GENIUS FORUMS

My view is that animals should be treated with care and that they should be slaughtered humanely.

But when it crosses over into "animal rights" activism or even a claim of moral superiority, that's when I want Ted Nugent to burst into the room.

I was vegan for a few years. I got over it.

Loki wrote:My view is that animals should be treated with care and that they should be slaughtered humanely.

But when it crosses over into "animal rights" activism or even a claim of moral superiority, that's when I want Ted Nugent to burst into the room.

I was vegan for a few years. I got over it.

Now that you're eating animals again .. who's killing them for your dinner table?


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Loki wrote:My view is that animals should be treated with care and that they should be slaughtered humanely.

But when it crosses over into "animal rights" activism or even a claim of moral superiority, that's when I want Ted Nugent to burst into the room.

I was vegan for a few years. I got over it.

Loki, you make sense to me, people get so emotional somtimes forget they ANIMALS, not there babys!
How you feel about courts (like on tv, sometimes they have pet dispute ) should the judge "TAKE INTO ACCOUNT" the value an animal is to its owner when rewarding money?
How deep the loss was experienced, or being experienced.

I agree that animals should be treated humanely, but why does it matter ultimately how they die? I mean, the pain is pain sure, but they are going to die from it so it will soon be gone.

Why does this affect us so?

Do we put ourselves in their place, feeling their pain?

Tomas wrote:

Loki wrote:My view is that animals should be treated with care and that they should be slaughtered humanely.

But when it crosses over into "animal rights" activism or even a claim of moral superiority, that's when I want Ted Nugent to burst into the room.

I was vegan for a few years. I got over it.

Now that you're eating animals again .. who's killing them for your dinner table?

Who kills the cute little critters that I eat? The fellas and gals down at the slaughterhouse, I assume. Sometimes it's a relative who is fortunate enough to shoot a deer or moose. There's nothing quite like being given a whole moose leg to carve up on the kitchen table.

Why do you ask?

Clancy wrote:I agree that animals should be treated humanely, but why does it matter ultimately how they die? I mean, the pain is pain sure, but they are going to die from it so it will soon be gone.

Why does this affect us so?

Do we put ourselves in their place, feeling their pain?

When an animal is scared for its life before it dies, or dies in pain, it releases certain chemicals into its body. These chemicals aim directly for the muscles. The meat of an animal is its muscle tissue, so we eat what's in there - including the stress hormones if they had been released just prior to death. Don't you think that humans have enough stress hormones circulating in our bodies?

The more stress we are under, the harder it is for us to think. Look around at all the evidence of whether or not the people in society are thinking or not. People need to take advantage of every circumstance to help us think more clearly. If our food doesn't even see death coming, or even better if our food animals are comforted and made happy for the moment of death, their meat will be better for us.

It should be an honor to be an animal for human food. These are the animals that should be pampered. To quite an extent, we are what we eat. If we take good care of our food, we take good care of ourselves. If all of humanity is well taken care of from points before the potential building blocks become human, humanity has a much better chance at becoming wise. Of course it would take wise people to realize and implement this...

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:When an animal is scared for its life before it dies, or dies in pain, it releases certain chemicals into its body. These chemicals aim directly for the muscles. The meat of an animal is its muscle tissue, so we eat what's in there - including the stress hormones if they had been released just prior to death. Don't you think that humans have enough stress hormones circulating in our bodies?

Love ya, Elizabeth, but this is kind of nutty.

Unless an animal dies a natural death, it is likely to be scared for its life. A "natural" death could be old age, which means it will consist of tough, aged meat that has been exposed to a lifetime of environmental crap, including bacteria and waste products and man-made chemicals.

Many people that have been in violent accidents say the pain they experience is not during the accident, but later, during recovery. When an animal is hunted or slaughtered, it never undergoes this recovery. It is dubious whether animals in a slaughterhouse are subjected to more pain than is necessary to kill them. What should we do, anyhow? Sedate them first?

Do not forget that most people cook their meat before consuming it. This breaks down proteins, of which many hormones are made. These "stress" hormones are not likely to retain their potency through the cooking process, and if they did, they would have the effect of reducing stress on the people who consume them. That is what stress hormones do.

The other possibility, aside from old age, is disease. I would rather slaughterhouses kill healthy animals than wait around for them to die of anthrax.

It should be an honor to be an animal for human food. These are the animals that should be pampered.

It is, and they are. Cattle that are sold for meat have been well-fed and well-treated up until then. I worked for a summer milking cows, and believe me, they are treated better than most pets. In fact, it is the additives to their feed to make them plump and appealing that causes the most potential health risk, in my view.

Loki wrote:Who kills the cute little critters that I eat? The fellas and gals down at the slaughterhouse, I assume. Sometimes it's a relative who is fortunate enough to shoot a deer or moose. There's nothing quite like being given a whole moose leg to carve up on the kitchen table.

Where I live, deer are everywhere (I'm near a state park in Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia). The state hires archers every so often to thin out the herds. You can sometimes wait a couple of minutes while a herd of a couple dozen decides to cross a road. Often, four or five of them can be found reclining in my back yard, and the young ones are fearless when it comes to approaching humans. Deer kill more people in the world than any other animal each year due to traffic incidents.

The state, and often private hunters who hunt for sport, customarily turn the dead animals over to private outfits that will clean the meat, sell some, and donate half, by agreement, to homeless shelters.

I, myself, limit my red meat intake, but this is on medical advice so I don't have to start taking cholesterol medication.

Never had moose, but deer, lamb, goat, cow, pig, rabbit, and bear are all pretty tasty in my book, as are frogs and most birds I have eaten. The best is ostrich. It doesn't taste like chicken!!!

While I have to agree that venison tastes quite good, and agree that if an animal is caught by surprise by a hunter the fear and pain chemicals will not be released, your interpretation is not what I meant.

I believe that the most humane way to kill a food animal is to take it someplace clean and calmly slice its head off with a sword. There is no need for it to witness other animals getting slaughtered, no need to get beaten to death - basically, no need to see it coming.

brokenhead wrote:It is dubious whether animals in a slaughterhouse are subjected to more pain than is necessary to kill them.

Well, I imagine that the workers have better things to do with their time than unnecessarily torture animals, but as an example, perhaps what is considered abuse in this video is because the cows are not well enough to move properly: example, which is a problem of its own.Then again, how is PETA able to get so many horrific videos if this isn't a fairly common practice? This one shows that some of the people in charge of the animals are probably of either the same or lower mentality than the animals... it is not a human but a monster that laughs about a pig squealing in pain.This video shows a little cruelty to chickens out of what looks like someone just feeling like beating birds, but also shows that it is the quantity slaughtered at once - quantity over quality - that allows for a lot of unintentionally horrible deaths. This is only "necessary" because people have gotten so far away from where their food really comes from that mass slaughterings became a matter of course rather than respect for our food.

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-Loki-
I was vegan for a few years. I got over it.

-tomas earlier-
Now that you're eating animals again .. who's killing them for your dinner table?




-Loki-
Who kills the cute little critters that I eat? The fellas and gals down at the slaughterhouse, I assume.

-tomas-
So, you buy from there, or supermarket?




-Loki-
Sometimes it's a relative who is fortunate enough to shoot a deer or moose. There's nothing quite like being given a whole moose leg to carve up on the kitchen table.

Why do you ask?


-tomas-
I used to hunt, that changed once I got out of Army.

Being raised on a farm, I've slaughtered many animals, mainly cattle, buffalo, chicken, turkey.

I don't eat pig - too unclean.

Not into the hillbilly foods either :-(


Tend to follow Mosaic laws of Leviticus, Deuteronomy.




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With all the pro and anti meat propaganda it might be difficult to find a realistic video record of average slaughterhouse conditions. This step-by-step video of slaughter is probably unusual because it seems to be designed more for sick comedic/shock effect rather than pushing an agenda, and just generally it seems pretty straightforward, almost casual. Obviously the workers are liable to alter their behaviour(be more humane and professional) with cameras pointed on them though. It's by one of my favourite Australian comedians, be warned it's pretty graphic:
Cooking with John Safran

Note that some of the cows do move quite violently and make noises a significant way into the slaughtering. Some may say the cows lack consciousness and pain at this stage, but I'd certainly be skeptical of that explanation. Also note that this depicts a modern Australian slaughterhouse which is supposed to follow regulations relating to humane animal treatment, other developed Western countries are generally likely to be similar(there might be exceptions though), but it could be very different and far more cruel in non-Western and less developed countries. John Safran actually became a vegetarian after this, although he apparently didn't approach the experience with that intention.

Bottom line:
If you can not (will not) kill the animals you eat, you are obviously a hypocrite. I mean this in the philosophical sense, not as a practical matter that everyone must actually kill every animal they eat.
This whole thread has danced around this issue without meeting it head on.
Loki:

Who kills the cute little critters that I eat? The fellas and gals down at the slaughterhouse, I assume.

So, would you be willing to kill what you eat, at least once for each species as a token of your willingness, or do you hire the slaughterhouse "fellas and gals" to do your killing for you because you are a hypocrite?
Same question to you all.

mikiel wrote:Bottom line:
If you can not (will not) kill the animals you eat, you are obviously a hypocrite. I mean this in the philosophical sense, not as a practical matter that everyone must actually kill every animal they eat.
This whole thread has danced around this issue without meeting it head on.
Loki:

Who kills the cute little critters that I eat? The fellas and gals down at the slaughterhouse, I assume.

So, would you be willing to kill what you eat, at least once for each species as a token of your willingness, or do you hire the slaughterhouse "fellas and gals" to do your killing for you because you are a hypocrite?
Same question to you all.

That's an easy one. I'd be willing to kill any animal as long as I knew it would go to feed me or another person. But I wouldn't do it the way you suggest, at least once for each species as a token. That is bullshit. I would do it if I were shown how to do it quickly and correctly. I would do it if it were necessary and not to prove a point.

mikiel wrote: So, would you be willing to kill what you eat, at least once for each species as a token of your willingness, or do you hire the slaughterhouse "fellas and gals" to do your killing for you because you are a hypocrite?
Same question to you all.

As it happens, I have done this, except for the steer, which I only butchered. I say "as it happens" because I certainly didn't do it on purpose for any sort of psychological or philosophical reason. I mention it because indeed this has had no small effect on my life; in a sense it has married me to the process of feeding myself through the life/death cycle. I have also had a hand in bringing animals into the world, and in growing many of the plant foods I eat. Although I do none of this presently, again, my experiences have had a lasting and beneficial effect.

mikiel wrote:So, would you be willing to kill what you eat, at least once for each species as a token of your willingness, or do you hire the slaughterhouse "fellas and gals" to do your killing for you because you are a hypocrite?
Same question to you all.

I've considered that very thought since i was a teenager, and my answer has been yes, I'd be willing to kill it myself. At this point, my answer is that I'd prefer to kill it myself so that I know that it was done humanely, and I know what kind of a life my food lived. Unfortunately, a code enforcement officer recently forced me to give up my chickens because I don't live in an agricultural zone, and due to various economic reasons I can't move right now.

Actually, I'd like to add details on my previous statement on the most humane way to kill an animal. You can't really get a good clean swipe on a chicken, but you can tame them so that they will actually relax as you are holding them and petting them. A better way to kill a chicken is to wear a waterproof jumpsuit, hold the chicken and pet it for awhile with meat scissors within reach, and once the bird is calm, just snip it's head off from the back. Then let it flop around a bit (a nice touch here would be to cover the head so it doesn't see what's going on), and hang the decapitated body from a tree or something to let the blood drain. At that point, it is just the body, so it doesn't feel any pain or fear.

brokenhead wrote:

mikiel wrote:Bottom line:

So, would you be willing to kill what you eat, at least once for each species as a token of your willingness, or do you hire the slaughterhouse "fellas and gals" to do your killing for you because you are a hypocrite?
Same question to you all.

That's an easy one. I'd be willing to kill any animal as long as I knew it would go to feed me or another person. But I wouldn't do it the way you suggest, at least once for each species as a token. That is bullshit. I would do it if I were shown how to do it quickly and correctly. I would do it if it were necessary and not to prove a point.

I don't expect he meant to just kill it just to kill it. I expect he meant to at least kill one cow if you want to eat beef (and eat or share that cow), one chicken if you want to eat chicken, then eat that bird, etc. but not have to kill your every meal. Anyway, that's what I expect he meant by "token" - just do it once.

Elizabeth:

I don't expect he meant to just kill it just to kill it. I expect he meant to at least kill one cow if you want to eat beef (and eat or share that cow), one chicken if you want to eat chicken, then eat that bird, etc. but not have to kill your every meal. Anyway, that's what I expect he meant by "token" - just do it once.

Perzactly. Thanks for the clarification.
Some I know can catch a fish but not kill a chicken. Others the latter but not a big four-legged red meat animal. Like that.

If you can/will not kill an animal at all you are either a vegetarian or a hypocrite.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I don't expect he meant to just kill it just to kill it. I expect he meant to at least kill one cow if you want to eat beef (and eat or share that cow), one chicken if you want to eat chicken, then eat that bird, etc. but not have to kill your every meal. Anyway, that's what I expect he meant by "token" - just do it once.

I know what he meant, and I wouldn't do it.

I would be perfectly willing to kill any edible animal if it were necessary in order for me to eat or to feed someone who was dependent upon me to provide food. Ideally, someone would have shown me how to do this so I don't inflict unnecessary suffering on the animal. But I'm sure if I were hungry enough I would use any means I could.

The idea of deliberately putting myself into a situation where I would kill one goat, one pig, one cow, etc. - even if the animals went to feed myself or anyone else - sounds stupid to me. That is, if the purpose was to show me what it feels like to kill the animal. If I were going to be a homesteader where I would require these skills, I would do it without hesitation - like I said, ideally, someone would have shown me the proper way to go about it.

But if it was merely to satisfy the lurid self-righteousness of PETA types, you can forget it. I don't need them, or any one else, preaching their brand of morality at me. You hear that, mikiel? Practical lessons, yes, if I am going to need them. This cannot/will not kill an animal being equated to vegetarianism or hypocrisy is the kind of crap I avoid like the plague. It sounds like some hypothetical pissing contest.

I knew a guy at Cornell who was a homesteader and had just enough livestock to feed himself and his little family. He had a barn and as often happens, it became a haven for farm cats. He tolerated them because they kept his barn free of rodents. But every so often the population would get out of hand. So when a new litter of kittens would be too many, he refused to take them to the SPCA. Farm cats don't make good pets because of inbreeding and they are semi-wild breeds to begin with. There aren't enough takers for domestic cats at the shelters. So instead of dumping them on somebody else to put down, he would load them into a wooden crate and drown them in lake Cayuga. I respected this - but whenever people hear me relate this, they get repulsed. I think the man was just being responsible. He was thinning out the herd, so to speak.

Broke:

This cannot/will not kill an animal being equated to vegetarianism or hypocrisy is the kind of crap I avoid like the plague. It sounds like some hypothetical pissing contest.

Man, you are really spinning your wheels on this one.
It's really quite obvious. If you can't/won't kill it, then don't eat it!
One would clearly be a hypocrite if s/he were too squeamish (or whatever) to kill the animal for food but is ok hiring someone else to do the "dirty work."

Sheesh! What is your problem?

mikiel wrote:Broke:

This cannot/will not kill an animal being equated to vegetarianism or hypocrisy is the kind of crap I avoid like the plague. It sounds like some hypothetical pissing contest.

Man, you are really spinning your wheels on this one.
It's really quite obvious. If you can't/won't kill it, then don't eat it!
One would clearly be a hypocrite if s/he were too squeamish (or whatever) to kill the animal for food but is ok hiring someone else to do the "dirty work."

Sheesh! What is your problem?

No problem. Really. I see it more as "Don't kill it unless it will get eaten." Or used to make clothes, etc. Or to thin out the herd, as in my post above.

Look, there are probably plenty of old biddies out there who would be too feeble, weak or squeamish to go fishing, let alone trap and/or kill something. I don't think we need to force them to be vegans or make them feel like hypocrites.

I look at people and notice how fat everybody seems to be getting. I see guys that can't button their collars or see their own shoes. I imagine these guys as fairly successful, and spending a small fortune consuming lots and lots of red meat. I imagine they eat out all the time and shove down restaurant-size portions every day. I think of the Amazon Rainforest being denuded to make room for vast cattle ranches to feed McDonald's customers cheap ground meat by the thousands of tons. These people cannot even buckle the seat belts in their Town and Countries around their bloated midsections. Somehow, I just can't picture them chasing a turkey around with a hatchet.

Think of what it would be like if vast numbers of people took it into their heads that they want to hunt their own food. You would have thousands of bumbling, gasping Dick Cheyneys waddling around in the woods shooting each other.

I do get your point. I really do. It's more than admirable. But people are hired to do dirty work all the time. You can't say don't eat fish if you couldn't or wouldn't work on a trawler. Or don't throw anything into the trash if you would be unwilling to work on a garbage barge. Or don't flush the toilet if you're not available to work in the sewer.

Your line of reasoning could have very interesting consequences, though. How about we have a referendum on the death penalty, and if you vote in favor, you must be put into a pool from which the actual executioners are drawn? There is no doubt that "society" and "civilization" have unmoored us from the responsibilities of our actions.

Broke:

No problem. Really. I see it more as "Don't kill it unless it will get eaten." Or used to make clothes, etc. Or to thin out the herd, as in my post above.

You are still missing my point. It is not about everyone being required to kill their own animals for meat. It is patently obvious that if you are *unwilling to kill* animals, you *shouldn't eat them.*

If a person says, "yes, I am willing", then the proof is in the doing. It might sound like a piece of cake in the abstract, but when it comes right down to lopping the head off the chicken or shooting the deer/cow/whatever... this will be the test of whether one is by nature a conscientious objector to killing animals for food... or a hypocrite, willing to eat them if they don't have to do the killing.

It's just that simple.
Your going on about other nasty jobs that "somebody has to do" is entirely beside the point: to kill or not to kill animals for food as a matter of the conscience saying "no" or natural repulsion... both signs to be a vegetarian rather than a hypocrite.

I think I've beat this horse to death. Wonder how horse meat tastes?

Mik, I'm with broke on this one. I'm sympathetic to your argument, but I don't think that it's valid in the terms that you present it. What's hypocritical about eating meat that you are unwilling to kill yourself? Hypocrisy is preaching one thing and doing another. What exactly is it that the meat-eater who's delegated the killing is preaching but failing to live up to? I can't see anything. I really think that you're barking up the wrong tree to characterise it as "hypocrisy". By the way, I'm a vegetarian, and even if I ate meat I wouldn't be willing to kill an animal for the purpose, but I wouldn't consider myself a hypocrite for that - as broke points out, there are multiple services in our society that we delegate to others and would probably be unwilling to perform for ourselves, but that doesn't make us hypocrites.

No, in my opinion, "hypocrisy" is the wrong word. I do think that you're onto something, though. I think that people who are unwilling to kill for their meat are in some cases divorced from the consequences of their actions. The consequence of eating meat is that animals get killed, sometimes in ways that are quite gruesome. I think that the QRS notion of "partitioning" comes into play here, at least in a sense. The blood-n-guts reality of animal slaughter is neatly partitioned in one's mind from the clean, processed burger on one's plate. Consequences are denied, or at least ignored. For some people, this might not be a matter of integrity - they might be able to view a slaughterhouse and say "That's pretty gross, but I'm willing to accept those consequences - I still want my meat", but some people would probably stop eating meat if they saw such scenes for themselves and realised the consequences of their diet - one such person according to Jason is John Saffran (and no, Jason, I didn't watch that video - my tolerance for gore is very, very low).

Actually Jason's vid wasn't all that bad. It looked humane to me. I liked the way they killed the cows with the bolt gun because the cows looked calm, and it looked quite painless.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Actually Jason's vid wasn't all that bad. It looked humane to me. I liked the way they killed the cows with the bolt gun because the cows looked calm, and it looked quite painless.

It certainly didn't look quite painless to me. Are you sure you're not just trying to convince yourself of this because it's what you want to believe?

When the cow was hit with the bolt gun it dropped to the ground and began shaking and moaning. When the cow was slit down the center its body jolted violently and eyes bulged, lips retracted, teeth clenched. When the cow was hoisted up by the leg it was fighting and kicking in a way that surely strongly suggested consciousness and pain - and this was after the massive cut along the midline mind you.(I've heard that the hoisting can severely damage their leg due to the weight it must support.) If you pay close attention to the scenes in the background there are many more example of cows still moving that are a far way through the slaughter - swishing their tails, swaying side to side, lifting their heads.

g-o-l,
You are splitting hairs over my use of the word hypocrite.
I'm guessing that if you polled 100 people, 98 of them would agree that to eat meat when you will not kill the animal is hypocricy.
The other two would be you and broke, for reasons I do not understand.

You say,"Hypocrisy is preaching one thing and doing another."
It's not just about words here ("preaching.")
It's about walking the talk. If you say, "I'm willing to kill what I eat" your intent may blow up in your face when the chicken's head is on the block and you raise the axe... or you look into those big cow eyes at point-blank range with finger on the trigger.
It is obviously hypocritical to "chicken out" on the killing but still eat the meat.

mikiel wrote:It is obviously hypocritical to "chicken out" on the killing but still eat the meat.

Mikiel, what is your point? Should society have as a rite of passage a requirement that every person must at some time kill a pig if he has ever eaten bacon?

So everyone at the banquet who has not beheaded a turkey is a hypocrite. This is good to know, mikiel. You'll understand if I don't invite you to Thanksgiving this year.