Eating Meats.

[CawthorneH]

Hi,
It's been a while since my last post and recently as I've seen more animals after the snow, I begun to wonder if it was right to eat meat. Today in our modern climate and even with the right knowledge of wild foods, we can sustain ourselves by other means can't we? So is it needless killing? Wanted some opinions, and whether sustainability without meat is possible while being at the same level of vitality.
Thanks

 

[Tengu]

Is it right to import Soya when theres plenty of meat in this country?

 

[Harvestman]

I look at this one simply. Humans have a digestive system (and set of eating habits) adapted to eating meat as a primary dietary component. Therefore I eat meat.

Besides, I think it tastes good!

 

[Toddy]

Okay, I'm pretty much Vegan these days........that's my choice. I'm not ramming it down anyone else's throat.

Is it right to eat meat ?
Why not ? We have deliberately domesticated and preferentially changed our lands to suit both our farmed animals and those chosen for hunting. It's still a healthy biodiversity, and as we learn more it's becoming better and better.

My personal dislike of some of the methods of 'factory farming' has nothing to do with my vegetarianism. I will butcher, prep and cook meat, but for me, it's just not food.

Can one live healthily without meat?
Well obviously, and, the acre that will support a cow will feed several humans

I work on the priniciple that if meat is very cheap, then something suffered, and I don't think that anyone ought to eat meat unless they've actually witnessed the life and death of animals so that they do know exactly what they're eating.

Right enough, I think folks ought to grow and harvest and process vegetables and grains too, just so they know how much work it is.

Tengu, soya can be grown in the UK just as sweetcorn is now. It's an incredibly useful crop, and feeds more folks good protein than animal produce does.

Palm Oil however, that's not good new for jungles.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Toddy]

I look at this one simply. Humans have a digestive system (and set of eating habits) adapted to eating meat as a primary dietary component. Therefore I eat meat.

Besides, I think it tastes good!

Actually that's debateable. Modern Homo sapiens sapiens have a digestive system adapted to eating cooked food. That cooking means that grains and vegetables that were otherwise unavailable to us are carbohydrate rich foods.
We are borderline omnivores, but carnivores we aren't. Insects, fat rich marrow, and shore foraging are as much a part of our ancestral diet as anything else.

cheers,
Toddy

p.s.
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangholm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/184668286X/ref=oss_product

 

[Tengu]

I didnt know that. I thought it was a tropical plant.

I brought that one up as I had a vegitarian friend who wanted to cut out foreign grown stuff. I didnt know much about it. I have grown runner beans and peas (dont like broad beans) and hadnt really thought about it. I do like beans (mostly harcot beans and kidney beans) and nuts. (They didnt like the idea of eating too many nuts)

Cutting out Soya altogether would be difficult as its in so many products. (But I dont eat a primary soya product...except a little soy sauce)

 

[Toddy]

I eat soya (as any of the Scots will tell you ) and I like it too They've gotten used to the two sets of pots. One's meat and the other's anything but.
Soya is very good food, but I like nuts too.
I haven't been able to drink milk since my early twenties, and have used almond milk ever since. I never thought it much of a problem, my Grandmother and most of her sisters were the same with milk. I just thought it part of growing into adulthood. Nowadays it's easy, rice, oats and soya milk are widely available.

I think variety is important and I think seasonality of our foods is a very good thing

cheers,
M

 

[rik_uk3]

You cannot survive on wild food in the UK, you would starve to death. I eat meat and fish, enjoy them both and won't stop. Is it right to eat meat? Yes, it is.

If you can't eat meat for medical reasons I feel sorry for you.

If you won't eat meat for ethical reasons I feel sorry for you.

Now, I have 2Kg of Ox Tail to stew for tonight

 

[Tengu]

Our Ancestors would not have worried about such matters.

They had more important things to worry about.

Such as the condition of their souls.

 

[Toddy]

You cannot survive on wild food in the UK, you would starve to death. I eat meat and fish, enjoy them both and won't stop. Is it right to eat meat? Yes, it is.

Give me enough room and I can find enough food, without needing meat.
Fish I'm allergic to Nothing like projectile vomiting and hives to really put one off eating something
Right ? Up to the individual I reckon.

If you can't eat meat for medical reasons I feel sorry for you.

If you won't eat meat for ethical reasons I feel sorry for you.

Now, I have 2Kg of Ox Tail to stew for tonight

Enjoy your dinner HWMBLT likes Oxtail Mulligatawny soup.
I'm having vegetable stir fry with roasted cashews and sweet chilli sauce, for mine, followed by the last of my gluten free mince pies with soya milk custard
cheers,
Toddy

 

[Toddy]

Our Ancestors would not have worried about such matters.

They had more important things to worry about.

Such as the condition of their souls.

They fretted over things that we wouldn't even consider too. Geas laid upon them as individuals, "Do not eat fish.", "Do not eat fowl." and that seasonality that I mentioned really mattered in the past.

cheers,
M

 

[ged]

Lots of animals eat meat. I'm an animal. There's no "right" and "wrong" in it, it's just the way things are. How we treat other animals, however, and for that matter each other, well that's a different matter.

Is it 'natural'? Well yes and no. My cousin keeps pigs. Several thousand of them. They are disease free. They'd never be that way in the wild, it certainly isn't what anyone would call 'natural'. My feeling is that they have it pretty good right up until the point where they're killed. I don't like the way they're killed and I've written to my MP about that, but it hasn't had any effect as far as I can tell.

Toddy makes a very good point about not eating meat unless you know what's involved. I agree very much. My feeling is that there'd be a lot more vegetarians about if we all had to raise and butcher out own meat.

 

[Karl82]

ill just say this i dont care if you can survive on plants alone i like my meat and will kill skin and gut it to eat. as far as im concerned it fourms part of a healthy balanced diet we are after all Omnivore's. if you asking if trouphy hunting should be stoped then yes i agree if you not gona eat it leave it. a wise man once said take only what you need from nature and she will always provide what you need.

 

[British Red]

Its also important to realise that the farming of vegetables can be more damaging to animal life than the farming of dairy and meat. I have lived on farms of different types for many decades. Those with game shooting had the highest and most varied wildlife (nice woods, unharvested cover crops, no pesticides used, lots of food put out for game but eaten by other birds and mammals etc.). Those with farmed animals were next best (nice fields, minimal spraying, lots of dung for beetles, rabbits etc. tolerated). Vegetable fields are intensively managed, weeds (wild plants) removed promoting monoculture growth and extremely limited biodiversity.

In many ways, managing the land for hunting is the best way to promote the health of wildlife.

 

[Mikey P]

Is it right to import Soya when theres plenty of meat in this country?

Er ... yes.

On a different note, is this thread turning into one of those annual divisive arguments over who likes meat and who doesn't? Can we just not agree to differ rather than have the "you'll have to pry bacon out of my cold, dead hands" brigade and the "meat is murder" squad ranting at each other for the next few weeks?

It isn't right or wrong to eat meat, in the same way it isn't right or wrong to eat fruit and vegetables - it's a choice.

If we're going round the buoy again, how about someone making the obligatory "but, don't you miss bacon sandwiches?" and "all vegetarians are weak and pale" comments.

 

[ashes1627]

If you look at nature, animals eat other animals all the time for food. I think it is wrong to consider ourselves as being "above them" becuase of what we have. After all, surely if they could eat us they would? Its survival of the fittest in nature, even if the human race has largely stepped outside of it.

p.s Really, its up to individual people to make up their own minds, its a free world!

 

[_mark_]

Big Mac, no.

 

[Sniper]

I mainly only eat things with a face,.............. steak and chips .............. oh yes please, well potatos have eyes don't they?
The food we eat is a choice we make, whether it's through medical necessity, or ethics or whatever, the choice is ours, each to their own I say as long as you enjoy your food whatever it may be Bon Apetite!

 

[demographic]

In areas where arable crops can be cultivated well (primarily lowlands) its more efficient to eat cereals and the crops, but in areas like hill farms its better to let the animals do all the hard work and graze then eat them.

Its not perfectly clear cut but that's the jist of it.

 

[Hoodoo]

An herbivore can turn grasses that are totally inedible by us, into food that we can eat. By using pasture rotation, you can actually have a sustainable production of meat. No herbicides, no pesticides.

Polyface Farm

Our teeth and our gut put us clearly in the omnivore category.