Ok this post is going to be a little bit different, it’s not all about narcissistic me it’s about you and your opinions, and for the record that’s what I’m after, opinions not a fight.
I’ve made no secret of my recent sway to vegetarian and attempts at veganism, I did it for health reasons, I didn’t go oh the poor animals I don’t want to eat them, and interestingly once you say that people generally back off and don’t try to tell you to eat meat! But now I find myself asking why, why for me and not for the animals? I’m an animal lover I’ve had pets all my life, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, budgies, fish and even Henrietta the hen. But up until new years I ate pork, beef, lamb, fish, turkey, venison, rabbit and buckets of chicken! I have even eaten rabbit since I have had my two little bunny girls. To the logical part of my brain this no longer makes sense! I used to tell myself that it’s natural to eat animals we’re top of the food chain and thats that. And the rabbit I ate was a wild rabbit which had a good life and anyway it was delicious. But most of the meat we eat nowadays has had an awful life, especially the chickens and pigs, but we eat them anyway. Honestly I think I just choose to bury my head in the sand, I knew about the battery chickens but I cleared my conscience by saying I couldn’t afford the free range meat, but honestly it’s not been hard giving it up and I wish I’d done it earlier.
I have a friend who’s family have a deer farm and I’ve been there and I’ve seen the animals and if I go there again I’ll eat deer, because those animals have a pretty good life. So there are exceptions, but for the food most of us buy every week in Tesco or whatever those animals have had a pretty rubbish life!So anyway, my question to people is, why do YOU eat (or not eat) meat? Do you have a reason that you think makes it ok? ......Again I’m not trying to start a fight, I honestly want to know, I can’t resolve it in my head and I would like other peoples input.
.....Also on a side note to anyone in Ireland or the UK who has knowledge of the dairy industry, up until recently I’d never thought about it, but do cows need to be kept pregnant or have recently calved to produce milk? Do the calves get taken away from them straight away so we can have the milk instead? All the stuff I’ve read on the topic is US based and they seem to make torturing animals a sport over there (by they I mean factory farmers) so I want to know what it’s like here.
In my opinion there are many good reasons to be a vegetarian and not so many good reasons to be a meat eater. I eat meat but for heath reasons I try to cut it down. unfortunately in relation to animal cruelty things like eggs and diary are also a problem so going vegan sometimes seems to be the only ethical choice.
ReplyDeleteSo why do I eat meat. Firstly I am really trying to cut it down to once or so a week but quite simply I have meat because I like it, I am broke and sometimes it's easier.I wish I could be stronger about it but sometimes I'm not.
I think that being as conscientious as possible as a meat eater is important and therefore I try very hard to be as respectable as possible when eating meat. However "organic" & "free range" produce can be massively expensive which brings me to the social divide in animal welfare.
Normally the cheap nasty unethical stuff is what the poor can afford to eat on a regular basis. Also there is the question of what is supplied. A hard pushed parent of 3 with low income is not really going to be free to shop around as much and unfortunately poor people are the majority.
In short one of the solutions I see with my sociological eye is to make poverty less of a problem. Compared to that one person turning vegan is a small drop in the ocean. where it really starts to have an impact is everybody doing something small.
On your other question we keep cattle about five who are totally free range. they are beef cattle and besides the mandatory inoculations prescribed by the gov they never see a needle or hormone etc. they eat grass in summer and we cut hay for the winter but the reason we can keep them like this is because we are not dependent on them for an income(life was very difficult for my great grandparents who were partly dependent on them. I think that diary cows may need to be pregnant initially but after that so long as they are milked they will keep producing milk(not 100% on that)
sorry diary should be dairy lol I always do that.
ReplyDeleteTeehee thanks hun, a few people are commenting on my facebook page and re the dairy thing my cousin said:
Delete"Dairy cow's have to pregnant or had a calf to milk, generally the calf is taken away after 1 or 2 days after birth and reared with other calves, and fed milk from the dump tank... Milk Thats produced from the cow is "dumped" as its too high in protein etc!!
Like with Any animal if you keep milking them they will keep producing milk!! The cow is then milked but will eventually be dried off, and get them pregnant again!! Its not unethical, I've worked on dairy farm's and pig farm's and with such strict regulation's now, there's no room for anything like that..!"
I get that organic free range etc is expensive which is a huge part of my ethical reasons for staying veggie, we just can't afford it! But once we bought the first few shops with random spices etc vegetarian is working out as cheap if not cheaper then when we were eating supermarket meat. It did initially take a bit of work and some meals take more time and planning, but we have a few good quick meals we can throw together on the evenings I don't have time or don't feel like spending ages cooking. We're also eating less (Conan noticed this not me, but he's right) and our food is more interesting cause we had to think about it and not just be lazy with chicken.
The only thing we buy that is really more expensive is my Almond milk, and I'm sticking to that because it really doesn't upset my tummy the way cows milk does.
I think whats lacking is the info about what veg is available, I'd never cooked with a leek before, or an avocado or plantain etc, but they're really easy and for what you get out of them decent value. And nice little added bonus without trying I've lost weight! While still eating till I'm full and having chocolate etc!