Slaughtering and eating cats (NSFW?)

[tattuchu]

For me it's not so much how the animals are treated (although animals on factory farms don't lead a very pleasant life). To me it's more the thought of killing another creature unnecessarily. But even more than that, it's the idea of consuming its flesh that bothers me. It's really rather barbaric. And the term "meat" is a nice euphemism to take our minds away from the fact that we're eating flesh. Meat is the muscle tissue of another animals but, believe it or not, I didn't even know that as a young kid.

[lordpasternack]

I was on the highway today. I saw a lot of cattle napping in the pastures along the way---must have been cow nap time. The poor things were confied to a mere several hunderd to few thousand acres of grass. They must have felt claustophobic in all that free space. No wonder they slept, must make them tired. Eating, eructating, sleeping and defacating all day, day after day. When they are out there chewing cud do they think, "I wish some predators would come by and give us a bloody good romp, it is so booooorrrring around here. And I wish I could be bothered by flies and parasites just to have something interesting to do."

Poor things, their lives of open spaces and grass and getting rained on and nursing calves and drinking from a creek and having enough forage just dropped on the ground in the dead of winter so they don't have to dig through snow and ice or browse twigs and bark is just cruel and inhumane.

Unfortunately, not all farms are like that. And not all slaughterhouses are gold standard for their humanity, either. Obviously there's a spectrum, between the cruelest and kindest forms of livestock farming and slaughtering - but it's difficult to know what happened to what particular lump of meat on the shelf while it was part of a living and breathing animal.

For me it's not so much how the animals are treated (although animals on factory farms don't lead a very pleasant life). To me it's more the thought of killing another creature unnecessarily. But even more than that, it's the idea of consuming its flesh that bothers me. It's really rather barbaric. And the term "meat" is a nice euphemism to take our minds away from the fact that we're eating flesh. Meat is the muscle tissue of another animals but, believe it or not, I didn't even know that as a young kid.

It's interesting what squicks people out, and makes their moral compass or taboo meters start wiggling. To be honest, I'd much rather be treated with some level of respect while living, than have my dignity respected after death. I'm not quite ready to die yet, and it would be really bad manners if someone ended my life prematurely without my consent - even 'humanely' - but once I'm dead, it makes no difference to me if you piss on my corpse, fuck it, cremate it, eat it, wheel it out for an anatomy class to gawp at, or use it as a ventriloquist's dummy before it rots. I won't be there anymore to feel slighted. My family and friends might mind, though. Even squirrels appear to be sentimental like that.

[charlou]

It's interesting what squicks people out, and makes their moral compass or taboo meters start wiggling. To be honest, I'd much rather be treated with some level of respect while living, than have my dignity respected after death. I'm not quite ready to die yet, and it would be really bad manners if someone ended my life prematurely without my consent - even 'humanely' - but once I'm dead, it makes no difference to me if you piss on my corpse, fuck it, cremate it, eat it, wheel it out for an anatomy class to gawp at, or use it as a ventriloquist's dummy before it rots. I won't be there anymore to feel slighted. My family and friends might mind, though. Even squirrels appear to be sentimental like that.

Hayeah.

Was going to reiterate that you should be a writer .. but fuckit, you are a writer.

[mistermack]

For me it's not so much how the animals are treated (although animals on factory farms don't lead a very pleasant life). To me it's more the thought of killing another creature unnecessarily. But even more than that, it's the idea of consuming its flesh that bothers me. It's really rather barbaric. And the term "meat" is a nice euphemism to take our minds away from the fact that we're eating flesh. Meat is the muscle tissue of another animals but, believe it or not, I didn't even know that as a young kid.

That's all true. But if the Good Lord had meant us to be vegetarians, he wouldn't have made the animals out of meat, would he?

[tattuchu]

That's all true. But if the Good Lord had meant us to be vegetarians, he wouldn't have made the animals out of meat, would he?

God is definitely a cocksucker for making animal flesh delicious.

Day One was yesterday and I'm afraid I cheated on my new vegetarian diet already. I had a craving for Chinese food and pigged out on General Tso's chicken, with a side of fried pork dumplings. It was good, but I had a splitting headache afterwards. I thought that whole MSG-gives-you-a-headache thing was a myth? And then I slept poorly last night, and have had to run to the bathroom about ten times today.
I wonder if I'll feel better once I really stop eating meat? We'll see. I made a fresh start today by cleaning my stove, all the grease (animal fat) off the stove top. This morning I wasn't hungry at all. Still felt gross from yesterday. I had a slice of toasted oatmeal bread, buttered and with orange marmalade, for breakfast along with a glass of grapefruit juice. Just now I had some yogurt. For supper I'll have rice and sauteed vegetables along with pistachio nuts, and a few slices of the New Zealand cheddar I picked up. Kinda debating whether I'll have beer or tea to drink with it. I should have tea. But I'll probably have beer.

[mistermack]

Well, with all respect to the OP, it's going to take a lot to stop me eating pussy, when it's offered.

[Sælir]

Well, with all respect to the OP, it's going to take a lot to stop me eating pussy, when it's offered.

[hadespussercats]

Save the guts, they make baroque violin strings. We have switched to nylon on guitar but you cant bow nylon.

As I understand it, catgut is just a turn of phrase-- they use sheep intestines for violin strings.

Doesn't stop my dad from referring to all cats he sees as "Oh, Fiddlestrings..."

[hadespussercats]

You know, my parents started questioning me really heavily when I told them I was pregnant about how I eat-- they couldn't believe I could keep from becoming anemic without eating meat.

As it turns out, my iron levels are really strong. Probably because I love nuts and raisins and such.

I pointed out to my dad that after... 12? 13? something like that, years of not eating red meat, I can't think of any food more likely to make me physically ill if I were to start eating it these days.

Dad just scoffed. He loves to make a big deal out of being at the top of the food chain.

I really wanted to say (but didn't) that I'd rather take my nutritional advice from someone who doesn't spend the first hour (at least!) of every day sitting on the john.

[Robert_S]

I really wanted to say (but didn't) that I'd rather take my nutritional advice from someone who doesn't spend the first hour (at least!) of every day sitting on the john.

Chicken!

[hadespussercats]

That still doesn't compare to some of the calculated longterm inhumanity that livestock and other sentient animals kept for human consumption are subjected to - and even though we are animals, we do have the consciousness and intellect to rise above nature. We do it all the time. And we don't need to eat the flesh of sentient creatures. We just dont.

Or, to express the same thing in a way that doesn't get us tangled up in the nature-artificial confusion:

Isn't it time for our natural empathy and cleverness to change the way we eat?

Yes, and I can't wait to see the day when we create synthetic meat, that doesn't involve any kind of systematic suffering of any sentient beings. Some Luddites will probably protest that, though, thinking it's "playing god" or something.

Sorry, I'm just one of those sentimental bastards who watches animal documentaries and always wills the gazelle to get away, except when the cheetah is starving and has a cub. And I got pangs of righteous indignation when on a bus, passing a group of magpies who appeared to be beating up a magpie that was on the ground. (Magpies, like other corvids, are intelligent birds. They pass the famous mirror test. And cats and dogs don't, incidentally.)

Why does nature have to be so red in tooth and claw - the bastard!

I don't know... I'm fond of predators, too. My kitty is a good hunter.

And if the big predators in an ecosystem are healthy, that's a good sign the whole system is doing well.

[hadespussercats]

I really wanted to say (but didn't) that I'd rather take my nutritional advice from someone who doesn't spend the first hour (at least!) of every day sitting on the john.

Chicken!

I'm saving it for the next time he hassles me for how I eat. You'd think that after a decade he'd be over it!

[tattuchu]

It's funny how people react to the idea of vegetarianism. And I don't mean in this thread necessarily, but in general. They often get very angry and defensive, much like the way atheism doesn't sit well with a theist. Meat eating is something we've grown up with and accept as normal without giving it much thought. If you do question it, if you do think about it, you may realize how strange it is, but quickly compartmentalize in order to cope with the incongruity.

[Gallstones]

I suffer no cognitive incongruity--some emotional challenges--but no intellectual ones with regards to my choice to eat animals.

I have cared for, raised, killed and the butchered them to eat them. I know what it means to be a meat eater.
I know what it means to stalk prey, kill it, butcher it in the field, and bring the portions of carcass home to be food.

I recognized that meat = muscle and animals were killed for that muscle before I went to Kindergarten.

I majored in Biology and Veterinary Technology--I worked as a Tech and saw much suffering, avoidable and unavoidable. I assisted animals to a decent death; I've looked inside them to see the manifestations of their diseases. I cried.

The only compartmentalization is in coming to terms with the ending of a life, getting my own hands dirty--so to speak--doing the necessary deed.

I don't even think about being defensive until I am put on the defensive by the sanctimonious condemnation from some zealous vegetarians and the too common tendency to then accuse me of lacking compassion. I very much do not lack compassion.
I am only angered by them when they are also volitionally ignorant of the realities that encompass and entail the harvesting, raising and killing of animals for food.

[tattuchu]

I don't even think about being defensive until I am put on the defensive by the sanctimonious condemnation from some zealous vegetarians and the too common tendency to then accuse me of lacking compassion. I very much do not lack compassion.
I am only angered by them when they are also volitionally ignorant of the realities that encompass and entail the harvesting, raising and killing of animals for food.

The realities are pretty fucking disgusting in this modern age. If it were like the old days, in which we hunted wild animals for food, I don't think I'd mind so much. Or even more recent days. But this factory farming business is really gross. Not just from an ethical standpoint, but a health standpoint. After I saw the film Food, Inc, I made up my mind to buy only grass-fed beef and such, and local, organic foods whenever possible.
Now I'm forgoing meat altogether. I doubt it will last. I've done this before and always switch back for the sake of convenience and variety. So I dunno, we'll see.