Unbelievable description

M0nica - please do wake up!

www.peacefulprairie.org/the-truth.html

Hetty Have you ever visited a PFL or organic farm?

High-welfare farming, obviously is less cruel. There is no cruelty-free animal farming, though. How can anybody really believe that?

Try living and working on a farm and you'll soon realise that marketing is aimed at soothing the conscience of those choosing to add some totally unnecessary meat to their diet.

freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/a-comprehensive-analysis-of-the-humane-farming-myth/

www.animalaid.org.uk/the-issues/our-campaigns/animal-farming/suffering-farmed-animals-2/

www.peta.org/teachkind/lesson-plans-activities/eating-animals-ethical-debate-kit/

Daisymae, we have been through this already on this thread. Some industrialised methods of rearing cattle are damaging to the environment. Other organic and Pasture through Life methods increase the take-up of carbon by the pasture grazed, but read up the thread.

@MOnica it was Pamela's stating we are carnivores that got me going!

Meat production is incredibly damaging to the environment. Giving up meat is an environmentally friendly action. Apart from all the incredible amount of suffering that goes along with it. Few animals have a good life and a good death.

No one, I know is asking vegetarians or vegans to defend their choices. We just want them to stop being so patronising and considering themselves so morally superior to those who do not share their views.

Over the 10s of thousands of years man has developed widely varied eating patterns at different times in order to maximise human ability to live anywhere. I believe that that those native to the extremely cold areas of Artctic Canada, ate an almost entirely meat only diet. They ate seal all year round - and as I understand thrived on it - they needed to, it was all that was on offer. In other areas humankind became vegetarian.

I mean there is nothing special about vegan or vegetarian food. Except, possibly, for the highly processed fake meats. They eat exactly the same fruit and vegetables that we do and as omnivores most of us will have eaten vegetarian meals, or had vegetarian days without even realising it, just seeing is as part of our omnivore diet, ditto vegan meals. Anyone for a baked potato with ratatouille? It is one of my faves.

Trades description act?

we are omnivores not carnivores. We certainly do not depend on meat for our health.
We vegetarians should not have to defend our choices for some vague suggestions that humans need to eat other living species to be healthy.
I could find Olympic champions who are vegetarian. Carl Lewis is famously Vegan. Martina Navratilova and so on.

We'd need even more farmers of course grannymy!

More intensive farming methods, more artificial fertilisers and pesticides. Much more use of water; crops in many countries need more irrigation than livestock.
The thought is worrying.

My DH was a herd manager , he looked after a very healthy and it seemed a happy herd.
They came into the milking parlour and seemed content to be milked.
All the chemicals that are supposed to be pumped into cows and therefore into the milk just doesn’t happen.
Unfortunately to get milk for us to drink cows have to have calves. Therefore calves are killed.
That’s the way it is, no getting round it. If you object then you are at liberty to avoid animal products.
Most of us accept this and are grateful that it is all managed for us.
We are carnivores.
It does seem a shame that because of our very strict food safety laws cattle are often subjected to a stressful journey to the abattoir but buying locally reared animals from a local butcher can reduce the stress.

No-one would deny the use of industrial farming practice in the UK, but you do not have to buy that meat. There are enough schemes, like PFL and organic systems that lay down high welfare standards and monitor them.

The most environementally advantageous way to cut down on meat eating, is to buy animals reared under the best environmental schemes. It is expensive, but for that reason you end up eating less. I see no need to consciously have non-meat eating days.

As we eat a lot of casseroles and stews I just put lots of extra vegetables in when I cook them. I made a shepherd's pie base recently with 1lb of minced lamb, by the time I had added a tin of lentils and lots of grated carrot and onion. I had enough base for a meal for 2 on the day I made it and 4 more portions for two in the freezer. A meal for 10 from 1 lb of minced lamb. Because I started with a pound of top quality (and expensive) minced lamb, despite the small size of the meat portion in each serving, the overwhelming flavour was of tasty minced lamb.

I know we all want to salve our conscience by buying only virtuous meat but I am sorry to say there are bad farming practices here as well as USA and elsewhere.

I am vegetarian for reasons of animal welfare, mostly.
I would find being vegan impossible for me but I have been known to buy non leather shoes. They were boots and very pretty but alas they didn't like the rain and the covering peeled off leaving a strange paperlike synthetic surface.
So leather it is, though I'm not sure what's in the soles.....

I have wondered what would happen to farmers if we all went vegan............

The majority of farmers are very concerned about the welfare and wellbeing of their livestock.

Anything less would be foolish.

Animals do not, in general unless bred intensively, have a painful unnatural life.

The hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sheep I see regularly around here seem quite content. Many are bred for wool.

Lucky girl, exactly what my son in law was told by his doctor, after he said that they had cut back on eating meat!

I don't eat red meat - but have had several medical professionals on my back this week as I have iron deficiency - eat meat they tell me!!

Hetty58

As I am an ex vegan I am very careful where I buy my meat.
It has to be local, farm raised and killed in a local abattoir.

I can make the statement I made because it can be true. It is for me and others who do care.
I was a vegetarian for a long time as well and I believed I was doing it for the animals.

Excellent logical post, Monica. We are lucky enough to have a small local butcher who knows which farm all his meat comes from, almost all within a 10 mile radius. He kills his own, which is a hugely expensive thing to do, but knows the welfare standards of everything he sells. So we still eat meat with a clear conscience. I won’t buy any other, which means that supermarket meat products are out for us.

Hetty58. That is a sweeping generalisation. There are many ways of raising cattle. The disgusting industrialised cattle farming of the US is not the only system.

Much land is not suitable for raising crops but is ideal for grazing cattle and animal grazed and manured land is more carbon absorbent than that occupied by arable crops. There has been a strong and growing demand for organic meat for decades and recently the Pasture for Life organisation has been founded and is growing rapidly. www.pastureforlife.org Cattle bred by PFP farmers are entirely grass-fed, grazing fields or being fed hay, usually grown on the farm they live on.

Animals have a painful, unnatural life............. ^ If you choose to eat meat, at least admit that you choose to cause that suffering.^ except they do not and you do not.

Cattle, sheep etc in the wild are in all kinds of dangers from predators that may injure them, but not kill them and leave them in pain for months or years until they die, many die long agonising deaths in giving birth to their children, others spend their lives with debilating health problems that, again cause irritation and pain. They can starve or burn to death in adverse climate conditions, like Australia now, from drought or fire.

Cattle farmed to acceptable standards come into the world with vetinarary aid, organic systems permit medical treatment, like antibiotics, when required. They live natural lives on their natural food and able to express their natural behaviour

New farming methods mean that some now graze whole farms rather than just fields and new Agroforestry techniques www.adas.uk/News/the-potential-of-agroforestry-in-uk-agriculture returns the land to woodland pasture and supports both trees and animals. A classic area of old woodland pasture still with us is the New Forest in Hampshire/Dorset.

Death comes quickly and sharply. Farmers who meet these high standards of living welfare are also very careful about dying welfare.

It cannot be advertised as leather which is clearly isn't and say vegan as well. The bag isn't a vegan, it cannot be anything but a bag made from material which is plastic. Its like saying my bag was blessed with holy water which makes it a catholic! Absolute nonsense. Thank goodness most people see through these adverts.

I can't agree with pinkquartz though. How can you say?

'if animals have a good life and are killed in the most kind manner then that is a good thing that fits in with nature'

There is nothing natural about it. Meat production is big business destroying nature.

Animals have a painful, unnatural life and death, suffering directly caused by demand.

If you choose to eat meat, at least admit that you choose to cause that suffering.

Vegans tend to be concerned about the environment. Therefore, they wouldn't choose a polyurethane bag anyway. They'd be looking for natural materials. It just looks like somebody's half-baked idea for being 'on trend' - pathetic!

I agree the description is ridiculous, in reality it’s plastic made to look like leather.
If leather offends, why not buy fabric bags? There are some lovely Harris tweed ones. Admittedly the ones I’ve seen probably have a bit of plastic on them.