Meat a threat to our planet?

[Thor]

I just caught the last 10 mins of the above program on bbc1. At that point they were just finishing talking about lab grown meat in a petri dish. Is this a good thing?

I did get emotional in the next segment, a retired vet who worked the big farms started up his own small holding where he kept 50 chickens, and he talked through the process all the way through to death. Then he killed a chicken by stunning it and then severing the spinal cord thus instantaneous death. I must admit my eyes welled up at that.

It was the rawness of what he did so that he could have meat for dinner. We all know that the meat is killed for us, but we take it for granted about the process and we kind of blank it out that the animal is killed for us.

Its certainly made me think about it, i think I'll watch the whole program on iplayer, quite thought provoking.

[Tom Chance]

Come on Thor, do you really expect sensible debate on here about this when we have boarders who will be happy when a fellow O's fan dies.
You're wasting your time mate!

[F*ck The Poor & Fat]

If people didn’t eat meat then the animals would never be born. The real question becomes would you sooner animals have a short life or no life.

[StockholmO]

I'm beginning to think that vegans might just have a point now. After Saturday's thrasing by Forest Green Vegans i'm tempted to give it a go, but they are so bloody annoying with it though.

[bobo66]

I didn't see the show, but it seems to me that we are now trying to blame climate change on anything apart from the real cause - too many cars.

[Thor]

Whilst cars add to it, cows produce more damaging methane than all the cars spew carbon into the atmosphere.

[Beradogs]

I am someone who loves animals to bits and hates myself for eating some meat. Any government interference winds me up but i would need the government to ban it for me as I do not have the willpower. If not a ban on all meat then a ban on eating battery chickens would be a start. Also veal. They are banning Foie gras in New York. Our generation will keep stuffing our faces with the stuff but I have hope with the youngsters. They are more switched on.

[Long slender neck]

Planet will be fine.

If you were hungry enough you'd kill it yourself, it is nature.

[Beradogs]

It’s not nature to put a few week old bird in a square foot cage where it can’t even turn round. Make it lay eggs every day for a year and the minute it stops take it out and kill it. It’s sick.

[Max B Gold]

To get cow's to produce less methane they should be fed less fart inducing plant like material.

We could try feeding them ground up bits of sheep and pigs or something instead and see how that goes and if the cows are eating meat there will be less for us to eat and the vegan brigade get their way.

[Lovejoy]

Don't they fall over when they are fed things like that?

[Max B Gold]

Don't they fall over when they are fed things like that?

No. You're probably thinking about beer.

[Long slender neck]

It’s not nature to put a few week old bird in a square foot cage where it can’t even turn round. Make it lay eggs every day for a year and the minute it stops take it out and kill it. It’s sick.

Agreed. I meant meat eating in general. I don't think it's necessary to stop eating meat completely, just buy organic free range. Obviously that would be a problem for much of the food industry though.

[Lovejoy]

Don't they fall over when they are fed things like that?

No. You're probably thinking about beer.

Nope, they definitely fall over if you feed them bits of animals.

[Thor]

In the small segment I saw, they said that we have gone past the point of consumption against production. Maybe there was a wider context or the segment explained that a little more cos I don’t see a shortage in the shops.

[bobo66]

Don't they fall over when they are fed things like that?

No. You're probably thinking about beer.

Nope, they definitely fall over if you feed them bits of animals.

Wasn't it that which led to mad cows disease?

[Max B Gold]

No. You're probably thinking about beer.

Nope, they definitely fall over if you feed them bits of animals.

Wasn't it that which led to mad cows disease?

According to so called expert scientists with nothing better to do than stick their noses into other people's shady business. It's probably yet another thing they've got wrong. Like climate change, acid rain, ozone layer etc. The list is endless.and they still can't prove God isn't real.

[F*ck The Poor & Fat]

It’s not nature to put a few week old bird in a square foot cage where it can’t even turn round. Make it lay eggs every day for a year and the minute it stops take it out and kill it. It’s sick.

That’s a different argument. I don’t see too many cows and sheep in the fields in cages. Nor pigs, in the pig farms near me they wander around in acres of space and have huts when they need them. Animals with plenty of food, looked after in the winter, and space to roam and breed. Imagine a country where you would see none of this in our fields. Because if there was no demand, they would not exist. Certainly not in the numbers they do.

I say again, the choice for these animals is a short life or no life. The bottom line. But I do agree, animals should be treated humanely.

The extremists view is to take the worse case and suggest it applies to all. It clearly does not.

[Beradogs]

The majority of pigs never see the light of day. The majority of cows the same. You just see the ones that are outside. Obviously.

[F*ck The Poor & Fat]

The majority of pigs never see the light of day. The majority of cows the same. You just see the ones that are outside. Obviously.

Sure, and I have no idea but with circa 5 million cattle in the UK if few see the light of day we must have some f*cking big sheds around. But again we digress into the conditions animals are kept in which was never my point.

All very interesting but the point still remains. If there is no demand these animals won’t exist at all. So the choice remains, no life or a shot life. That is an undisputed fact.

[Max B Gold]

I once visited a chicken farm where they are bred for meat. The first thing we encountered apart from the over powering stench of ammonia was a dead chicken.

The farmer said he had no idea why it had died but said it was most probably a heart attack as they are genetically altered to get as much meat on two legs as possible and it kills them. But as they only have to live for 42 days it's not too big a problem.

From that day on I only ever eat free range chicken.

[F*ck The Poor & Fat]

I once visited a chicken farm where they are bred for meat. The first thing we encountered apart from the over powering stench of ammonia was a dead chicken.

The farmer said he had no idea why it had died but said it was most probably a heart attack as they are genetically altered to get as much meat on two legs as possible and it kills them. But as they only have to live for 42 days it's not too big a problem.

From that day on I only ever eat free range chicken.

Sure, from stuff I’ve seen I’m free range too. Some pretty horrible stuff went on, maybe still does. I’m not arguing about the conditions animals are kept in. Not defending it at all.

Simply making the point that if we all stop eating meat and poultry then animals would cease to exist in the numbers they do.

[Mikero]

Logically then if cows are kept in sheds the ventilation system should be capable of extracting the waste gas and using it for heating.

Mikero

[Thor]

There was a project where they were taking that and using it as a power source, I guess that's not in the big fuel suppliers interests?

Heres an article discussing the issue at hand and they do mention about generating it back to power.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/m ... -faecebook

[Dunners]

We either reduce our levels of consumption (unlikely), or we reduced our population. That is the answer to pollution, climate change and all manor of other ills humanity faces in the future. And if we fail to implement the solution voluntarily, at some point nature will do it for us.

As for the animal welfare issue, I have no doubt that the animals we intensively farm are capable of feelings and feel significant distress and suffering during their short, miserable lives. I spent many summers in my childhood on a farm in Ireland and learnt this through experience. But current practices distance the consumer from this experience, so the suffering will continue.