, you're saying yourself that nutrition science is unscientific.
Can we please stop with the authority argument? Ten years ago every nutritionist were telling you that fat was bad. Now carbs are bad. Every specialist repeated like zombies that COVID-19 was going to be apocalyptic if we didn't lock the population and injected everyone with a poorly researched vaccine. It appeared that most of the people affected by those policies weren't at risk, and now we have a massive youth depression/poverty/delayed education problem, notwithstanding the after effects of the "vaccine-that-works-for-3-months-maybe-but-does-not-stop-transmission".
> I'm unsure what you mean. Do animals have no moral value? When should we care about animals?
Domesticated animals are a product of the man's hands. I don't agree with USA-style factory farming, which is a case of hubris, bad for humans' health, the ecosystem, and creates unnecessary suffering. However, breeding animals for their produce, and killing them for their meat, is totally ok if done in good conditions.
I don't have a dog because I consider that dogs should primarily be used with the intent their breed was created for. Just like goats were bred to produce milk, Border Collies are made to lead herds. That's also when they're the happiest. :-)
You claim that I need to do all these things to not exploit humans. I buy my clothibg from thrift stores and buy food at grocery stores. My electronics are used, just like most of what I own.
If someone works a job, they aren't exploited remotely similarely to an animal in a farm, are they?
- I'm arguing that talking about nutrition is nonsensical, as there is no settled science on it. You keep spewing facts about nutrition, and then saying that nutrition is unscientific. If you want, we can stop talking about it. I've been living without animal flesh or secretions for almost a decade now and I'm healthy. I don't have protein issue and know no one that does.
You keep bringing it up as if it were a real problem though.
- I understand, but I'm telling you that the "hood conditions" you speak of dont exist, and that animals in farms are exploited and suffer.
- You talk a lot about the USA, I don't know why. Farms in the UK, Australia and most other countries have been proven to have the same standards, go watch earthlings, dominion and Land of hope and glory if you want (you can skim trough yo get an idea).
- I don't think any animals were "made" for anything. They should not be used or owned, just like human beings. The goats would be happier free in their habitat, just like the dog.
You are tangled in your nonsense. Slow down and think about what you are saying, without skipping steps.
I understand there is no amount of proof that would change your mind. Go spend a few days working a one of your friends farms. Partake in horn cutting, as well as culling the newborn calves.
Keep telling youself that you don't exploit these animals. You seem to be good at convincing yourself.
Do you realise how priviledged your position is and how it invalidates your view? You understand 99% of the population doesn't just eat free-range artisan french cheese? And monitor their gains and their nutrition?
A lot of people just live you know. You seem to be very removed from normal life. Maybe think about how that affects your view?
Oh and my issues with forcible impregnation are not to do with the method of injection of sperm - it's about using an individuals reproductive system for profit.
Just had a flash! You remember talking about the spanish slaves working for your vegetables and fruits you were so concerned about?
I wonder if your friends that are producing free range cheese couldn't farm crops on their land instead? Wouldn't that be nice? No need to exploit either the cows or the slaves, everyone wins!
But I'm sure their field isn't good for crops, is it? There couldn't possibly be a way to make it work right?
And they would make less money! Who would've thought that exploiting animals is done for profit?
- Do you imply that industrial farming is the only way to farm? If not, why wouldn't we develop alternatives instead of advocating for abstinence. It's as if you were asking people to be naked in the street because some clothes were made in sweatshops in Asia.
Vegetables don't contain complete proteins generally, so you have to eat a diversified, complex array of food to equate animal products. Animal products are complete, and their profile is very close to what the body needs.
Another problem is that “high protein” vegetables usually come with plenty of carbs, or fat in the case of nuts. If you have a high-protein diet because you're a young, active male, you'll end up increasing your caloric intake too much. For instance, in the case of Quinoa, you get 39g of carbs for 8g of lower-quality proteins.
From what I read, your view is outdated but you do you. Vegetarianism is thousands of years old, there are hundreds of millions of vegetarians and vegans in the world. It's completely possible for almost all people to live vegetarian or vegan. What you're saying sounds like it's from the meat producing industry's phrasebook, sorry.
Sure, you can be a vegetarian. However, an omnivore diet is superior for the reasons I exposed. Interestingly, India, the country where vegetarianism/Veganism is the most widespread, has almost no high-performance athletes, and has probably the lowest Olympic medals/inhabitant in the world.
Every fruit and vegetable you eat is also literally screaming in pain as it's killed by you too.
Is the problem more that you don't recognise all life forms as being equal, so anything plant based "doesn't count"?
Which sounds exactly like the people you're effectively complaining about, except you've decided to favour a different group of organisms than they have.
I get it, it’s hard to give up that juicy meat that gives us pleasure and it’s easier to just blissfully ignore scientific facts, ignore the suffering of animals, ignore biodiversty destruction and instead believe in pseudo science or Reddit headlines like ‘plants scream in pain’.
You don't seem to be interested in a meaningful debate and you're assuming I'm one of the 'holier than though' crowd.
I know my lifestyle has a high carbon footprint and when I used to eat meat that it caused suffering and contributed highly to environmental destruction. I'm trying to reduce all that as much as possible - that's the goal. Total avoidance will become easier over time through technical advancements and more sustainable lifestyles.
I looked at my own behavior, looked at scientific findings [0] regarding industrial animal farming and the damage it causes and more importantly looked at the behavior of animals when they are about to be slaughtered. They experience fear... in the words of Carl Sagan... they are too much like us. Even farmers say about their animals 'there is someone in there'.
If you have or had pets like dogs, cats etc you know they are sentient, have feelings, mood swings and want to experience joy. Other animals like cows, pigs, chicken etc experience the same - they are not just some meat bags. So why raise and breed Billions of these animals that will only suffer and be treated horribly - only because we want ta burger?
The single best thing an individual can do to reduce our environmental impact is to give up or reduce as much as possible the consumption of meat & dairy. The Oxford Uni researcher himself gave up meat & dairy after he concluded his study.
So if you're open minded then I'd encourage you to have a look at all the links I already shared.
P.S. Again if you need meat to survive because you live in a place where there is no other food, e.g. desert, Antarctica, jungle etc or because of medical reasons then ignore the above. But for most of us that's not the case.
> You don't seem to be interested in a meaningful debate and you're assuming I'm one of the 'holier than though' crowd.
That's pretty ironic, are you're yet again dismissing what I've said as if I'm joking.
But no worries. Maybe some day you'll learn to consider other life forms in your calculations as well, instead of writing them off just because "they're different to me".
Excuse me? Because I like eating delicious beef. How is that "irrational" ? I'll repeat: I like eating steak, and I am willing to pay for it. What's destroying the biosphere is too many humans.
That isn’t rational - supporting large scale animal agriculture which has been scientifically shown requires more resources and creates more environmental damage than a plant based food systems which are more sustainable.
Why would choose something that creates more damage just because it tastes delicious. Why not choose something else that is delicious but gentler to the environment and doesn’t require animals to suffer?
Why is it ok to enslave, be cruel and kill a cow just for mouth pleasure, when most of us don’t need to eat animals anymore to survive?
If more ppl would be completely or mostly plant based our current population would be more sustainable.
Cannibals think human flesh is good as well, you wanna give them a pass too?
It’s okay to have opinions, and there is nothing forcing you to accept everyone’s opinions on every subject.
Also, the person said nothing disparaging about meat eaters, and you are only guessing they don’t eat meat and trying to create context that allows you to try and put them down.. for seemingly no reason.
There probably isn't even a way to minimize waste, I imagine slaughter houses and those cattle in the US are subject to strict regulations/inspection etc. Can't just butcher a bunch of dead dairy cows.
(this is all alleged)
It's nice that this is news but please be aware that farm fires, silos falling on farms and farms generally just collapsing is much, much more common than in any other type of building due to being an edge case in fire safety.
Farmers are also not encouraged to take precautions to save their animals in case of emergency, as if they die they are paid back by insurance, while if they survive they must be transported and boarded or lent to other farmers.
I have heard rumors of these issues being more common in this industry because the costs to bring farms "up to code" from when they were built 40 years ago is too expensive, and it's simply more financially sound to burn it down - and it's very difficult to prove mischief, since farms are famously run down building filled with old bad wiring and flamable wood shaving and hay.
-Broiler chicken farms have 17 000 chickens per level, often with 3-4 level per building,are filled with wood shaving and heated with propane burners. They are also wildly unreported, and deaths underreported.
My first job was collecting the sick / dead chickens off the floor at a chicken farm.
No one was asking how many I picked up, I always assumed the number of chicks dropped off was compared to the number of mature chickens. But maybe no one was even doing that.
Has the numbers on those deaths beens confirmed? I've seen some mumblings on Twitter that the sheer space required to house 18000 heads in any useful capacity would require something more akin to a tactical nuke to get everything, with one post bringing up a different dairy farm which needed 10 separate barn structures in order to house & milk their 30k herd.
I assume the deaths probably had more to do with the fire, smoke and panic than the actual explosion. But yeah, I don't know about US, but here it would require multiple buildings covering football fields to house that many animals. It's tricky to grasp the reason for those numbers.
The article mentions the cows were huddled together on the way to being milked, and there were no human victim - they seemingly corral everyone in a single pen prior to milking, where the explosion occured.
At some level of utterly pointless and catastrophically destructive f*uck-up, it would be nice if the people who were supposed to be responsible were legally declared Non compos mentis. For life.
That number sounds too low. According to [0]:
> According to the USDA, in May 2019 2.94 million cattle were slaughtered in the U.S. This equates to roughly 95,000 cattle being killed per day during the month.
If you're a meat eater, this shouldn't shock you at all. Hundreds of millions of cows are killed for food each year and even if not killed for food but used for milking, their conditions are horrible mostly.
[0] https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-fo...