Poll - To Eat Meat, or Not to Eat Meat?

[Clodfobble]

A friend of mine had been vegetarian since around the age of 11, and simultaneously had a very strained relationship with his father, whom he had nothing in common with. His father told him he would pay for college if my friend would eat an entire steak--Fear Factor rules; no puking halfway through or it doesn't count. Anyway, my friend did it. Said he had pretty violent gas afterwards, but nothing unbearable.

[Elspode]

Well, hell...I hope he gassed his dad a good one. Serves him right for making the poor guy eat something he didn't want. What a prick.

[DanaC]

I seem to go through phases of vegetarianism. The idea of eating meat just isnt appealing for months on end and then suddenly I'll get a mad craving for a BK burger or one of my ex's super chillis....usually after drinking beer.

In a way I think the best thing to do if one wants to help animals is in fact to eat meat but to insist on only eating meat which comes from humanely farmed animals. If people who want to help animals stop eating meat altogether thne they lose their economic muscle. If they arent going to eat meat at all then they are no longer part of the market forces which drive farming methods. If one only eats meat which comes from assured farming methods then one is throwing one's consumer weight behind those methods. The more of us who insist on those methods for the meat we eat thne the more sense it makes economically speaking, for food producers to maintain high standards rather than using the unspeakable methods many currently employ ( such as battery farming)

Unfortunately what seems to drive the industry towards cheaper and less humane methods of farming seems to be the ready made meals we eat rather than the cuts of meat we buy. When food manufacturers make ready meals they generally choose cheaper meat which often comes from battery farmed sources.

[Crimson Ghost]

I have no problem with someone not eating meat. I have a problem with vegans who insist that the whole world should be just like them. My niece is a vegan, and she's quite about it. But she has this friend who was literally screaming at me at Thanksgiving that I was the cause of all the worlds problems, like Columbine, 9/11, and the like. All because I ate meat. I politely told this idiot to go fuck herself, that 2 mentally unstable fuckheads shot up Columbine, and the last time I checked, I wasn't an Arab terrorist. But, of course, I didn't know what I was talking about, according to this shitwit. She threw the turkey at me. Yup. You read that right. Little Miss Vegan launched a dead bird at me. Now, I have been uninvited to anything at the inlaws. Good. Hated them anyway. Bunch of assholes. The kicker is that my nieces "friend" is invited back anytime. And I'm the one who gets the cleaning bill for the rug. Fuck 'em. I ain't paying shit.

[Cyber Wolf]

Meat eating is great, may I have some more please?

Nuff said.

[glatt]

I chose the second choice "I only eat meat that I feel is worthy of my consumption." For me it's about the safety of beef ever since mad cow disease was found in the food supply. I love beef, but won't eat it until it's safe again.

I'm surprised that more people didn't choose this option. Technically speaking, if you answer based on your actions instead of your attitudes, I think everyone would choose this second option. After all, you don't eat dead squirrel found in the middle of the road. You find it to be not worthy of your consumption. If you pick and choose which meats you will eat, then you fall in the second category.

[Kitsune]

She threw the turkey at me.



Not the turkey! This is why I'm all for Thanksgiving to remain as a visit with my immediate family and no one else.

I haven't run across the preachy vegans, yet, but I was once subject to a yoga/stress-reduction class that required you eat a vegan diet for two weeks. No meat, no fish, no eggs, no alcohol, and no caffiene. I think we might have been allowed cheese and milk, so it might have been semi-vegan, and the lack of stimulants and depressants was something even vegans aren't foolish enough to attempt. So while some people find it amazing that I don't eat red meat, there is no way I could describe to you the pain of not being permitted to eat any animal products at all! My body was so displeased with the diet after a mere three days that I felt lethargic and depressed all the time. Getting up in the morning became impossible and there was no energy to be found for doing anything active. I even attempted to correct by cheating and having coffee again, but it was no use. After some thought, I figured I wasn't getting enough protien or enough fat in my diet, I think, despite heavy doses of peanut butter, tofu, etc. I made some adjustments based on some readings but it wasn't working and seven days into the ordeal I gave up. The biggest sushi dinner I've ever purchased, downed with plenty of beer, proved to be an excellent dinner to cheat with followed by a breakfast of fried eggs and hashbrowns covered in steaming chili and a never-ending cup of coffee. Following that, my nap was composed of some of the deepest sleep I've ever known and awoke to find myself feeling normal, again.

The class? I skipped the final session. What was on the plate in front of me that night? A bliss-enducing patty melt from Steak n' Shake. Oh, baby!

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

a breakfast of fried eggs and hashbrowns covered in steaming chili and a never-ending cup of coffee.

Waffle House perhaps?

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by glatt

After all, you don't eat dead squirrel found in the middle of the road. You find it to be not worthy of your consumption.

No one in their right mind would do that, it's just common sense. There are people who do eat certain kinds of roadkill though. As long as it's not ground into the pavement or mashed and not starting to decay. Take a deer that's been hit...if you get to it fast enough, the worst you'll need to worry about is possibly broken bone fragments and those can be picked out. Yes, you could have ruptured internal organs but there's plenty of meat elsewhere on the animal that wouldn't be directly affected by, say, a leaking gallbladder or intestine.

All this isn't to say that *I'D* eat it. But I'm not that picky about meat, regardless of the animal it comes from. I've eaten gator, buffalo, deer, squirrel, all kinds of fish (that's meat too!), rabbit, all kinds of bird and of course the three meat staples, beef, pork and chicken. And I'm not as worried about eating beef, even with the mad cow thing, mainly because the beef I eat comes in no contact with the part of the cow that's infected by the mad cow disease. It doesn't get into the muscle. I can't think of a way for a flank steak to come in contact with brain or spinal fluid.

[Kitsune]

Waffle House perhaps?

You know it.

[Kitsune]

I can't think of a way for a flank steak to come in contact with brain or spinal fluid.

I thought it was because they've been feeding cows brain and spinal material and that it didn't matter if the cut of meat touched it.

...not that a flank steak couldn't. You ever see how a slaughterhouse is run?

[Cyber Wolf]

Sure have. I've seen how hotdogs are made too.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Cyber Wolf

All this isn't to say that *I'D* eat it. But I'm not that picky about meat, regardless of the animal it comes from.

I admit that I was nitpicking about the various categories, but aside from that, I think you are more adventuresome than most people in what type of meat you eat. I've had a bunch of weird stuff too, but still put myself in the second category. Frogs legs, rattlesnake, snails, deer, rabbit, ostritch. But I still am picky about what meat I'll eat.

Grossest meat I ever ate was tongue soup in Germany. I was expecting chunks of tongue in a thick soup with vegetables and stuff. What I got was a bowl of thin clear broth with a big whole tongue sitting in it staring at me. The part that grossed me out was that as I cut off peices, and put them in my mouth, I could feel the taste buds of the cow rubbing against my own taste buds. Kind of felt like I was licking a cow's tongue. And I was, basically. I had eaten tongue before, sliced on a sandwich, and it was good that way, but I wouldn't recommend the tongue soup in the student cafeteria at Albert Ludwigs University. I finished it though.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by glatt

What I got was a bowl of thin clear broth with a big whole tongue sitting in it staring at me. The part that grossed me out was that as I cut off peices, and put them in my mouth, I could feel the taste buds of the cow rubbing against my own taste buds. Kind of felt like I was licking a cow's tongue. And I was, basically. I had eaten tongue before, sliced on a sandwich, and it was good that way, but I wouldn't recommend the tongue soup in the student cafeteria at Albert Ludwigs University. I finished it though.

That is undoubtedly the grossest thing ever. I can't believe you ate that...I would've

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by glatt

Grossest meat I ever ate was tongue soup in Germany.

Indeed...just the texture of it would put me off. You've gone further than I have; while I've eaten all kinds of critters, the only animal parts I've eaten were intestine and tripe. Both only once, and both never again.