4 ms·

"The biggest impostor, fittingly, was farmed Asian catfish, a fish with white flesh that is easily disguised when it’s filleted and drenched in sauce. It was so

"The biggest impostor, fittingly, was farmed Asian catfish, a fish with white flesh that is easily disguised when it’s filleted and drenched in sauce. It was sold in place of 18 types of more expensive fish, including perch, cod and grouper." This is especially concerning for people who try to avoid farmed fish (to minimize inflicting suffering). Farmed catfish has an incredibly high suffering/kg ratio, 6x that of salmon, 30x that of chicken meat, and 1000x that of beef. http://reducing-suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-is-caused-by-various-animal-foods/ http://reducing-suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-is-c...

watty 10y ago
High suffering/kg ratio, really?
- loco5niner 10y ago
  That's actually in interesting (and possibly helpuful) ratio... I've often thought I'd rather only have to kill one animal (cow) for ~200 meals than 100 animals (chickens) for the same number of meals...
  - mortenjorck 10y ago
    An interesting metric for sure, but probably one that oversimplifies the nuances of animal welfare ethics. I'd personally rather 100 chickens experience mild discomfort than one cow meet with prolonged suffering. (Not that this specifically should happen with modern slaughter methods, but as a thought experiment.)
    - loco5niner 10y ago
      > probably one that oversimplifies the nuances of animal welfare ethics. certainly.
  - nbb 10y ago
    That's why I only eat blue whale meat.
  - Retra 10y ago
    Suffering doesn't matter to dead things. If you're going to kill something, how much it suffered will be irrelevant the second it dies. The problem with suffering is not that it has the magical quality of being called 'suffering'. The problem with suffering is that it results in poor decision-making. This means two things: 1. For an individual, death does much more to reduce decision-making ability than suffering. 2. Animals don't usually make good decisions regardless. Especially if they were raised to be slaughtered.
    - loco5niner 10y ago
      > If you're going to kill something, how much it suffered will be irrelevant the second it dies. No. Just because something bad that happened is in the past, doesn't make it OK that it happened in the first place. (just to be clear, I am ok with killing animals and eating them, I would just prefer that it be done humanely). I'm afraid I don't understand the argument you are trying to make with the rest of your comment...
      - Retra 10y ago
        Do you think a cheetah knows anything about speed records? Who's the fastest cheetah? It doesn't matter who the fastest cheetah was because cheetahs don't keep records. And that chicken you ate -- Did someone record how much it suffered? Then it doesn't matter how much it suffered. The point is, if you are willing to kill something -- to erase its state of mind (the majority of its 'record') from existence -- then you're actively making its suffering irrelevant. If someone starts my house on fire, that fact becomes irrelevant when they detonate a nuclear explosion on it. >Just because something bad that happened is in the past, doesn't make it OK that it happened in the first place. It is ok that it happened. It's ok that everything in the past happened. It's not ok to forget that it happened, or to fail to learn from it. But killing something is a great big "fuck you" to that thing's memory and learning facilities, so there's quite a lot of hypocrisy wrapped up in thinking that killing something is ok if it didn't suffer. Suffering and death are bad for reasons. Those reasons provide proportionality to ethical evaluations.
        10y ago
logfromblammo 10y ago
What's the SI unit for suffering? How do you calibrate your measurement instruments? If you have a genuine ethical objection to causing suffering to other living creatures, you can be vegan, lacto-vegetarian, or you can eat meat certified as jhatka by a trusted authority. It is never necessary for you to compare suffering ratios. If you truly want to minimize the pain you send out into the world, it's zero. That is an easily achievable number. Go vegan. Be kind to everyone. Good luck on your path to enlightenment. If you aren't going for zero, why would you bother half-assing it? For the record, I don't care whether or not my meal has ever screamed in agony. I can still respect the beliefs of those who do care. But I also don't wish to hear any of them preach to me about it, or let them trick me into enduring some sort of ideological sales pitch.
- zyxley 10y ago
  > What's the SI unit for suffering? You could go with millihitlers. https://www.reddit.com/comments/dlu96/new_si_unit_one_hitler/ https://www.reddit.com/comments/dlu96/new_si_unit_one_hitler...
- seandougall 10y ago
  > What's the SI unit for suffering? Why, killohurts, of course.
- mturmon 10y ago
  If you re-read the comment above, you will see that it is not preaching. It is careful to say "for people who try to ... minimize inflicting suffering" -- leaving room for those (like you) who don't care. Further, I think you are creating an unhelpful dichotomy between zero and nonzero. This dichotomy is not necessary. It is reasonable to try to reduce suffering, but not drive it to zero (whatever that might imply). Perhaps there's more to the cost function (e.g., endangered species), or perhaps one is skeptical (like you seem to be) that you can measure suffering precisely enough to drive it to zero. You say zero is easily achievable, but I doubt this. One can argue that the migrant labor that picked your carrots suffered, or that tiny insects were harmed in harvesting your vegetables (not a strawman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism). I'm not advocating that position, but I do claim that "zero" is not easily achievable, if you look carefully.
phjesusthatguy3 10y ago
I don't know, suffering/kg ratio. 100% of the meat I've eaten was murdered, and I'm not sure it matters much beyond that.
- loco5niner 10y ago
  I think it matters. Why can't we give them a good (at least decent) life? Then they just have "one bad day".

watty 10y ago

High suffering/kg ratio, really?

loco5niner 10y ago
That's actually in interesting (and possibly helpuful) ratio... I've often thought I'd rather only have to kill one animal (cow) for ~200 meals than 100 animals (chickens) for the same number of meals...
- mortenjorck 10y ago
  An interesting metric for sure, but probably one that oversimplifies the nuances of animal welfare ethics. I'd personally rather 100 chickens experience mild discomfort than one cow meet with prolonged suffering. (Not that this specifically should happen with modern slaughter methods, but as a thought experiment.)
  - loco5niner 10y ago
    > probably one that oversimplifies the nuances of animal welfare ethics. certainly.
- nbb 10y ago
  That's why I only eat blue whale meat.
- Retra 10y ago
  Suffering doesn't matter to dead things. If you're going to kill something, how much it suffered will be irrelevant the second it dies. The problem with suffering is not that it has the magical quality of being called 'suffering'. The problem with suffering is that it results in poor decision-making. This means two things: 1. For an individual, death does much more to reduce decision-making ability than suffering. 2. Animals don't usually make good decisions regardless. Especially if they were raised to be slaughtered.
  - loco5niner 10y ago
    > If you're going to kill something, how much it suffered will be irrelevant the second it dies. No. Just because something bad that happened is in the past, doesn't make it OK that it happened in the first place. (just to be clear, I am ok with killing animals and eating them, I would just prefer that it be done humanely). I'm afraid I don't understand the argument you are trying to make with the rest of your comment...
    - Retra 10y ago
      Do you think a cheetah knows anything about speed records? Who's the fastest cheetah? It doesn't matter who the fastest cheetah was because cheetahs don't keep records. And that chicken you ate -- Did someone record how much it suffered? Then it doesn't matter how much it suffered. The point is, if you are willing to kill something -- to erase its state of mind (the majority of its 'record') from existence -- then you're actively making its suffering irrelevant. If someone starts my house on fire, that fact becomes irrelevant when they detonate a nuclear explosion on it. >Just because something bad that happened is in the past, doesn't make it OK that it happened in the first place. It is ok that it happened. It's ok that everything in the past happened. It's not ok to forget that it happened, or to fail to learn from it. But killing something is a great big "fuck you" to that thing's memory and learning facilities, so there's quite a lot of hypocrisy wrapped up in thinking that killing something is ok if it didn't suffer. Suffering and death are bad for reasons. Those reasons provide proportionality to ethical evaluations.
      - 10y ago

logfromblammo 10y ago

What's the SI unit for suffering? How do you calibrate your measurement instruments? If you have a genuine ethical objection to causing suffering to other living creatures, you can be vegan, lacto-vegetarian, or you can eat meat certified as jhatka by a trusted authority. It is never necessary for you to compare suffering ratios. If you truly want to minimize the pain you send out into the world, it's zero. That is an easily achievable number. Go vegan. Be kind to everyone. Good luck on your path to enlightenment. If you aren't going for zero, why would you bother half-assing it? For the record, I don't care whether or not my meal has ever screamed in agony. I can still respect the beliefs of those who do care. But I also don't wish to hear any of them preach to me about it, or let them trick me into enduring some sort of ideological sales pitch.

zyxley 10y ago
> What's the SI unit for suffering? You could go with millihitlers. https://www.reddit.com/comments/dlu96/new_si_unit_one_hitler/ https://www.reddit.com/comments/dlu96/new_si_unit_one_hitler...
seandougall 10y ago
> What's the SI unit for suffering? Why, killohurts, of course.
mturmon 10y ago
If you re-read the comment above, you will see that it is not preaching. It is careful to say "for people who try to ... minimize inflicting suffering" -- leaving room for those (like you) who don't care. Further, I think you are creating an unhelpful dichotomy between zero and nonzero. This dichotomy is not necessary. It is reasonable to try to reduce suffering, but not drive it to zero (whatever that might imply). Perhaps there's more to the cost function (e.g., endangered species), or perhaps one is skeptical (like you seem to be) that you can measure suffering precisely enough to drive it to zero. You say zero is easily achievable, but I doubt this. One can argue that the migrant labor that picked your carrots suffered, or that tiny insects were harmed in harvesting your vegetables (not a strawman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism). I'm not advocating that position, but I do claim that "zero" is not easily achievable, if you look carefully.

phjesusthatguy3 10y ago

I don't know, suffering/kg ratio. 100% of the meat I've eaten was murdered, and I'm not sure it matters much beyond that.

loco5niner 10y ago
I think it matters. Why can't we give them a good (at least decent) life? Then they just have "one bad day".