Eschewing cheese on pizzas makes them markedly less liable to result in increased waist size and also prevents severe burns of the palate.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Stuff
Would you eat vegetarian meat?
(67 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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"Eschewing cheese on pizzas makes them markedly less liable to result in increased waist size and also prevents severe burns of the palate."
It also makes them markedly less tasty...
Posted 12 years ago # -
I've heard people say that about salt and potatoes.
Posted 12 years ago # -
""Chickens are easy"
Are they still easy when it comes to chopping their head off with a big axe? "
Actually my personal belief is that if you are prepared to eat meat you should be prepared to complete the entire process. One could argue that those who hunt/shoot/fish are the only "honest" carnivores and all the others are just paying people to do their dirty work...
(intended as a discussion point not an antagonistic statement!)
Posted 12 years ago # -
I'm in the "I like my dead animals to have lived a good life in a field, rather than in a lab" camp.
Of course, I'm a farmer's son, and have personally known my meals...
"Scotch" beef, mutton, venison and lamb tends to be reared on land that isn't suitable for arable farming, so isn't as environmentally destructive compared to the other end of the scale (e.g. ex-rainforest ranch beef).
I'm happy that an omnivorous diet for humans is appropriate, but see no reason or need for animals to suffer in the process...
Robert
Posted 12 years ago # -
I have been veggie since 1985. Grounds of taste and world hunger. The restaurant at the end of the universe served an animal that wanted you to eat it so this new version might not require six times it's body weight in grain? Was also vegan in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Easier in Edinburgh. Cauldron sausages both Cumberland and Lincolnshire lovely. Robert millar 1980s king of the mountains is veggie for reasons of gut transit
Posted 12 years ago # -
I dislike the way that a lump of protein arrives on peoples plates - and they have not got a scooby where it really came from let alone what it looked like alive.
I wont say I hold any moral high ground here though - I love animals, but do eat meat/fish, and have in my younger years killed, cooked and eaten fish/rabbits etc.
Like many others, I only eat free range/organic at home for reasons of personal health, hygiene and morality re:animal conditions - more tricky in restaurants.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Papingo on sauchiehall st used to do a pizza which was thin base, olive oil and peppercorns. I used to have it with a fine chianti and some fava beans
Posted 12 years ago # -
@gembo + a linen suit and a havana hat?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Actually my personal belief is that if you are prepared to eat meat you should be prepared to complete the entire process. One could argue that those who hunt/shoot/fish are the only "honest" carnivores and all the others are just paying people to do their dirty work..."
I couldn't agree more actually. Meat doesn't arrive in the world in a cellophane wrapped parcel. Mel and I have a butchery course in Dumfries-shire once her leg is mended. We're not actually slaughtering the pig (see previous post, there be rules against that) but will be learning how to divide it up and where the cuts come from etc.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Anth, I hope you enjoy that course. I went on a breadmaking one out at Lamancha last year and it was really inspiring.
Beef is a by-product of arable farming. In a crop rotation cattle improve the fertility of fallow. Overwintering feed is provided by ensilaged grass and turnips. Or at least that's how it used to be done.
Posted 12 years ago # -
** Disclosure: My job is to communicate the benefits of eating Scotch Beef and Lamb (and Specially Selected Pork) as part of a healthy balanced diet, everything I say only relates to these particular products. **
Not sure about the lab meat, suspect it would be a very standardised bland taste, as much of what makes beef and particularly lamb taste interesting is what they eat. But for a convenient protein to go in a burger that's about to be smothered in tomato sauce, yeah, why not.
One theme of here is an interesting one, about buying better and more ethical meat by going to farmer's markets etc is a little bit of a red herring.
All the beef and lamb in Scotland, even the stuff you buy from the supermarket, comes from mainly family owned or tenanted farms, the corporatised farming model seen in America doesn't happen here.
It is slaughtered in one of not many abattoirs in Scotland, the only supermarket which directly owns an abbatoir is Woodheads which is owned by Morrisons.
The big players in Lamb and Beef are Scottish family owned businesses, who supply carcases and sometimes finished, packed products to the supermarkets (and McDonalds). They also supply butchers and contract kill for farmers who then further butcher and supply to the public.
I wouldn't like to make people kill their own food. They would make a bloody awful job of it and the animal would suffer unreasonably.
Abattoirs in Scotland can kill animals calmly, quickly and relatively painlessly, and it's done respectfully by skilled professionals.
This is not only good for the animal, it's good for the quality of the product. You can raise cattle happily it's whole life, then all that work can be ruined if you stress it out just before dispatching it. Stress = Lactic Acid build up = bad meat.
The main difference is the butcher *may* have chosen the animals he's selling at the market or has a relationship with a particular farmer, or the farmer can tell you exactly how the cattle has been raised.
So you are supporting a local business. From the animal ethical standpoint though, there isn't much difference between going to the supermarket and buying Scotch Beef and Lamb and buying it elsewhere.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I've never had enough arguments with ethical vegetarians to have had an opportunity to use the "I think you should only eat vegetables, fruits, pulses, grains, nuts and fungi* that you've planted, nurtured and harvested yourself" counter-argument to the "eat only what you're prepared to knife and butcher with your own hands" position. Without the invention of agriculture (with appropriate labour distribution/concentration, both for arable and pastoral disciplines) we'd still be huddling in trees being menaced by leopards, fighting each other over picking-rights to the most heavily berry-laden branches.
*mycete is murder
Posted 12 years ago # -
I don't think that argument is really about people actually killing the animals themselves but just that they should be prepared to. Many people have a very hypocritical attitude to animals where they only care about cute fluffy animals that are alive and not about the dead ones on their plate.
Does anyone remember the sweet little white calf that "escaped" being culled for foot a mouth a few years back and which there was a huge campaign to save? Few people give a toss about how many sweet little white calves are on the supermarket (or farmers market) shelves so long as they go well with chips and a dash of peppercorn sauce.
I think that is the sort of thing that is being argued against.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Min Yep, is only a theoretical point, but would have been aimed (were it ever deployed) at people who hadn't thought things through about the whole work-involved-in-producing-food thing, which could arguably be greater for domesticated food-plants as they're generally non-motile and sometimes need encouragement to reproduce. I haven't really seen a proper live principles-only meat-versus-veg argument since school.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Were it not for farming, these animals would have never existed in the first place.
Is there not some solace in knowing that an animal which lets not kid ourselves has been 'produced' for the sole purpose of being eaten has had a happy life?
If humans were vegetarian I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be herds of happy cows roaming around wild in the countryside.
Could an unforeseen consequence of artificial meat being (most probably) cheaper to produce eventually lead to the demise of these animals from the countryside, would that not be a real shame?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Sorry Min, still wouldn't agree. I don't think people need to be prepared to kill anything, just accept that meat comes from animals and that they are killed, and that there is a value in this.
So the value judgement you make is that if you buy cheaper imported meat, it won't have been treated as well.
The fact this is one step removed from them and being done efficiently by professionals in a clean environment is a very good thing, it's probably the best thing that's ever been done to help raise animal welfare standards at the point of slaughter.
Just because it's done quickly or on a larger basis doesn't make it intrinsic more cruel, I would argue strenuously to the opposite.
It's like saying you can't wear shoes unless you skin the cow and stand in a tanning pond.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@stepdoh 'stand in a tanning pond' Did they not used to use urine for that task in ye olde days of yore? eurgh
Posted 12 years ago # -
Baldcyclist "Were it not for farming, these animals would have never existed in the first place."
Of course they would have existed. If they didn't exist in the first place then they wouldn't be here at all. They have all been bred from wild creatures, they didn't just spontaneously spring into being. The wild versions still roam around Britain in various places. Whether they are happy or not I don't know, I haven't asked them.
Stepdoh"The fact this is one step removed from them and being done efficiently by professionals in a clean environment is a very good thing, it's probably the best thing that's ever been done to help raise animal welfare standards at the point of slaughter."
As far as I can tell no-one here and certainly not myself is arguing that animals should not be slaughtered by professionals. As Wingpig has said, it is only a theoretical point.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Min No they wouldn't have, all of the animals that have been slaughtered have been 'produced' for the sole purpose of being eaten, they would never have existed.
Of course the original wild animals they were bred from would and did exist, as do their offspring...Posted 12 years ago # -
Bu-ut, it's a theoretical point that's sometimes used to try and obtain a real-world outcome, so it's worth countering.
In theoretical terms, what I'm saying is that it's a bit of emotive red herring to focus on the actual process of killing, you just have to accept that something was killed.
Whether you do it yourself or someone else does it for you I would say is morally neutral.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Whether you do it yourself or someone else does it for you I would say is morally neutral."
Yes it is. Happily scoffing imported veal whilst getting your knickers in a twist about a calf that was about to be slaughtered humanely is not. IMO. There are many, many other examples I could give.Balders - I don't think I am quite understanding your point? IMO, seeing an end to vast monocultures of freakishly uddered Fresians and others would be no bad thing. The interesting variety of good old British farm animals that used to be popular are now only kept by enthusiasts anyway.
Posted 12 years ago # -
But even in that example, it's not so much them being theoretically prepared to kill the animal themselves, just accepting that the animal died to make it.
It's saying they should be unemotive about the cuteness of the calf, while using an emotively-charged argument that they should be prepared to draw the knife themselves.
I'm being devil's advocate here, I know, but surely from a purely theoretical standpoint the argument is: Will you be prepared to eat product a if animal a was killed in its production.
To take the veal argument to the other extreme, not eating it suggests that you implicitly agree that all boy dairy calves are shot. But dairy aint my area of expertise, so I can't comment with certainty.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"freakishly uddered Fresians and others would be no bad thing."
Again a bit of a red herring, yes we eat them, mainly in anonymously minced form, but they are for milk production, not meat production, hence why they look like a cowhide thrown over drying rack with a huge udder.
In Scotland on the meat production side at least we have LOADS of different breeds, angus, highlander, galloway, belties and we interbreed them with bigger continental breedsm charolais, limousin etc to make hardy beasts that can live here but produce good, interesting meat.
Again that's why it's important to know the overall provenance of what you are eating, even meat from the supermarket with our label on it ain't auld dairy coo, even shrinkwrapped packs of mince.
From the dairy perspective, the only reason we have such animals is that they are the only ones who can produce milk at the price people expect to pay for it, only even they can't do that.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"It's saying they should be unemotive about the cuteness of the calf, while using an emotively-charged argument that they should be prepared to draw the knife themselves."
If you are fine about animals being killed for meat then why would the suggestion that you do the killing yourself be "emotionally charged"?
I do see your point but I think we may have to agree to disagree on it!
"Again a bit of a red herring, yes we eat them, mainly in anonymously minced form, but they are for milk production, not meat production, hence why they look like a cowhide thrown over drying rack with a huge udder."
You are right of course, I am pretty sure there would still be dairy production, even if you couldn't sell the male calves for meat though maybe there would be less as it would probably be more expensive. Particularly if you had to just grow the calves and keep them to their old age (taking the "no slaughter" rule to the extreme). But I think that Baldcyclists argument is that without meat production then the countryside would be stripped bare of all farm animals which I don't think is true. You would still have sheep as well for wool.
There is a still a large amount of monoculture in meat farming though. Cattle and sheep not so much but pigs and chickens almost certainly.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"To take the veal argument to the other extreme, not eating it suggests that you implicitly agree that all boy dairy calves are shot. But dairy aint my area of expertise, so I can't comment with certainty."
You can produce veal without the use of veal crates and there is such a thing as British veal.
Posted 12 years ago # -
There was a thing on Countryfile the other week (aka. televisual Daily Wail, but it's still quite good) about British veal and the fact that ALL veal in the UK is produced 'ethically', but they have an uphill challenge with the British public who still think veal crates and so on still exist.
An upsurge in veal purchasing would mean that male dairy calves aren't shot straight away. Is it a big difference morally from being shot a few months later to be eaten? Probably not, but it seems less 'wasteful'.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Cattle and sheep not so much but pigs and chickens almost certainly.
Yep, both examples of intensive price driven systems. Our pig farming in Scotland, although at some of the highest welfare standards in the world (hence why we have the SSPCA logo on our branding) is still more intensive/scientific than C&S farming. No where near chicken farming though (we don't cover chicken, just bovine/ovine/porcine)
Posted 12 years ago # -
TBH can't really comment on veal, not my expertise, but is a minute market in Scotland. Guess a more relevant argument would be by drinking milk you implicitly support shooting of calve, but again is a bit of an overly emotive one.
I stand by saying that it is a far more emotive argument saying that you have to kill something to eat it than something has to be killed for you to eat it. But agree to disagree, and I accept I probably have a slightly skewed view.
Posted 12 years ago #
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