The Spirituality of Killing Your Food

Wendy · #41 08/01/06, 03:39 PM

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I was assuming that if the demand for meat dropped radically, people (agribusiness) would stop allowing the animals to breed in such massive quantity.

And if left to their own devices, exactly how would you stop the animals from breeding? It's a natural instinct & unless you plan on castrating every male on the earth, they are going to breed. I have seen 1,500 lb. bulls jump a fence to get to the cow. I have seen goats breed through the fence. So to think they wouldn't breed as much just because people aren't eating them is ridiculous. Sometimes you can't stop it no matter how hard you try & how high your fence is. My brother has Pygmy goats. Last week one of the does jumped the fence, went to the buck to get bred, & then kindly put herself back in. And I still stand behind what I said about wild animals. If we went even 1 year without a hunting season on deer the population would be way out of control. Have you not noticed most states allow you to bag more deer now than years ago because the population is getting so high? It is very common for deer to have twins. I have seen several sets this year. So they would get out of hand quick & then you would have diseased, sick deer running around because they wouldn't have enough to eat.

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By the way, the wild mustangs' "overpopulation" primarily caused problems to the ranchers and their grazing land for cattle, etc.--yet another instance of commercial meat farming taking up wild habitat and leading to the destruction of wild animals.

And at one point those mustangs were not wild. They were brought here from other countries & then some happened to get loose or just be turned loose & that is how they started. Same thing would happen if people would just turn the cows out & let them go. Mustangs aren't like the buffalo. They actually weren't here first.

hisenthlay · #42 08/01/06, 04:39 PM

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Originally Posted by Wendy

And if left to their own devices, exactly how would you stop the animals from breeding?

As I said above:

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I would firmly expect that if Americans for some reason all stopped eating meat, the currently living individuals of that species would mostly be killed and eaten, and the remainder would be snatched up by "fanciers" not wanting to let the bloodlines die out. Extinction of the breeds would likely be much more of a risk than them "taking over the world."

After that, I would expect that we would control their breeding in much the same way we control the breeding of horses, goats, etc. Confinement, castration, etc. Of course there would be some "oopsie" pregnancies, but I don't think eating the animals is the only solution to that. Would you eat the kittens or puppies if your barn cats or pet dogs accidentally got pregnant? There's a big dog and cat overpopulation problem, you know.

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And I still stand behind what I said about wild animals. If we went even 1 year without a hunting season on deer the population would be way out of control. Have you not noticed most states allow you to bag more deer now than years ago because the population is getting so high? It is very common for deer to have twins. I have seen several sets this year. So they would get out of hand quick & then you would have diseased, sick deer running around because they wouldn't have enough to eat.

I agreed with you that controlled hunting may be helpful to prevent painful death by starvation in deer. I also said earlier that I appreciate the ethics of those who actually hunt for food. Hunting is far superior in every way that I can think of to buying meat from big agribusiness. My statement was that hunted animals do not make up a very large percentage of the meat eaten by Americans, so I don't think that deer overpopulation is a very good supporting argument for the ecological benefits of eating meat in general.

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And at one point those mustangs were not wild. They were brought here from other countries & then some happened to get loose or just be turned loose & that is how they started. Same thing would happen if people would just turn the cows out & let them go. Mustangs aren't like the buffalo. They actually weren't here first.

True enough. I still don't think that makes it ok to kill them en masse because they were taking up grazing space for cattle. And not that it necessarily makes any difference, but as between the ranchers and the mustangs, the mustangs were there first.

I don't want to argue with you, and I don't want the thread to drift too far off topic--I'm just always struck by the argument (that I hear fairly frequently) that if we didn't eat animals, they would overrun us. I don't envision corporate farms all opening the feedlot gates at once like a bunch of idiots and letting the animals swarm the streets. I think we're all smart enough to come up with a plan to phase down the population size of farmed animals, in the unlikely event that it should ever come to that. The other argument I hear all the time for eating meat may surprise you--that if we didn't keep breeding them for our dinners, they would become extinct. I think that's a much more likely prediction, but let's just say I don't think it would be the end of the world if some of those breeds became extinct, like the poor genetic freaks of chickens who have been engineered grow so fast that their legs and organs can't keep up with their mass, and who become crippled and die after only months of life.

Anyway, I agree that there definitely is (or should be) some spirituality involved in eating meat and killing animals to do so. I have respect for those who can understand the sacrifice, and be willing to face it with a somber gratitude, and not hide their heads and pretend it doesn't exist like so many Americans today.

pcdreams · #43 08/01/06, 08:02 PM

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Originally Posted by tyusclan

I didn't belittle anyone else's opinion; I simply offered my own. You're certainly free to offer yours, but I would appreciate it if you would do so without attacking another's opinion. I do believe animals should live as naturally as possible, and be slaughtered as humanely as possible, but I believe that animals are animals. They are not human, and therefore their lives do not have the same status as human life.

nor did I attack you. I simply stated that I though the idea was um different. If you took offence to that then thats your problem. I'm not here to have my ideas changed nor try to change anyone elses.

tyusclan · #44 08/01/06, 08:38 PM

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Originally Posted by pcdreams

nor did I attack you. I simply stated that I though the idea was um different. If you took offence to that then thats your problem. I'm not here to have my ideas changed nor try to change anyone elses.

I didn't say you attcked me. I said you attacked my opinion by calling it "crap". I still think that was uncalled for. And I said at the beginning of my first post that I was offering my point of view and nothing more.

pcdreams · #45 08/01/06, 08:41 PM

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Originally Posted by tyusclan

I didn't say you attcked me. I said you attacked my opinion by calling it "crap". I still think that was uncalled for. And I said at the beginning of my first post that I was offering my point of view and nothing more.

whatever you say..no skin of my back either way

Wendy · #46 08/01/06, 09:48 PM

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I don't envision corporate farms all opening the feedlot gates at once like a bunch of idiots and letting the animals swarm the streets.

Most big cooperate farmers would probably do just that if there was no money to make in it. They wouldn't keep feeding all of those animals for nothing. That is their business to them. They aren't normally attached to their animals the way smaller scale farmers get attached. Heck, all of my animals have names & I know each one. I doubt the big farmers can say that.

Anyway, I doubt people will ever stop eating meat. I know my family won't.

Unregistered · #47 08/02/06, 09:33 AM

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Originally Posted by Wendy

Actually I wasn't kidding. If we did not slaughter & eat any animals, including beef cows, pigs, & chickens, they would continue to breed & you would have waaaaay too many animals on this earth. If some think people are overpopulating, let us quit killing animals & see how long before the world could not sustain the animals. Let's see, rabbits having babies every 30 days, usually 7-8 at a time. Goats have babies every 5 months with usually twins. Chickens hatching out 20 eggs at a time every 21 days. Sows having a dozen babies at a time. It's not just the wild animals that would get out of hand. Look how the wild mustangs get overpopulated & cause problems. They have the wild mustang adoption thing for a reason. They get out of control if left to breed with no control over it. So eating meat IMO is a good thing!

There would never be a problem with the animals over populating the earth. Most of the domestic animals raised by man would die out in a very few years. Many would not even last the first year.
No problem with rabbits. If all the domestic rabbits was released into the wild tomorrow within one month there would not be a very high number left. Most would die from starvation. Many would become food for predators.
Goats would regulate themselves to the number that coould be sustained on the area they were released to.
Chickens would be eaten in a matter of a few months. There are no true feral flocks of chickens in the U.S. even after all the years chickens have been raised. Chickens do not lay, set, and raise young continously.
Hogs would soon revert to the wild hogs in most areas and the numbers would not increase greatly.
There are very many predators. Their numbers will depend on the available prey. If the number of prey animals increase the number of predators increase.
Many of the domestic animals we raise nowdays cannot even breed naturally. Many of the fowl will not go broody.
Before humans populated the earth the animals did not take over the earth. They would not if we released all domestic stock nowdays.

beorning · #48 08/02/06, 10:36 AM

Feral hogs are enough of an issue in various places that hunters are being asked to shoot them on site. No tag or special license neccesary.

http://texnat.tamu.edu/symposia/feral/feral-10.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0607012122.htm

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/a...wildboar.shtml

I'd agree that most other livestock species would starve to death or be eaten by predators. The pigs would take over.

Before humans populated the earth there were no incidents of invasive and problematic species being introduced to a non-native habitat. Migration happened very slowly, when it happened at all. We aren't so good at the whole foresight thing. Just look at cane toads and rabbits in australia. Or kudzu and africanized bees closer to home. The list of invasive species that populate the U.S. due to humans bringing them in is long.

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/

hisenthlay · #49 08/02/06, 11:04 AM

I agree with unregistered and beorning on the feral farm animal issue. But Wendy, I just have to say one more time, and then I'll let it go, that the whole idea of agribusiness just opening the feedlot doors and letting their merchandise run off into the hills is entirely far fetched. If people stopped eating meat gradually, then agribusiness would simply breed fewer and fewer animals to sell for meat. It's supply and demand, it couldn't be any simpler. And before you ask, agribusiness would continue controlling the animals' fertility the same way they have been up until now--you don't think those big corporations just let the animals breed willy-nilly now, do you? No. They estimate approximately what their demand is, and they produce enough animals to meet it. As you rightly said, they wouldn't sit around and feed and shelter a bunch of animals that weren't going to make them money.

And as an alternative hypothetical scenario, let's say in some dreamworld that Congress passed a law that said people were no longer allowed to eat meat. Don't you think they could easily write provisions into that law that dealt with the existing animals? Like, they could say that all of the living farmed animals could be slaughtered for meat as they would have been before the law, but that no new animals could be bred for slaughter. There are plenty of possible solutions--it's not that hard to come up with.

I just don't get where you're coming from. Under what scenario exactly would big agribusiness decide to open the gates and let all of its assets run away? If you and your family want to eat meat, fine. I never said that you should stop. I even said that I respect people (like you) who raise their own meat and confront the sacrifice involved--so you can see that I'm honestly not trying to attack you or your decisions. But please don't use "otherwise farm animals will take over the earth" as a rationale for eating meat--it's just not realistic.

Wendy · #50 08/02/06, 02:59 PM

I really do not think farm animals would take over the world. Now deer, maybe!

If I had to eat big agribusiness animals, I would probably consume a lot less meat. I don't care to eat hormone injected animals. Maybe if people would start buying from the little guy so they would be assured a better tasting animal without the hormones, the big guys would get the hint that we don't like when they mess with mother nature. Of course now they have NAIS trying to get us, that may hurt a lot of the little guys. I really wish people would research what goes in their food & where it comes from. Maybe a lot of people would quit eating it. Or at least quit eating the big guys meat. BUT, we have way too many people that do not have a clue where their food comes from or what the animal even looks like. Milk comes from a jug & steak comes from a package in the store. Unless you slaughter your own animals, it is sometimes hard to put them both together. It is much easier for people to buy their meat in the stores all packaged with solutions injected & hormones, all the while having a nice little vision of a cow happily grazing out in a field. Instead of reality where they are crammed in feedlots standing in crap. Maybe a picture should be placed on the package showing exactly what the cow looked like. Or the pig, chicken etc. Maybe then people would get a clue how their food is being raised & they would take a stand to have better products available.

hisenthlay · #51 08/02/06, 03:43 PM

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Originally Posted by Wendy

It is much easier for people to buy their meat in the stores all packaged with solutions injected & hormones, all the while having a nice little vision of a cow happily grazing out in a field. Instead of reality where they are crammed in feedlots standing in crap.

Very true.

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Maybe a picture should be placed on the package showing exactly what the cow looked like. Or the pig, chicken etc. Maybe then people would get a clue how their food is being raised & they would take a stand to have better products available.

I love that idea! Of course, it would never happen, but it's a wonderful thought....

Tango · #52 08/02/06, 04:00 PM

People do know where their food comes from. They just don't care. I gave my college students an article about how veal and beef feedlot cattle were treated (given chicken litter to eat) and in a class of 30 students only 2 cared. The others only care about the price they pay for beef at the supermarket. They raise a bigger stink about gas prices than about animal suffering. Some are convinced animals don't suffer. A few found the treatment of veal calves funny. As long as they can afford ground beef, they simply don't care. Children also make the connections but they grow up in a complacent household where the cost of living overides anything else. They grow up watching Bambi, while daddy hunts, watch The Little Mermaid and go to Red Lobster for dinner, watch cartoons with their chicken nuggets on their lap. The mixed messages are zoned out and they grow up to accept complacent and apathetic.

minnikin1 · #53 08/02/06, 04:39 PM

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Originally Posted by hisenthlay

but do you know whether that "unsuitable" land was previously a habitat for wild animals, and for some reason could not continue to be a habitat once it was used for grazing? And I'd also be interested to know how many acres it takes to feed a person on grass fed meat, versus corn/soy/other veg products. I'd be willing to bet that the meat is still more, There's also the point that Farmer Joe raised--even if grass fed meat is no more intensive in its land usage than raising veggies, it's unfortunately not an option for most people today in this country, yet, anyway.

I don't have statistics but I'm certain that wild animals are somewhat displaced by grazing operations, but not as much as on crop farms. (We delay our first cutting on most of our fields until after ground nesting birds have moved on, for instance. Deer share much of the pasture with our stock.... But we have intentionally set it up to welcome wildlife.)

About "how many acres does it take to feed a person" - I think the main point I wanted to share was that all "acres" are not equal. Much of current "cropland" was fomerly prairie, and sustained grazing wildlife. Going back to that practice would be returning the land to it's most natural and appropriate use. I'm not saying that is necessarily what we should do. I don't know the answer.

Farmer Joe, I wasn't forgetting that grass-fed is not readily available, I was just hoping that folks who are eating meat will consider obtaining grass-fed whenever it's available to them. It's healthier for their bodies, and it's certainly a better choice for the land, and the livestock. The only way to change that 1% is to acknowledge the bad choices we've made in the past, and get the word out.

I definitely don't want anyone to think that I disrespect the vegetarian choice, quite the contrary.
I admire folks who establish their values and then live accordingly. I admire folks on the board who will share these very private, personal
details.