Compassion in World Farming

[Rum]

If you eat meat and you aren't checking how it is produced you are sadly by default consuming a proportion of the 80% of meat produced (some 60 billion animals a year) by factory farming and often cruel methods worlwide.

If like me and others here I am aware of, you struggle to justify eating meat and participating in the meat producing industry and yet you still wish to enjoy it you might be interested in this organisation.

I am not a 'joiner', but I signed up with this guys a while back and I do my little bit to support it. I am also very careful about the meat I consume.

Here is a link: http://www.ciwf.org.uk/

..and one of their (cheerful) vids:

[Blind groper]

May I ask if that video means something? Or is it just put in 'for fun'?

I was raised on a New Zealand dairy farm, and my view is that our cows lived the "life of Riley" in a very bovine sense. They were protected. Their grass was nurtured to make sure it was thick and juicy. If they got sick, a vet came to heal them. In return, all they had to do was roll up to the milking shed twice a day and make a donation. This was something they seemed to look forward to, and if we failed to round them up, they would head on up on their own.

Even meat animals get looked after. They live for a reasonable length of time, by bovine standards, and then go to a place where they are knocked out painlessly. Treating meat animals in such a way as to avoid stress and pain is actually to the benefit of the meat merchants. Stress and pain make meat tougher, and reduces its value.

Compare this to life in the wild. At least half of all grazing animals are dead within months of being born, from disease or predators. They have to constantly wander to get enough food, and that food is often low in protein or other nutritional qualities. A fat wild grazer is unknown. Death comes rarely from old age. Mostly from illness or predation. Illness is likely to be painful and protracted. Predation is something filled with terror, and then pain, before death.

I have no problem eating meat without any pangs of conscience at all. The animal that supplied my steak lived a good life by bovine standards.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The beef cows in Kobe get beer!

[maiforpeace]

Rum, you are a hopelessly hopeful and I love you for it.

May I ask if that video means something? Or is it just put in 'for fun'?

I was raised on a New Zealand dairy farm, and my view is that our cows lived the "life of Riley" in a very bovine sense. They were protected. Their grass was nurtured to make sure it was thick and juicy. If they got sick, a vet came to heal them. In return, all they had to do was roll up to the milking shed twice a day and make a donation. This was something they seemed to look forward to, and if we failed to round them up, they would head on up on their own.

Even meat animals get looked after. They live for a reasonable length of time, by bovine standards, and then go to a place where they are knocked out painlessly. Treating meat animals in such a way as to avoid stress and pain is actually to the benefit of the meat merchants. Stress and pain make meat tougher, and reduces its value.

Compare this to life in the wild. At least half of all grazing animals are dead within months of being born, from disease or predators. They have to constantly wander to get enough food, and that food is often low in protein or other nutritional qualities. A fat wild grazer is unknown. Death comes rarely from old age. Mostly from illness or predation. Illness is likely to be painful and protracted. Predation is something filled with terror, and then pain, before death.

I have no problem eating meat without any pangs of conscience at all. The animal that supplied my steak lived a good life by bovine standards.

Rum was simply trying to make something palatable that frankly, just isn't. And that's factory farming. He could have posted tons of videos that would sicken and disgust any human with a conscience of beef, pork or poultry that is produced by factory farming methods. The dairy farm and method of raising beef you write about he supports. But that's not how the bulk of the meat that is sold in supermarkets in the UK and the US is produced.

I could post tons of links about factory farming but I'll leave to you to decide whether you want to know the truth about factory farming or not...most people don't, especially meat addicts. A meat addict is someone who requires meat at every meal even though it's not necessary (and more often than not is actually bad for their health), and doesn't care where it comes from as long as it's cheap and on their plate for dinner.

I'm no longer a meat addict, but I do indulge in the 'drug' when I eat out since it's rare to find restaurants that sell sustainably and humanely raised meat.

EDIT - Sorry about all the bad grammar...I'm sleep deprived and nothing reads right anymore, I had to look up how to spell oxygen.

[Blind groper]

By that definition, I am a meat addict.
Here in New Zealand, the only real 'factory farming' is poultry. I do not know how much suffering that may or may not induce in the hens being reared. I know that assorted animal rights groups are on the rampage about it. So far, without achieving very much. While I would prefer some rules to be put into place requiring more space for hens to live in, I do not know how much of a crime the current practice might or might not be.

Good science appears to be thin on the ground. I am not sure how a research project could objectively measure poultry pain and welfare. I agree the work needs to be done, but it needs to be done well. Crappy research is worse than no research.

[JimC]

In Australia, beef and lamb at least are raised on pasture rather than feed-lots. Also, our household only buys free-range chickens and eggs, whichever comes first...

[maiforpeace]

In Australia, beef and lamb at least are raised on pasture rather than feed-lots. Also, our household only buys free-range chickens and eggs, whichever comes first...

You poor Aussies must be starving, and nutritionally deprived.

[JimC]

In Australia, beef and lamb at least are raised on pasture rather than feed-lots. Also, our household only buys free-range chickens and eggs, whichever comes first...

You poor Aussies must be starving, and nutritionally deprived.

To be fair, it's mostly climate and land availability, I suspect...

Anyway, we should be harvesting more of the abundant red kangaroos (more of them now than before white settlement). Cull the wild dogs a bit, improve some pastures, and make permanent water available, and they breed like rabbits! Also, they can be shot on site by expert marksmen, butchered, put in refrigerated trucks. No "travelling to the abattoir" trauma. Lean and tasty meat...

[maiforpeace]

In Australia, beef and lamb at least are raised on pasture rather than feed-lots. Also, our household only buys free-range chickens and eggs, whichever comes first...

You poor Aussies must be starving, and nutritionally deprived.

To be fair, it's mostly climate and land availability, I suspect...

Anyway, we should be harvesting more of the abundant red kangaroos (more of them now than before white settlement). Cull the wild dogs a bit, improve some pastures, and make permanent water available, and they breed like rabbits! Also, they can be shot on site by expert marksmen, butchered, put in refrigerated trucks. No "travelling to the abattoir" trauma. Lean and tasty meat...

Is kangaroo sold regularly as meat in the market?

[JimC]

In Australia, beef and lamb at least are raised on pasture rather than feed-lots. Also, our household only buys free-range chickens and eggs, whichever comes first...

You poor Aussies must be starving, and nutritionally deprived.

To be fair, it's mostly climate and land availability, I suspect...

Anyway, we should be harvesting more of the abundant red kangaroos (more of them now than before white settlement). Cull the wild dogs a bit, improve some pastures, and make permanent water available, and they breed like rabbits! Also, they can be shot on site by expert marksmen, butchered, put in refrigerated trucks. No "travelling to the abattoir" trauma. Lean and tasty meat...

Is kangaroo sold regularly as meat in the market?

You can get it if you know where to shop, and it's often an option in restaurants. But it could replace some beef and cattle farms, with less damage to the environment...

[Blind groper]

I have spent a lot of time in Australia, and tried a number of game meats. I can recommend kangaroo. The skins make good leather also.

[maiforpeace]

I have spent a lot of time in Australia, and tried a number of game meats. I can recommend kangaroo. The skins make good leather also.

Maybe ten years ago farmers here in California made an effort to bring ostrich meat to market. I remember a decent amount of marketing went on to no avail...it never caught on. People are funny about food, particularly meat, and if they didn't grow up eating it they get it in their head it's not good. It also takes a while to get used to, and if you were served something badly prepared that cinches it.

I never ate lamb, or tongue growing up and it was strange at first, but I enjoy it now. It's almost impossible to find tongue around here, Americans are particularly fussy about eating organ meats. That's another reason, by the way, why factory farming sucks...most of those cuts end up being processed as pet food.

[Azathoth]

By that definition, I am a meat addict.
Here in New Zealand, the only real 'factory farming' is poultry. I do not know how much suffering that may or may not induce in the hens being reared. I know that assorted animal rights groups are on the rampage about it. So far, without achieving very much. While I would prefer some rules to be put into place requiring more space for hens to live in, I do not know how much of a crime the current practice might or might not be.

Good science appears to be thin on the ground. I am not sure how a research project could objectively measure poultry pain and welfare. I agree the work needs to be done, but it needs to be done well. Crappy research is worse than no research.

Chicken welfare is about as high on my list of things that bother me as prawn welfare. The intelligence is comparable

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

What I do is hide in the bushes and spring out on anything passing that resembles meat - and then rip it's throat out before devouring it raw and still half alive.

For me that is "natural".

[Faithfree]

In Australia, beef and lamb at least are raised on pasture rather than feed-lots. Also, our household only buys free-range chickens and eggs, whichever comes first...

You poor Aussies must be starving, and nutritionally deprived.

To be fair, it's mostly climate and land availability, I suspect...

Anyway, we should be harvesting more of the abundant red kangaroos (more of them now than before white settlement). Cull the wild dogs a bit, improve some pastures, and make permanent water available, and they breed like rabbits! Also, they can be shot on site by expert marksmen, butchered, put in refrigerated trucks. No "travelling to the abattoir" trauma. Lean and tasty meat...

Is kangaroo sold regularly as meat in the market?

All big supermarkets near me stock roo. I eat it fairly regularly when I'm at home.