Well if did I may have been under the influence of drink.

Like my uncle says: "I've made a deal with the rabbits: i don't eat their food, and they don't drink my beer." :hehe:

My sister is a vegetarian, but doesn't preach about it. I've tried some of the stuff she makes for herself, and i honestly can say i don't like. At all.

People give meat way too much credit and everything else way too little. It is so easy to cut meat out from a diet, and it is arguably healthier for you. That being said I wouldn't wanna live without tri-tip.

I'm a Vegetarian, not because i feel bad for the animals but because I can't stand meat, the smell, taste, texture :yuck:
I do like meat flavoring tho, like beef broth in egg noddles :drool:

This.

Also, bacon is delicious.

Its arguably not better for my mental health, because insanity would surely ensue without delicious pork chops, or ribs, or steak or...

No, I'm not because I have chronic stomach issues and need to gain weight whatever way possible. However, I'm extremely picky about what I eat becasue of my special diet, and I only eat organic meats and with no nitrates. I also try to eat more fish because it's so much healthier than beef or chicken. I do respect vegetarians though.

Why not shoot vegetables?

on topic: I love meat.

I eat meat, but I respect vegetarians. I think most people know that that a little suffering in the meat industry is ignored when the flow of cash is good enough, and I dont think that youll change much by only touching greens, but atleast youre not contributing to it. But I try to limit myself to eating meat from companies that try to keep the cruelty down. And just to clarify, I dont really see anything wrong with killing and eating animals, as long as you dont involve unnecessary cruelty. But veganism is a bit too much for me to comprehend though, one who says that milking a cow is cruelty does not know much about animals at all.

I'm not vegetarian. I don't eat a lot of red meat because I'm the only one in my family that prefers it to be well done, and they all want it bloody and red. Pink and red in the meat creeps me out to no end, and I hate the taste of iron. I don't really eat a lot of meat in general. I can go a week or so without a ham sandwich or meat sauce on spaghetti.

Whenever I'm responsible for getting meat from the market, I try to make sure it wasn't from a CAFO. I don't want to support that kind of industry.

If I could get the meat grown in a petri dish, I'd be all for that. That way, nothing has to die, and I still get to eat meat lasagna and bacon without contributing to the problems of domesticated cattle industry.

There's no reason to be a vegetarian.

my thoughts exactly.

You'd probably fit in with my family fine when it comes to culinary taste, as we like our meat well done as well. I'm also with you on the whole meat in a petri dish thing, which I remember I made a thread out of last year.

I don't care if someone else is a vegetarian. It's their life, their morals, their choices. Myself: Hell no!

Everything can stand up to pretty much anything when it comes to philosophy ^^ I could argue that since cows, hens, pigs etc. aren't advanced creatures and therefore their feelings lack meaning (I wouldn't though, because that's not my standpoint =))

Ethics aside, I eat meat. And I like it. That said, there is an issue with meat, which is how much it takes to produce it. To grow animals for slaughter you need to spend a huge amount of area to grow fodder, give the creatures space to roam etc. It's hugely ineffective energy-wise. At the same time, we're moving towards a society with a larger percentage of the worlds population becoming middle-class citizens, Asia especially. And as they achieve this status, they'll begin consuming, and they'll want to consume more meat like we've been doing for so long.

Simply put:

More people are born
A larger percentage of these people will be middle-class citizens
A larger percentage of people will want to consume meat

This is actually a bigger issue than it seems, and unless a "solution" comes along (bio-industrially manufactured meat or even mass-deaths of people from disease, war or such, though you can of course argue if this could even be called a saloution =/) we might be forced to rethink our meat habits.

Agreed. It isn't just about whether or not you think killing domestic cattle is bad. Much of grains being grown are fed to cattle, not people. And then you need land conversion for pasture, which destroys forests and other natural ecosystems upon which we depend for quite a lot (even if it isn't immediately apparent). And monocultures of crops present their own problems - industrial agriculture has a lot of problems with it. And if you raise them in CAFOs, then you have the issue of where the vast majority of antibiotics produced go to the animals - the ticking time-bomb are antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. So... cheap food, but not ultimately sustainable.

So, in short, it isn't simply about whether you like to eat steaks or not. It's about your food choices ultimately influencing the kind of world you want to live in. Meat eating habits is one factor - not the only factor, but certainly one to consider.

fixed that for ya :tops:

This.


Wonder if I can fit this into my sig.


I swear she has had like 5 of those things already, how many have you got ?

That argument has major holes/presumptions (from a philosophical standpoint). I think you have underestimated the complexity of philosophy, and the depth of scrutiny it involves.

I agree with you and fatal_denier. Monocultures, deforestation, agribusiness and CAFOs are bad. Indeed it is a much bigger issue than choice in food.

I never lliked the tast or texture of pork, to much fat, beef and lamb are nice though.

Pork's not the healthiest of meats.

I've spent some time on large scale cattle farms and a lot of the stuff I've read about inhospitable conditions are overstated (note that, while having worked in a pork production facility in my younger days, I've never been to a farm with more than a handful of pigs or chickens, just cattle). You make money by selling fat cows and simply put, if they're uncomfortable or sick, they don't eat. Bad cattle conditions generally do not equate to profit. Manure used to be more of a problem than it is now as farmers and blossoming technologies have almost made manure a commodity unto itself. Antibiotics may be a concern at some facilities, but not at the ones I've been to. Cattle are only given them if sick by a vet.

I don't think monoculture of crops is ever going to be a problem, or if it is, it's a looong ways out. Farmers know what they're doing and they understand the importance of land preservation (one good thing about the Dust Bowl of the 30's is a huge leap in the understanding of soil conservation). The market helps too, as an overgrown crop price plummets. Yields are better than ever. Twenty years ago, you could walk unscathed between rows of corn, but not anymore. Seed and fertilizer technology has really helped as well and will continue to do so. Ethanol plants don't really have an effect on cattle, as corn by-product is sold back to these farms for feed (it sounds nasty, but the nutrients from the corn remain intact in the milling process. Corn is like 66% starch, and that's where the fuel is derived).

I've read a lot of stuff online from people that have never stepped foot on a large cattle farm that reported some horrendous things (I'm not talking about anyone on this forum btw), and while I agree there are some improvements to be made, especially on the dairy cattle side, many times it's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be.

Pork and chicken facilities I don't know nearly as much about, but I know my Porterhouse from my Sirloin (at least farms in the US).

:blink:

Pork can easily be more healthy than beef