5 ms·

I eat meat, but I think it's fair to say bringing living/feeling/thinking things into existence for the express purpose of being killed and consumed is grim. Th

by reb 4y ago

I eat meat, but I think it's fair to say bringing living/feeling/thinking things into existence for the express purpose of being killed and consumed is grim. This feels particularly true if the circumstances they're raised in are horrific, which seems to be pretty common in factory farms. In any case, nature might be crueler to living things than we are, but I still think becoming less cruel is worth the effort.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Melting_Harps 4y ago
> I eat meat, but I think it's fair to say bringing living/feeling/thinking things into existence for the express purpose of being killed and consumed is grim. This feels particularly true if the circumstances they're raised in are horrific, which seems to be pretty common in factory farms. Wouldn't the logical conclusion than be to eat less and higher quality meat? I mean I have worked on Biodynamic farms with livestock and I can assure you they live incredibly well, and are often eating as good if not better than the the regimen of the cows used for Wagyu, and sometimes even better than some of us farmers depending on the pat of the season. > In any case, nature might be crueler to living things than we are, but I still think becoming less cruel is worth the effort. I still think that if the key issue is the poor practice and animal welfare than the only acceptable solution is to eat less and higher quality meat from local and sustainable farms. This synthetic meat is peak tech-bro, no one who is relying on eating fake hamburger meat on a daily basis is in a position to be taken serious when most Asian diets are mainly vegetarian and have fed populations in the billions for millennia (eg India, China, Japan). The arrogance to believe that the amount of inputs for these fake meats isn't a slight of hand because all the oils, and stabilizers at scale seems on it's face entirely absurd to a more environmentally friendly solution: pasture raised and grass fed cattle replenish the soil and serve as a natural re-vitalization for the soil between crop rotations. I worked at a highly renown Vegetarian and Vegan place in Boulder, and even tried being both but abandoned it because of how depressed it made me feel wile working a manual labour job and working out/hiking, and I can assure that 80% of the time all were were doing was re-making vegetarian substitutes to meat based dishes rather than focus on the in-season vegetables a menu that reflected that which is what I had done for most of my career in kitchens that served meat and offered veterinarian options. Ultimately, I think this a reflection of both hyper based capitalism, tons of Vc money cashing in on the immense amount of ignorance regarding food education with clever marketing. At the end Ag can be modeled and scaled in suh a way where it is carbon net-negative if the same amount of capital, time, and incentives were applied to it.
- reb 4y ago
  I agree there are a lot of problems with the intersection of food and capitalism, and there's plenty of room for solutions to those problems to just... create new or different problems. That said, I don't think the key issue is "poor practice and animal welfare", it's exchanging another animal's life for a few minutes of personal pleasure and eight-ish hours of energy. With sufficient research, I believe we can free ourselves and other living things from that dynamic without sacrificing the experience and benefits animal products provide, and I'd be happy to live in that future. We obviously aren't there yet, so I support efforts that bring us closer to it, even knowing they'll be sub-par for years. And in the meantime, I agree: eating less meat and favoring producers who treat their animals well is the way to go if avoiding animal products entirely isn't on the table.
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > key issue is "poor practice and animal welfare", it's exchanging another animal's life for a few minutes of personal pleasure and eight-ish hours of energy. This presumes so many things, chief among them that plants are neither alive or intelligent, and I can assure both are not true--plants are incredibly intelligent actually and have mechanisms that we should mimic now that only now we have the capacity to observe and measure them. My time in tech notwithstanding, I have a background and careers in both the Life sciences and spent time on farms and cooking in kitchens and it became very clear to me at a young age that Life feeds on Life [0]. So long as you live in this physical Universe you have to take in the elements of another living being in order to not die and the best one can do is be considerate and take this responsibility. You can abstract this all you want but the end is that this must take place in order for your body to continue to stay alive. I'm a total glutton by nature with an incredibly fast metabolism and I have in earlier and darker periods of my life over-indulged in both food and drink, but I soon realized that despite thinking I was 'deserving' of it I felt ill every time as body had been optimized and used to intermittent fasting and nourishment rather than over eating and drinking everyday like it was my last day on Earth. > With sufficient research, I believe we can free ourselves and other living things from that dynamic without sacrificing the experience and benefits animal products provide, and I'd be happy to live in that future. See above, but I will add that I have ever since I started to farm and focus on farm-to-table cuisine I formed a deep respect for every meal I eat (plant or animal based), it came at an immense cost (that I think everyone should experience) after having done the back breaking labour to grow and slaughter animals that I then ate or sold in the market(s). I can assure you that what you are advocating for is the fantasy, and most undesirable, aspects of my trans0humanist leanings. When one eats it is more than just input and output, and when we address that way it is no surprise our Western Developed nations are incredibly sick, depressed and despondent and that the 1-2 biggest killers in developed nations are food related (heart disease and diabetes). > And in the meantime, I agree: eating less meat and favoring producers who treat their animals well is the way to go if avoiding animal products entirely isn't on the table. I cannot see myself enjoying Life at all if we deny that food is and has been the reason why our very constitution as Homo Sapiens has pushed us this far along the evolution scale; such that we have tamed and evolved alongside with dogs, ventured and conquered this planet and sadly have gone to war with our very own (eg salt wars) in order to be able to feed ourselves and our tribes. I refuse to see how we wouldn't lose a very fundamental part of our psyche and the Human experience if we lost this and to be honest I'd be the first to resist that: given how lonely and depressed became when COVID struck and they couldn't go to their favorite restaurants and longed so much for those days that they would even risk getting sick in order to return speaks volumes: also worth noting is that despite front line workers like doctors and nurses being so exposed to COVID patients, even without PPE, it was cooks, farm workers and meat processors who had the highest number of deaths [1] in the US! Putting on my pedantic hat on: Having done all 3 at some stage of my culinary career it has long been taken for granted the sacrifice and risk some of us have and will continue to go through in order to fulfill this vital role in Society; I just wish most would take it more serious and see how fundamental it is the Human Condition and a part I would be despondent if it ever went away. 0: https://allpoetry.com/poem/14460785-Life-feeds-on-life-by-Dev-Nischal https://allpoetry.com/poem/14460785-Life-feeds-on-life-by-De... 1: https://qz.com/1962493/a-new-study-shows-occupations-with-the-highest-covid-death-rates https://qz.com/1962493/a-new-study-shows-occupations-with-th...

by reb 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Melting_Harps 4y ago

> I eat meat, but I think it's fair to say bringing living/feeling/thinking things into existence for the express purpose of being killed and consumed is grim. This feels particularly true if the circumstances they're raised in are horrific, which seems to be pretty common in factory farms. Wouldn't the logical conclusion than be to eat less and higher quality meat? I mean I have worked on Biodynamic farms with livestock and I can assure you they live incredibly well, and are often eating as good if not better than the the regimen of the cows used for Wagyu, and sometimes even better than some of us farmers depending on the pat of the season. > In any case, nature might be crueler to living things than we are, but I still think becoming less cruel is worth the effort. I still think that if the key issue is the poor practice and animal welfare than the only acceptable solution is to eat less and higher quality meat from local and sustainable farms. This synthetic meat is peak tech-bro, no one who is relying on eating fake hamburger meat on a daily basis is in a position to be taken serious when most Asian diets are mainly vegetarian and have fed populations in the billions for millennia (eg India, China, Japan). The arrogance to believe that the amount of inputs for these fake meats isn't a slight of hand because all the oils, and stabilizers at scale seems on it's face entirely absurd to a more environmentally friendly solution: pasture raised and grass fed cattle replenish the soil and serve as a natural re-vitalization for the soil between crop rotations. I worked at a highly renown Vegetarian and Vegan place in Boulder, and even tried being both but abandoned it because of how depressed it made me feel wile working a manual labour job and working out/hiking, and I can assure that 80% of the time all were were doing was re-making vegetarian substitutes to meat based dishes rather than focus on the in-season vegetables a menu that reflected that which is what I had done for most of my career in kitchens that served meat and offered veterinarian options. Ultimately, I think this a reflection of both hyper based capitalism, tons of Vc money cashing in on the immense amount of ignorance regarding food education with clever marketing. At the end Ag can be modeled and scaled in suh a way where it is carbon net-negative if the same amount of capital, time, and incentives were applied to it.

reb 4y ago
I agree there are a lot of problems with the intersection of food and capitalism, and there's plenty of room for solutions to those problems to just... create new or different problems. That said, I don't think the key issue is "poor practice and animal welfare", it's exchanging another animal's life for a few minutes of personal pleasure and eight-ish hours of energy. With sufficient research, I believe we can free ourselves and other living things from that dynamic without sacrificing the experience and benefits animal products provide, and I'd be happy to live in that future. We obviously aren't there yet, so I support efforts that bring us closer to it, even knowing they'll be sub-par for years. And in the meantime, I agree: eating less meat and favoring producers who treat their animals well is the way to go if avoiding animal products entirely isn't on the table.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > key issue is "poor practice and animal welfare", it's exchanging another animal's life for a few minutes of personal pleasure and eight-ish hours of energy. This presumes so many things, chief among them that plants are neither alive or intelligent, and I can assure both are not true--plants are incredibly intelligent actually and have mechanisms that we should mimic now that only now we have the capacity to observe and measure them. My time in tech notwithstanding, I have a background and careers in both the Life sciences and spent time on farms and cooking in kitchens and it became very clear to me at a young age that Life feeds on Life [0]. So long as you live in this physical Universe you have to take in the elements of another living being in order to not die and the best one can do is be considerate and take this responsibility. You can abstract this all you want but the end is that this must take place in order for your body to continue to stay alive. I'm a total glutton by nature with an incredibly fast metabolism and I have in earlier and darker periods of my life over-indulged in both food and drink, but I soon realized that despite thinking I was 'deserving' of it I felt ill every time as body had been optimized and used to intermittent fasting and nourishment rather than over eating and drinking everyday like it was my last day on Earth. > With sufficient research, I believe we can free ourselves and other living things from that dynamic without sacrificing the experience and benefits animal products provide, and I'd be happy to live in that future. See above, but I will add that I have ever since I started to farm and focus on farm-to-table cuisine I formed a deep respect for every meal I eat (plant or animal based), it came at an immense cost (that I think everyone should experience) after having done the back breaking labour to grow and slaughter animals that I then ate or sold in the market(s). I can assure you that what you are advocating for is the fantasy, and most undesirable, aspects of my trans0humanist leanings. When one eats it is more than just input and output, and when we address that way it is no surprise our Western Developed nations are incredibly sick, depressed and despondent and that the 1-2 biggest killers in developed nations are food related (heart disease and diabetes). > And in the meantime, I agree: eating less meat and favoring producers who treat their animals well is the way to go if avoiding animal products entirely isn't on the table. I cannot see myself enjoying Life at all if we deny that food is and has been the reason why our very constitution as Homo Sapiens has pushed us this far along the evolution scale; such that we have tamed and evolved alongside with dogs, ventured and conquered this planet and sadly have gone to war with our very own (eg salt wars) in order to be able to feed ourselves and our tribes. I refuse to see how we wouldn't lose a very fundamental part of our psyche and the Human experience if we lost this and to be honest I'd be the first to resist that: given how lonely and depressed became when COVID struck and they couldn't go to their favorite restaurants and longed so much for those days that they would even risk getting sick in order to return speaks volumes: also worth noting is that despite front line workers like doctors and nurses being so exposed to COVID patients, even without PPE, it was cooks, farm workers and meat processors who had the highest number of deaths [1] in the US! Putting on my pedantic hat on: Having done all 3 at some stage of my culinary career it has long been taken for granted the sacrifice and risk some of us have and will continue to go through in order to fulfill this vital role in Society; I just wish most would take it more serious and see how fundamental it is the Human Condition and a part I would be despondent if it ever went away. 0: https://allpoetry.com/poem/14460785-Life-feeds-on-life-by-Dev-Nischal https://allpoetry.com/poem/14460785-Life-feeds-on-life-by-De... 1: https://qz.com/1962493/a-new-study-shows-occupations-with-the-highest-covid-death-rates https://qz.com/1962493/a-new-study-shows-occupations-with-th...