Veganism, genuine questions.

No one has “demonised others” on here for eating meat. I have just stated I don’t eat animals as a choice for environmental reasons and because I have that choice. I understand why people eat foods that are familiar to them, plastic trays of meat in the supermarket bear little resemblance to an animal. I have been veggie for so long I don’t think of animals as food. My canine teeth come in great use for eating crunchy foods which aren’t meat just like the many mammals which don’t eat meat and also have canines ( eg gorillas) ( how many humans actually kill meat with their teeth I wonder). It’s impossible to exclude all animal products from most people’s lives, but not eating them is a choice some people make and why get all aggressive and criticise them for it.

Anyone who is interested in the wool
Argument www.bitesizevegan.org/bite-size-vegan-nuggets/is-wool-vegan-is-it-humane/

I don't feel demonised. (Only slightly by myself, for still eating meat)

I can assure all of you if you are a livestock farmer the Vegan terriorists are making every effort to demonize them.

There is only one threat to the planet and that is population growth, reduce the population and all the other problems disappear. It could be done in a couple of generations if there was the political will, that should be the aim not carbon targets.

I have seen videos of the way some shearers treat the sheep and it was revolting. You sometimes get the same kind of thugs working in slaughter houses.

David I suspect the planet is ready to reduce the population itself. A pandemic is long overdue.

Re thugs working in abbatoirs - you also get child abusers working in nurseries, but we don't stop using nurseries as a result of knowing this - we have rules and checks and they are applied and followed or the nurseries are in trouble

Just because you are a vegan doesn’t make you a terrorist btw.

Slaughterhouses don’t have that many checks unfortunately. You’d have to be a bit brutalised by nature of the work. Not the same as working in childcare.

We should be working for more checks, and for severe penalties on sadism. As well as being better for animal welfare, those who are cruel to animals often go on to harm humans. Apart from animal welfare, coming to the notice of authority for their attitude to animals could prevent some human unhappiness or even death, too.

Small local slaughterhouses can be more humane than large ones. The one we used to take sheep to was staffed by ex-stockmen, who treated them gently (incidentally producing better meat because they were not stressed) but then new regulations about the physical environment etc meant that they were not viable commercially and closed down. The alternative was a longer journey to a bigger establishment and more impersonal handling.

I admit I haven't read the whole thread but think I've got the gist.
A vegetarian myself but not a vegan, Ofcourse I hate cruelty to animals.
I wish people would work harder to expose the bad practices and not just wail in horror and avoid animals altogether.
Things you can do for a start: only eat meat from a known source, preferably accredited organic, grass fed etc.
Ask questions: The sales girl at H&M became quite heated when I asked her the origin of the clothes I was buying.
Be prepared to pay a bit more for things.
Well done for raising the issues because the more people who know about the terrible practices, the more likely these will stop. Rather like the abolition of Slavery though there will always be exceptions. Vigilance is needed.

crystaltips I wasn't suggesting that you were demonizing people yourself. But there are a few staunch vegetarians/vegans who are very confrontational and aggressive about their beliefs. It doesn't actually work - it just makes the people they criticise angry and defensive, building a barrier that prevents them from even considering another point of view.

Of course vegans can see other points of view
crystaltipps you may do so and be very reasonable in your views but some vegans are zealous and have even been intimidating shoppers in supermarkets.

Isn't that what has happened to our appendix?
Did I read somewhere that it used to be much bigger, and was for helping to digest large quantities of meat?

Woolly mammoth would have been quite large and take some digesting MissA.

I’m vegetarian, the thing I don’t understand is why people then want to eat ‘fake’ meat. I don’t eat it prefer meals of vegetables, pulses etc. Perhaps someone can explain this to mean.

Yes there are aggressive vegans out there, same as there are aggressive meat eaters who demonise vegans. Abbatoirs are now huge industrial operations dispatching hundreds of thousands of animals per week, the small local ones have mostly been closed. The internet is awash with horrible images and sickening practices from these places, but I’ve yet to read of any prosecutions or any of them being shut down.

Fake meat is really aimed at meat eaters who want to cut down, I don’t think anyone who dislikes meat for whatever reason would want to eat it. It’s all processed food And not particularly healthy.

This thread is getting out of hand, let people do what they want, be it vegetarian or vegan or we meat eaters, we cant change each other, we all have different points of view, can we not get on with life without accusing everyone for something we dont agree with.
End of rant.
Waiting to be beheaded!

To comment on the OP:
I am struggling to understand the anti wool thing, as sheep don't die to provide it, in fact they benefit from providing it, i.e. being shorn.
I think being shorn, mulesing etc are only part of the issue. some people are anti-exploitation of animals for human benifit altogether, but there are plenty of stories of shearers in Austrailia using drugs - mainly speed - to keep up with the pace... there is video footage of mistreatment
youtu.be/deHNomts8bo and there have finally, in 2017 been some prosecutions...
www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-03-31/sheep-shearers-sentenced-animal-cruelty-horsham/8404874
Obviously, there are good and bad people in ALL industries but if you do want to know why, this is a part of it.

Like crystaltipps, I think we can all do a bit more to be kinder to the planet in general, and the other animals we share it with. Food bank situations aside, we can eat a bit less, buy better quality meat, buy local, buy from smaller suppliers, maybe grow some veg ourselves and choose clothes wisely. All these will help.
OK, sometimes we are exhausted and just get on with life in our own haphazard way, but if everyone took a few small steps and made incremental changes it can only be for the good.

A vegan gardening book was published recently. The author was interviewed about it and asked what he did about slugs and snails.

He said that they were removed from the vegetable patch and put elsewhere, so far so good, but then he said he threw them on the lawn where they could be caught and eaten by birds, as it was part of life's natural cycle.

At which point, he lost me, because slugs and snails do not usually walk across lawns in broad daylight, inviting predators. To me, what he was doing was the equivalent of putting christians in the Colosseum and setting wild animals on them, there is nowhere to hide.

If birds eating slugs and snails is the natural cycle quite acceptable to vegans, why is not humans being omnivores, the earliest people were hunter/gatherers not acceptable.

I don’t think you can equate birds eating slugs to throwing Christians to the lions. Maybe that particular vegan gardener should have found a dark place to rehome said slugs, however, slugs are common food for birds, frogs and other species they are adept at picking them out from plants and from seemingly dark corners . I don’t think lions in the wild would necessarily seek out Christians as a major food source. The difference is, humans in the West mostly have some choice about what they eat, birds and other wild creatures have fewer choices and will only eat what is immediately available in their habitat. Yes, humans can survive in many different environments, but in many countries these days, meat is not an essential part of human diet, we can live quite healthily on little or no meat if that is your choice. It’s not compulsory to eat meat in our complex society, any more than it is compulsory not to - it’s a choice. If you choose to eat meat, fine, that’s your choice, just as not eating it is a choice. people make their choices for many different reasons - habit, income, family pressures, ethical or environmental concerns. No one can say others are “right” or “wrong”.

I was vegetarian for 25 years- never Vegan. I taught Veggie cooking at Adult Education too.
Now I do eat meat ( 2nd husband refused point blank not to eat meat - 2 sons from 1st marriage said if he got meat they wanted it & eventually I joined them- just got fed up cooking 2 meals every night.)
I do, however, go to a very good butcher who knows exactly where all his meat comes from & can tell you the fields to go to see them. He is also passionate about animal welfare & believes happy animals give better meat. I know his meat is like nothing else I have ever tasted & I have been to some of the farms to check them out & was made very welcome.
I do still eat some veggie food & enjoy it but I think you need to decide for yourself on this matter of conscience.I'd never preach to anyone else- it is a personal thing.

Hope you visited the abattoirs too.

Veganism aside, don’t condemn large scale food production be it Dairy cows, Chickens or Pigs, these large units provide the consumer with cheaper food because of economies of scale.
In terms of animal welfare they are the best, they have to be because the supervision by supermarkets and vets is pretty much 24/7, if something goes wrong the penalties are severe, so have no fear about large UK units they provide what the consumer wants.

It would be nice to have smaller slaughterhouses but because of the cost of supervision and building costs it simply isn’t economic, this results in much longer journey times. It might be attractive to some to turn the clock back 50 yrs, when each small town had 2 abbatiors but that is not going to happen.

It good that Craftycat uses her local butcher, like her I also buy meat, especially Beef from him. We are lucky to have a small abattoir close by, which small butchers use and we pay the price because we can. The vast majority do not have our luxury, they have to buy standardized offerings to supermarket specifications and price. It’s pretty good and because of competition the lowest price.