Well said Levac. It may seem like a stupid question, but where does one begin in the quest for a local, affordable source of meat?

I live downtown Montreal and I shop at the Fairmount butcher next to la Vieille Europe on Saint-Laurent. He's generally cheaper than Metro for example and he gives you whatever cuts you want. If you ask for more fat and tell him to not trim it off, he'll give you a better price. He gives me a better price. If you could find a local butcher, I think that would be a good source for local meat. If you could find a local farmer, it would be even better.

Me, too. And eggs from small farms.

I think that it is much more than how they die. It is how they live that concerns me.

In the U.S.:

www.eatwild.com

www.localharvest.org

I am unconcerned about how food animals live, as long as they are not unduly suffering. I do not consider the lack of TV to be suffering. Animals are not humans, and trying to project human like traits onto them is foolish.

How they live directly effects how nutritious the meat is. Crammed on to a high density feed lot means they are more prone to disease and more likely to be pumped full of antibiotics. They are also more likely to be fed grains, broken M&M's, potato chips and other junk food refuse. This directly effects the fatty acid profile of the meat leading to much lower omega 3's and more omega 6's.

Grassfed animals grown on pasture are healthier, have a healthier fatty acid profile and are just better for you.

So yeah. It matters...even beyond the karmic sense.

PETA will take sweet cats and dogs stolen from loving owners -- sorry, "rescued from slavery" -- and kill them. Because it's so horrible for them to be slaves. And that's ok. But killing a cow to eat it is unforgiveable. I think they're pathological and irrational.

However I agree that factory farming conditions are horrifying. I care how animals and live and die, quite a lot actually. If PETA put a fraction of the effort into lobbying for improvement of these conditions, rather than simply trying to force everyone else into their food-religion, something good might actually happen.

PJ

I'm not so sure. Cattle are herd animals in the wild like buffalo and pretty much every large mammal species I know of. Cramped conditions wouldn't just cause disease like that. Humans aren't so different either. We're social animals and it seems that the group's social structure has a protective effect against disease. It could be a function of the exchange of infectious agents, and subsequently the exchange of the defenses that are developed because of it, that protects against disease. A lone animal would be more vulnerable in this sense.

What would promote disease is the use of unnatural diets. But feed the same animals a proper diet and it won't matter much how they live. I mean, look at us. Give us a bad diet and it doesn't matter what we do or how we live. But feed us a proper diet and how we live truly stops being the important factor in our health.

Have you actually seen what a feed lot looks like? They are in feces up to their knees and are unable to move other than a foot or two in either direction to reach their food bin. They are fed an unnatural diet of corn - they're generally grass fed for the first few months, and then moved to the feed lot to be feed a diet of mostly corn to fatten them quickly so they can be at a slaughter weight in 1/3 or less of the time it would take if they were free range grass fed. Due to the living conditions (knee high in filth), being unable to get any exercise at all, and a diet that they cannot properly process or digest, they are pumped full of antibiotics to keep them alive. It's a combination of horrid conditions and poor diet - that's what goes on at a feed lot.

Using your example in this scenerio - it would be like being fed properly, but being kept in a closet. You eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom in that closet. Your waste does not get removed. It WILL effect your health at some point - diet alone won't be enough to save you from becoming ill without some sort of medical intervention.

Huh. Well Marvin, whether cramped conditions contribute to lousy health via social conditions or physical conditions is not really relevant if those conditions do lead to health problems.



I'm reminded of a news story from a few years ago. Some kind older man ran this one-man tiny shelter for cats. Some young man took a sawed off baseball bat and broke into the place one night and violently clubbed most of the cats to death or horrible injury/maiming. When it hit the news and they interviewed the guy's family, they were like, "{shrug} They're just cats." Seriously I thought the entire genetic line should possibly be euthanized for the good of society.

I don't see how anybody can be so divorced from the perception of consciousness that they consider everything soulless but themselves (or even themselves, in some cases). I think it's like learning to love children, or other experiences that truly "pop out" one's life experience into dimensions one couldn't imagine previously. After that, the previous state without that experience just seems so surreally shallow and oblivious.

Usually such people can only do damage to a few animals (or a shelter of them) in their life. Putting such people in charge of the mass breeding of food animals has been a disaster.

PJ

Exactly krystal,

Being knee high in your own filth will make you sick. Ever smell a farm vs a feedlot? LOL

PETA did an undercover shoot on IAMS testing labs. They were taking chunks of flesh out of dogs bodies with no anesthesia and had clipped their vocal chords so they wouldn't have to be bothered with hearing them whine and bark. I haven't bought IAMS since then. That was 6 years ago. If they would stick with pieces like that, that actually educate the public, instead of intimidating the public into not eating meat, maybe they wouldn't have the nutcase reputation that they have now.

And Rightnow is right. If anyone thinks that PETA never harms animals, think again. Some years back, PETA employees were seen dumping dead animals (animals that they killed), into a public dumpster. It made the news. They are bonkers.

It has been a proven fact that animals that were raised in humane conditions and were treated well, taste better. The horomones that are released when animals are miserable or in fear, affect the way the meat tastes. Kobe beef farmers massage the cows every day and give them a bottle of beer every day to keep them relaxed and happy.

PETA's Kill record for animals taken in by them (2000 through 2009)

Year Received† Adopted Killed Transferred % Killed % Adopted
2009 2,366 8 2,301 31 97.3 0.34
2008 2,216 7 2,124 34 95.8 0.32
2007 1,997 17 1,815 35 90.9 0.85
2006 3,061 12 2,981 46 97.4 0.39
2005 2,165 146 1,946 69 89.9 6.74
2004 2,655 361 2,278 1 85.8 13.60
2003 2,224 312 1,911 1 85.9 14.03
2002 2,680 382 2,298 2 85.7 14.25
2001 2,685 703 1,944 14 72.4 26.18
2000 2,681 624 2,029 28 75.7 23.27

I guess their idea of "ethical treatment" is to euthanize the majority of animals turned over to them. (I've bolded the kill% since I can't get this to properly format)

Yes, it's a lot easier to treat the living animals well if there are almost no living animals at all. This is probably because if keeping animals caged, or zoo'd, or even keeping them as 'pets', is cruel, then this leaves only wild animals messing up your living space. Which is pretty untenable and unsanitary in an unhealthy way. Which makes just killing them easier. Honestly there are religious cults involving aliens I have encountered that are less crazy than these people.

PJ