4 ms·

ethical meats and dairy?

by kraig 9y ago

PerfectElement 9y ago
That's what the label says, so it must be true.
- fragsworth 9y ago
  Your sarcasm implies that you prefer we just abandon any attempt to do right by the animals (or their products) that we eat. Is that what you want?
  - jack9 9y ago
    > Your sarcasm implies that you prefer His sarcasm does nothing of the sort, nor does his statement imply anything similar. I would really check that nerve he seemed to touch. The only interpretation is about the weakness of labeling laws and ethical gerrymandering of commercial interests in the ethical treatment of animals (ie Lip Service).
quadrangle 9y ago
There's a continuum. You could raise animals where you actively torture them, raise them in ways that are torturous but unintended and not maximize the torture, take steps to mitigate / reduce torture, avoid torture altogether, go beyond non-torture to actually have them live fulfilled lives as far as their species goes… And then there's ethical issues like the pollution involved in raising animals and how that's handled… It's one thing to insist that all animal products are inherently unethical or that ethics are irrelevant to the topic (most people would not agree with either of those dogmatic views) and another to draw some sort of fuzzy line where you think the efforts at ethics are adequate to call the production "ethical". FWIW, I'm convinced we should be eating insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects And then there's cultured meat which is coming soon and truly bypasses most of the really unethical aspects of meat production…
- ruraljuror 9y ago
  Do you eat insects? I personally find the idea repulsive, but that was just how I was brought up.
  - quadrangle 9y ago
    Yeah, they're great. The idea of them being repulsive is as good an example as we can find of culturally-biased nonsense. (I grew up in the same way you did, but I'm pretty practiced at sincerely rejecting culturally-inherited nonsense once I recognize it). I've only had a few occasions, had some cricket-flour chocolate-chip cookies, some roasted ants, crickets, and grasshoppers. Mealworms sauteed with veggies is great. I'm not crazy going out of my way to get weird stuff though. I'm waiting for the day we can just go to the supermarket and buy grasshopper burgers or something. Like any food, there's ways to do it well or do it badly, and just like you don't want to eat rotten apples, it's not good food just because it's insects; insects are good food when they're good (the right type, healthy condition, prepared well).
unFou 9y ago
Don't know why you're being downvoted. I try not to think about the topic too much because I like the occasional spot of cheese, but the number of calves that get slaughtered each year to enable milk production is mildly disturbing. Even worse, some countries have regulations against selling animals under a certain age, and the milk's worth more to a farmer than the month-old calf, so you end up getting piles of male calf carcasses thrown into pits for composting.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  > mildly disturbing That's if you merely think about the concept for a moment. If you bother considering it any further or make any effort to consider the cow's (mother's) experience, you should (if you're not a sociopath) find it far beyond mild disturbance. Death itself is wasteful but isn't as tragically unethical as the specific aspect of taking a mother's offspring away, which hits perhaps the most powerful low-level aspect of mammalian experience. That we then go kill them is appalling in a human principle (in that we understand the whole picture). Killing them in front of the mother would be a further level of horror that I assume doesn't typically happen (Aside from the gratuitous torture, I bet that would increase cortisol levels in the milk).

ethical meats and dairy?

by kraig 9y ago

ethical meats and dairy?

PerfectElement 9y ago

That's what the label says, so it must be true.

fragsworth 9y ago
Your sarcasm implies that you prefer we just abandon any attempt to do right by the animals (or their products) that we eat. Is that what you want?
- jack9 9y ago
  > Your sarcasm implies that you prefer His sarcasm does nothing of the sort, nor does his statement imply anything similar. I would really check that nerve he seemed to touch. The only interpretation is about the weakness of labeling laws and ethical gerrymandering of commercial interests in the ethical treatment of animals (ie Lip Service).

quadrangle 9y ago

There's a continuum. You could raise animals where you actively torture them, raise them in ways that are torturous but unintended and not maximize the torture, take steps to mitigate / reduce torture, avoid torture altogether, go beyond non-torture to actually have them live fulfilled lives as far as their species goes… And then there's ethical issues like the pollution involved in raising animals and how that's handled… It's one thing to insist that all animal products are inherently unethical or that ethics are irrelevant to the topic (most people would not agree with either of those dogmatic views) and another to draw some sort of fuzzy line where you think the efforts at ethics are adequate to call the production "ethical". FWIW, I'm convinced we should be eating insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects And then there's cultured meat which is coming soon and truly bypasses most of the really unethical aspects of meat production…

ruraljuror 9y ago
Do you eat insects? I personally find the idea repulsive, but that was just how I was brought up.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  Yeah, they're great. The idea of them being repulsive is as good an example as we can find of culturally-biased nonsense. (I grew up in the same way you did, but I'm pretty practiced at sincerely rejecting culturally-inherited nonsense once I recognize it). I've only had a few occasions, had some cricket-flour chocolate-chip cookies, some roasted ants, crickets, and grasshoppers. Mealworms sauteed with veggies is great. I'm not crazy going out of my way to get weird stuff though. I'm waiting for the day we can just go to the supermarket and buy grasshopper burgers or something. Like any food, there's ways to do it well or do it badly, and just like you don't want to eat rotten apples, it's not good food just because it's insects; insects are good food when they're good (the right type, healthy condition, prepared well).

unFou 9y ago

Don't know why you're being downvoted. I try not to think about the topic too much because I like the occasional spot of cheese, but the number of calves that get slaughtered each year to enable milk production is mildly disturbing. Even worse, some countries have regulations against selling animals under a certain age, and the milk's worth more to a farmer than the month-old calf, so you end up getting piles of male calf carcasses thrown into pits for composting.

quadrangle 9y ago
> mildly disturbing That's if you merely think about the concept for a moment. If you bother considering it any further or make any effort to consider the cow's (mother's) experience, you should (if you're not a sociopath) find it far beyond mild disturbance. Death itself is wasteful but isn't as tragically unethical as the specific aspect of taking a mother's offspring away, which hits perhaps the most powerful low-level aspect of mammalian experience. That we then go kill them is appalling in a human principle (in that we understand the whole picture). Killing them in front of the mother would be a further level of horror that I assume doesn't typically happen (Aside from the gratuitous torture, I bet that would increase cortisol levels in the milk).