Foods that we eat...

Like most people who eat meat, I am capable of distinguishing between sweet little animals and the butchered meat on my table.

This is, I frankly acknowledge, a double standard, but no-one has yet proved to my satisfaction that humans are not carnivores.

I believe we need a certain amount of animal products, both meat, eggs, fish, milk and cheese in our diets.

I don't have a problem with my cat following its natural instincts and killing and eating mice either.

I buy animal products from shops that sell free range products.

As far as I am concerned everyone should do what they feel right in this issue.

Agree with Saggi that if we eat meat, we should be prepared to see it slaughtered and understand where it comes from. If someone will only eat sausages, mince, chicken breast, fish fingers etc, because it doesn't look like an animal, it is quite hypocritical.

I eat some meat - like many, I try to reduce the amount and enjoy dishes with no meat. I've visited abbatoirs - used to bring students when I was teaching biology. I told them in advance what they would be seeing (the whole process) and gave them the choice not to go. All came on visits and no-one fainted or turned vegetarian after, that I know of.

We kept goats for a short time, and each year the nanny goat had twin kids - a male and a female. The female would be kept for breeding/milk and the male kids were killed and eaten at about 3 months old. Tastes similar to lamb!

I live in a rural part of Ireland and here the animals are out in the fields, eating grass, much of the year. I would far prefer to eat meat from this type of animal than the ones from intensive feedlots that are common in some countries.

I fully respect anyone's choice not to eat meat, though I find the more extreme avoidance of any animal products hard to take.

Farview, you absolutely are getting at, having a go and judging with your emotive comments and rhetorical question about looking in an animal’s eye.

Humans have incisor teeth and need the protein and additional vitamins supplied by meat. They have been hunting animals long before they took to farming. Many vegetarians and, especially vegans, are unhealthy and depressed because they lack what meat in the diet will supply.

The look in an animal’s eye is not the sentient gaze of a human as animals do not, except some creatures in some rudimentary and less than human ways, possess imagination, memory, capacity for rational thought or, most important of all, a human like capacity for self awareness. When a creature tells a joke or is ironic it will be time to reconsider our relationship with it.

This is an argument which requires sense as well as sensibility. And yes, I love some pets and am extremely concerned about animal welfare.

Do not feed a completely vegetarian diet, it will go blind.

I eat meat, I enjoy eating meat, have no conscience about eating meat.

If you are veggie or vegan and enjoy your choice of food fine, I would not like it though.

As for looking in their little eyes, I really don't.

We were in the garden with our grandaughter aged about 3-4 at the time. We were discussing mint and she was tasting it, talking about how we had mint sauce like Daddy made when we were having roast lamb.
She had her plasic tea set out on the little table at the time, and promptly went into the house and came out with a lamb from her farm, put it on a plate and said" dinners ready"!!!
Long may it reign.

As another poster was saying, cats need tautine for their sight.
This is only found in meat.
It would be the hight of cruelty to give them a vegetarian diet.
Not that I think anyone was advocating this.

I would not eat meat as a child because I saw my grandparents kill birds and rabbits kept specifically for the table. I fed those same animals daily. However, I was ill for most of my childhood and when I was diagnosed with pernicious anaemia, I was very ill indeed (hospitalised). I was lectured by various doctors, nutritionists etc. for many days (when I began to recover) and asked to eat at least some of the foods I wouldn't touch previously, for the sake of my health. Meat of any kind had to be "hidden" i.e minced, and fish similarly. Eggs I would only eat when whisked and had bread soaked in it (Eggy bread) then fried. I still cannot eat meat or fish when it has bones in it, or when it is still recognisable as the animal it was. I could never kill anything, and would die pretty quickly in any survival situation, I'm sure. I even stop my cats going out because they bring back live animals. I can't bear to see them kill other things and eat them, even though I fully accept that it is natural behaviour. Wild things have to kill something else to survive,. Humans are no longer wild, but I understand that our bodies were meant to consume meat in addition to many other foods. That's why our teeth have the shapes they do, and our digestive systems are the way they are! We can only do our best to ensure that anything we eat has been treated to the highest standards. Some scientists believe that plants suffer when they are harvested! Like all living things, we have to eat to survive.
We must each make our own decisions about the way we live. Yes, animals deserve respect and humane treatment. So so people! We have much that needs to be done to improve the lives of all living creatures (preferably before we lose any more species), and I doubt that we will ever make the world a perfect place. We can only do the very best we can under any and all circumstances.

Several points to add to the mix here - I am a vegetarian and was vegan for roughly 3 years post Chernobyl. I am happiest with people eating meat if they would be happy to raise and/or slaughter it themselves. I have had good friends over many years who do/have done this and they without exception have given their animals a good (if shorter) life.

I don't understand wanting "fake" meat - but do understand bean burgers and nut rissoles - both of which can be tasty and nutritious.

My aunt would only buy meat "that is not looking like a dead animal" as she was an animal lover. I found this a difficult position and so did she!

I can still skin a rabbit and cook a roast bird (don't like to and wouldn't choose to) but think basically, what we eat is complex.

I'm more disappointed that my son and daughter in law eat cheap factory-farmed meats than that they eat meat per se. Wish they would eat it less and buy more carefully.

We all have ideas about food. They are often contradictory.

I know someone who has been vegetarian for many years, and has been trying for some time to stick to a vegan diet.

Despite that, she will actually roast a chicken sometimes to give her elderly cats (mainly fed on pouches of cat food and dried food) a treat.

That isn't meant in any way as a criticism - purely and simply an observation.

TrazzerMcyes..I was just looking for answers..definitely not being judgemental..
Saggi no one is forcing anyone to do anything..certainly not me!
No BazingaGranny....I am not 'getting ' at anyone...its exactly as I said..interest
For the record I don't eat meat replica products..
I think sometimes..some people get too het up...to the point of sounding nasty...that's not the sort of feedback I expected from my OP...whether you believe that or not..is up to yourselves

I’ve been veggie since September. For me it’s about the cruelty they endure while being bred and slaughtered.
I loved meat but don’t really miss it.
Years ago sheep/cows/pigs/chickens were allowed to freely roam in fields or around farms and were tended and cared for but not so much today. As the demand for cheaper meat increases distributors need to come up with ways to keep up so cramming chickens and pigs into small compartments and pens in horrendous conditions and force feeding them so they’ll grow and mature quicker than nature intended has suddenly become the norm and I can’t justify myself eating meat. That’s just my personal view and I don’t expect anyone to agree.
I’m looking into becoming vegan eventually. I suppose you can say I’m already transitioning inasmuch as I am trying to eat as little dairy as possible but it’s a slow process as it’s such a lifestyle change.
Each to their own though.

Love eating meat and have no intention of stopping, BUT , only ever eat meat that has been raised with the utmost care and slaughtered on site to give rise to the least possible distress.

We, OH and I, are both healthcare professionals. We became strictly vegetarian several years ago for health reasons based on numerous studies of populations that do not eat animal derived products. We are fine! Protein aplenty in plants, after all that is where the cows, sheep, deer etc. get their protein.
We also do not like the idea of eating animals who are no different than our pet cats and dogs. But when we were meat eating we somehow managed to avoid thinking about it because we were brought up on eating meat and it seemed quite normal.
Our AC are meat eaters but they would prefer not to be. It’s hard to change when you are busy with jobs etc. it takes a bit of time to figure out what to eat and it’s so much easier to stick a steak under the grill after a days work.

I am a meat eater but for my health I only meat about twice a week. I am more concerned about how the animals are reared more than anything else.

Barmeyoldbat..as human beings..that is something that we all should be concerned about....how can anyone accept cruelty...any living being..human or otherwise deserves a decent life....and thousands..or millions. of farm animals don't have this..

Nanna88. Slaughtered on site? Not as easy as you might think, only allowed for consumption by those that raised it. Otherwise must go to an abattoir and then returned. See
www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/home-slaughter-of-livestock

In the same spirit as OP, in that I am not “having a go”, I would nevertheless like to ask OP what is it with the three “... “ between phrases or sentences?
Commas I get, full stops, even the odd dash or two , but these “ ...”make me feel that I am reading breathless utterances.
So, why?

I read with interest an article on the killing of large quantities of animals, not for food, not for sport but to protect the vegetable crops -of peas in Australia I think it was.

I had road-kill pheasant casserole for supper last night. I hate seeing life go to waste, and often eat road kill; a friend brought this carcass with her when she came over for coffee. In the same vein, I regularly shot for the pot as a youngster in Africa, and would be prepared to do the same again, if my local butcher stopped selling meat. I'm afraid I can't see the point in vegetarianism - we evolved as omnivores; respect for all life is required. Wrapping a swede in plastic wrap is far more of a crime against nature than eating a humanely-reared steak, in my eyes...

I love animals. I love seeing little springy lambs and doe eyed cows in the fields. And I love seeing the pigs in their pen at the corner of the lane. I also love a juicy steak and a nice lamb chop. But I especially love a bacon sandwich.
So long as it's not factory farmed; had a decent quality of life and hung it's head over a fence for a while; I'll eat it.

The whole provenance think is key I feel.

I’m even having to question my olives now after all that terrible publicity/information about the olive harvesting methods!

youtu.be/WoBqTo9EJjQ
Some science on this topic ?

As usual Bradford Lass hit the nail on the head with her comments, it's how the animals are treated, farmed, butchered that matters the most.
If the demand for milk products was reduced we would have less cows, I know some people who delight in saying how they don't eat meat or eat very little yet happily gulp down hot chocolate piled high with cream and marshmallows

We keep hens for eggs and twice a year buy chicks to rear for the table (only for ourselves, not to sell). At the moment we have two turkeys as well. All the animals are treated well and get good food. My husband even boils nettles to give them as a natural medicine! He slaughters them himself and we both pluck and clean them. Nothing is wasted apart from feathers and intestines. What we don't eat the dogs and cats have.
The animals have had a good life and even DH's daughter who is vegetarian will eat a little of our chicken because they are ethically raised. My husband (and I) like meat but we only eat our own chicken and meat from the local butcher.