Ethical Treatment of Animals in Meat Industry

[Solaris]

Should we change the law to ban 'factory farming' of chickens and the such? Ensuring that no animals spend their short lives in misery and squalor?

I believe so.

 

[15357]

I dunno. Horrid as it may be, it's likely what'll keep meat product prices down to an acceptable level until we finally invent vat-grown meat products. No reason to further downgrade the quality of life of working and middle class citizens.

Of course, sanitation in those factories should be improved.

 

[CptStern]

ah solaris I see you're back embracing "lefty" issues. had enough of right wing douchebaggery?


on topic: most of our member's diet consists of fast food (student/single lifestyle means little to no time for home cooking. normal for the age group most of our members represent). banning factory farming would imapct them directly because factory farming wouldnt exist without the fast food industry.

 

[Rizzo]

God damn it...

Yeah sure, save the damn chicken. But you stay away from my ribs.

 

[Raziaar]

I love meat. I love it to death.

Having said that, I practically never eat any anymore, except on rare occasions.

I cook all of my food, made with fresh or frozen ingredients now.


I hate factory farming in the horrible conditions they have to live in... but I doubt anything is ever going to change until somebody makes it worthwhile for them to raise fewer of them and in better conditions.

 

[Solaris]

ah solaris I see you're back embracing "lefty" issues. had enough of right wing douchebaggery?

.

I'm always a lefty, just I think the war on terror is a leftist ideology.

 

[barbarbarbarbar]

I have a conflict with my self every time i think about this.The conflict never resolves ...

 

[Vegeta897]

on topic: most of our member's diet consists of fast food

:|

(student/single lifestyle means little to no time for home cooking. normal for the age group most of our members represent).

Where did you read that students/singles have diets that consist mostly of fast food? Little to no time for home cooking? Give me a break. How does that translate into forcing them to rely on fast food?

Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of people here are young enough to still be living with their parents.

 

[CptStern]

I'm always a lefty, just I think the war on terror is a leftist ideology.

the war on terror was plotted planned and exectuted by people from a conservative right wing pov not from the left. if you mean that protest to the war on terror is left ideology then I have issue with that as well. if being opposed to the war on terror means that you're "leftist" that must also mean that the left is the home of the rational because no sane rational perrson would ever justify the invasion of iraq as a war on terror

 

[lefty]

I gotta stop coming into political threads.

 

[Vegeta897]

I thought of you, too.

 

[CptStern]

I gotta stop coming into political threads.

this is why we cant have nice things. you keep shitting up the politics thread with your ideology. we need a Righty to balance things out

 

[<RJMC>]

ah solaris I see you're back embracing "lefty" issues. had enough of right wing douchebaggery?


on topic: most of our member's diet consists of fast food (student/single lifestyle means little to no time for home cooking. normal for the age group most of our members represent). banning factory farming would imapct them directly because factory farming wouldnt exist without the fast food industry.

hey I cook my own sandwiches

 

[CptStern]

hey I cook my own sandwiches

mmmm cooked processed ham and cheese on wonder bread

 

[jondy]

hey I cook my own sandwiches

Thar's your problem

 

[Dynasty]

The only way to make us see what is right is to stick humans in a cage where they physically cant move and see how they like it.

'Tis why I hate Zoos so, and why I'm completely against them.

 

[Rizzo]

Yeah... Becouse that's the same thing.

But stuff like that happens you know.

 

[Dynasty]

Well it kind of is if you think about it.

We're just an evolution of a species.

If...I dunno...deers (previous thread in my mind, clearly) evolved to the same level as us, could think like we do, speak, hunt, yada yada yada, we may not have had the chance to evolve and be stuck eating bamboo for the rest of our lives, picking ticks off each other.

We're still a species, just like every other animal on this planet.

Just because we're humans doesnt mean we're higher up in the food chain. If we didnt invent methods of defending ourselves (ie spears, shields, guns etc), animals that live to kill like tigers and lions would rape the crap out of us...by that I mean basically push us toward extinction.

 

[Eejit]

Go hug a tree, bitch.

 

[<RJMC>]

'Tis why I hate Zoos so, and why I'm completely against them.

atleast in the zoos the animals dont get processed,and get food and can reproduce and stuff like that

also helps to breed species in extinction

 

[Rizzo]

Yes, but we did invent tools to help us defend ourself. Just like other apes and animals uses sticks and stones. We are high in the food chain. It is biologically imprinted in all animals to preserve their species. Humans should and probably do, mean more to you then say a cow. That's also why you should feel guilty about harming another human. Of course there are exeptions, but it's still there. It's not just a case of crime and punishment. Now im not saying that the empathy shouldn't extend to other species, but humans are still number one. Sure chickens could have it better, but so could alot of humans too.

And just to be clear, humans have a number of times, faced almost complete extinction, not just to predetors but global catastrophes.

 

[CptStern]

except you missed the part where humans are almost exclusively responsible for the extinction of whole species. factory farming is not the animal equivilent of a "global catastrophe ..well maybe it is for the animals but that would imply that cruelty is/was an accident when it most certainly is not

 

[Neutrino]

Factory meat production techniques are horrible in more ways than one. Not only is it animal cruelty, but it's a large part of the capitalistic based food industry that is ruining the health of the entire country. Along with junk food and processed food, the prevalence of high fat, high protien meat in our society is helping create a serious health crisis. The rising rates of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer (to name a few) is downright scary.

In small servings and at a moderate level of intake lean meats can be healthy. But there is nothing healthy about the current state of meat consumption and production. I find it incredibly short sighted, not to mention fundamentally absurd, to torture animals just so the food industry can make a profit by selling consumers unhealthy and dangerous food products.

 

[Rizzo]

I didn't mean that. And true as that may be, being responsible for the extinction is another issue. I just got abit off-topic.
As for the animal cruelty, there are improvments done. You could buy eggs from free ranged hens etc. But still, price is a big issue here. Cramping up ten hens in a small area where others keep one reduces prices, and makes it affordable for low income familys etc.

 

[Eejit]

Bullshit. It isn't dangerous. People's lack of self control is what damages their health.

 

[VirusType2]

I buy cage free eggs, but they are about two or three times as expensive. Average person does not care. Obviously some people care though, or there wouldn't be a market for them, and therefore wouldn't find them on store shelves.

Also, I'm a vegetarian, but I do eat meat once or twice a year.

 

[Neutrino]

Bullshit. It isn't dangerous. People's lack of self control is what damages their health.

Of course a lack of moderation in individuals creates an unhealthy diet. I'm not saying otherwise. However, foods that are unhealthy, cause disease, and are marketed to an unedecated public blinded by advertising and an unhealthy, yet culturally acceptable food environment, are in fact dangerous.

People can moderate their use of cigarettes as well. But that doesn't change the fact that they are a fundamentally dangerous product.

In a vacuum unhealthy foods are rather benign. But when they become the cultural norm they become dangerous. Don't neglect the power of culture, environment, and advertising over individual decesion making. The former wins out time after time. We are, unfortunately, a conformist and tribal species.

 

[CptStern]

Cramping up ten hens in a small area where others keep one reduces prices, and makes it affordable for low income familys etc.

think bigger:

 

[ríomhaire]

Will scientists ever hurry up and perfect living meat bags so we can have real factory farming and people can stop complaining about cruelty? Better for everyone (well, except for the animals who may go extinct because we'll have no reason to rear them anymore). Then we can get into the really interesting playing God debates.

 

[CptStern]

funny how the solution is always complicated science-type eggheadedness

"maybe we'll just MAKE a non-feeling entity" instead of the more obvious solution: stopping the cruelty

 

[Vegeta897]

funny how the solution is always complicated science-type eggheadedness

"maybe we'll just MAKE a non-feeling entity" instead of the more obvious solution: stopping the cruelty

What? Making a non-feeling entity WOULD be stopping the cruelty.

You can't just be unrealistic and say "oh let's stop the cruelty and yet still meet the demands of the market somehow"

 

[Solaris]

What? Making a non-feeling entity WOULD be stopping the cruelty.

You can't just be unrealistic and say "oh let's stop the cruelty and yet still meet the demands of the market somehow"

We did it with slavery.
Just make it illegal, becuase it is morally wrong.

 

[Neutrino]

What? Making a non-feeling entity WOULD be stopping the cruelty.

You can't just be unrealistic and say "oh let's stop the cruelty and yet still meet the demands of the market somehow"

Most of the market is artificially created though.

 

[Eejit]

Will scientists ever hurry up and perfect living meat bags so we can have real factory farming and people can stop complaining about cruelty? Better for everyone (well, except for the animals who may go extinct because we'll have no reason to rear them anymore). Then we can get into the really interesting playing God debates.

The problem is scaling up and cost. It's ridiculously expensive to do sterile cell culture, and creating blobs larger than a few mm in diameter you meet the same problems faced by evolution - you're going to need some kind of vascular system.

 

[Vegeta897]

I suppose that's a good point.

If it were outlawed then the market would have to change.

But then, enforcing this law would be another issue.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

We need to breed animals that want to be eaten.

 

[CptStern]

We did it with slavery.
Just make it illegal, becuase it is morally wrong.

we dont even have to go to that extreme. if the public truely knew the cruelty involved in putting food on their plates they'd demand changes. all it really takes is one meat contimination scare for the whole industry to to an about face. it's inevitable as more and more food is produced wiith profitability in mind over safety. Maple Leaf meats in ontario nearly lost it's shirt when contaminated meat was linked to a consumer's death.

 

[Krynn72]

we dont even have to go to that extreme. if the public truely knew the cruelty involved in putting food on their plates they'd demand changes.

Eh, I've read and seen plenty of stuff like this. I still love me some cheeseburgers. I'm all for finding better ways to treat the animals we kill for our food, but if I have to pay more for it, meh. Its not like we eat cool animals like cats, dogs and monkeys (Asian countries don't count).

 

[ríomhaire]

funny how the solution is always complicated science-type eggheadedness

"maybe we'll just MAKE a non-feeling entity" instead of the more obvious solution: stopping the cruelty

Yes that's the more obvious solution but if commercial scale artificial meat production is perfected then the cruelty would be made redundant. Seeing as this cruelty is entirely profit driven, cheap, unfeeling meat production would make it redundant. It's also the logical extreme of the system of selective breeding that humanity has been doing for thousands of years to make our stock more docile and better for use as produce.

The problem is scaling up and cost. It's ridiculously expensive to do sterile cell culture, and creating blobs larger than a few mm in diameter you meet the same problems faced by evolution - you're going to need some kind of vascular system.

This is true. You're going to need to keep some organs and illness would be a massive problem. An immune system would be needed lest a single infection wipe out a factory (though I think the factories would have to be kept to high standards of cleanliness anyway). The obvious way to get around reproduction would be to clone the meat, but that would also mean a single virus could wipe out the entire stock too. Of course the food production industry could go a different way entirely different way, this is just how I imagine it going, but I certainly don't think we've reached the end point of our forced evolution of cows.

 

[Eejit]

This is true. You're going to need to keep some organs and illness would be a massive problem. An immune system would be needed lest a single infection wipe out a factory (though I think the factories would have to be kept to high standards of cleanliness anyway). The obvious way to get around reproduction would be to clone the meat, but that would also mean a single virus could wipe out the entire stock too. Of course the food production industry could go a different way entirely different way, this is just how I imagine it going, but I certainly don't think we've reached the end point of our forced evolution of cows.

I worked with some mammalian cell culture last autumn.
It was a small lab, 3 fume hoods, culturing maybe 10g of cells at any one time at most. It costs £10,000 a year plus to run. The culture media has to be full of antibiotics and antifungal drugs, and you can still readily have infection with a bit of bad luck even following good practice. Media has to be changed twice a week for fast-growing cell types.
It's going to be a long time before this is anywhere close to economical, even ignoring technical difficulties.