It occurs to me

[Undertoad]

It's often said of people today that their food is so processed, sanitized, packaged,etc. that they don't see it as coming from animals at all.

But, oddly, vegetarianism gets MORE popular as contact with the animals decreases. Back in the early 1900s you'd have a more agrarian society, vegetariansm pretty much wasn't around at that point, was it?

You veggies out there - yeah you - I'm not mocking you or anything I swear it, but my question is: how much time have you spent with cows?

[russotto]

Originally posted by Undertoad
It's often said of people today that their food is so processed, sanitized, packaged,etc. that they don't see it as coming from animals at all.

But, oddly, vegetarianism gets MORE popular as contact with the animals decreases. Back in the early 1900s you'd have a more agrarian society, vegetariansm pretty much wasn't around at that point, was it?

You veggies out there - yeah you - I'm not mocking you or anything I swear it, but my question is: how much time have you spent with cows?

If you want a vegetarian-mocking thread, I can start one :-)

[MaggieL]

I think the vegetarian-mocking thread is already stared.

I'm a memeber of the Pink Pistols, a group that supports legal, responsible firearms ownership especially for GLBT folks (OK, acronym check: gay, lesbian bisexual and/or transgendered). One of the things we do is endorse political candidates whose stands on Sceond Amendment and queer issues we support, and for this purpose we have a questionnaire we ask candidates for office to respond to.

Hang on, the veggie part is coming.

So recently we had a response from Starchild in (where else?) San Fracncisco, running for City Council One of the questions was;

----------------------------------------------------------
3) What do you consider are "legitimate" reasons to own a firearm?
Check as many as apply:
[X] Personal Defense
[X] Home Defense
[X] Defense of your country (Unorganized Militia)
[ ] Hunting
[ ] Farm Use
[X] Competitive Shooting
[X] Informal Sport Shooting
[X] Informal Target Practice and/or Plinking
[X] Collecting
[X] Constitutional Rights
[X] Other FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM IN OTHER COUNTRIES (E.G.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE)
[ ] All of the above
[ ] None of the above

" I'm a vegetarian and animal rights supporter. Killing animals for
food and hunting them for sport are barbaric practices, and I wish
that humans had no desire to engage in such behavior. Someday I think our
race will outgrow it. However I realize that legal bans on hunting and
food-killing would be extremely impractical at present. There are
also important external considerations; hunting provides important funding
for environmental protection as well as an incentive to preserve the
populations of wild animals, while the meat, dairy and seafood
industries are so integrated into the economies of the world that legislation
that fully protected the rights of animals would cause enormous disruption
and human suffering to the extent that it was even enforceable...."

So it soundls like the only reason reason Starchild isn't up for a law against "food-killing" is that ot would be "impractical".
The other, more practical, planks in Starchild's platform (sie bills hirself as "Libertarian", BTW) are:

* Let residents decide where their tax money goes.
* Remove laws that restrict skateboarding, rollerblading, and bicycling.
*Allow these means of transportation to be used on city property such
>as colleges, sidewalks, etc.
* Authorize a volunteer effort by citizens to paint the Golden Gate
Bridge golden, as recommended by SF Poet Laureate Lawrence Ferlenghetti.
* Replace the city's business and occupational licensing systems with
certification programs run by members of the community and
voluntarily supported by local businesses and professionals.
* Require vandals and grafitti artists to pay restitution to the
owners and tenants of the property they vandalize.
* Stop the legal prosecution of women and men who charge money for
sexual services and eliminate the SFPD's Vice Squad
* Return public benches and similar conveniences removed in
meanspirited attempts to make public places less hospitable to the homeless.
* Make it illegal to arrest people for feeding the homeless without a
license.
* Refund money collected from parking tickets above and beyond a
reasonable cost of enforcement to city drivers.
* Make public parks leash-free zones except for children's play
areas.
* Amend city charter to require the repeal of one existing ordinance
for each new ordinance added to the books and require each new law to
include a sunset clause.
* Allow restaurants to place tables and chairs outside their places
of business at will; allow individual sales of goods on city sidewalks
* Pass Homeownership for Tenants legislation to create more affordable
housing by allowing apartment buildings to be legally subdivided into
less expensive units
* Negotiate with housing developers to build underground traffic
tunnels in exchange for the right to tear up the street surfaces above to make room for more apartments and housing. Require some of the newly available space to be converted to parks, plazas, etc.
* Invite the organizers of Burning Man to establish a permanent art
and entertainment zone in the city -----------------------------------------------

And I thought I'd never live to see Utopia. :-)

[Scopulus Argentarius]

Some of the vegetarians I know do it for religious reasons. It would seem to them and evil removed several times over is still evil. And they say another thing : "Bad Kharma - Bad Dharma".

No.. I do not live in Cali...


sa

[elSicomoro]

Interesting. I think a lot of the vegetarianism in American society is a byproduct of several factors: a desire for a better lifestyle, PETA, conformists, etc.

Survival of the fittest...as I mentioned in a previous thread, maybe some higher species out there will want to eat us.

[jennofay]

ive been waiting for a topic that i actually have something to say about to register here, and (wahoo) here it is.

ive been a vegetarian all my life. ive eaten three pieces of meat ever. a chicken tender in 12th grade, a cube of chicken when i worked at pizza hut, and a half of a pepperoni that was stuck to a piece of cheese pizza. my mom has raised all her kids that way. she became a vegetarian when she was 18 in the mid-70s, for her own reasons. i really cant sit here and argue why i stick to this diet (first, because i would get SICK if i ate meat...)...

i can, however, say, in response to the first question, that i have been around animals all of my life. ive had hundreds of pets (horses, ponys, cats, a dog, chickens, ducks, guinea pigs, mice, rats, turtles, rabbits, frogs, lizards, birds, a hampster, a crab... um, i think thats all..?) and this is one of the reasons that i decided to *try* and stick to a vegan lifestyle (refraining from using any animal products) in january of 2001. its been almost a year, and ive done pretty well. i ate dairy cheese for a while while i was sick, but other than that, very little animal products at all.

i decided to do this because of the condition these animals are kept in. hens are kept two or three to a cage, cows are pumped full of steriods to keep them producing milk, but this also shortens their life. calves are taken from their moms at a very young age and turned into veal, killed and disposed of (mostly females), or raised to become the next generation of milkers, etc. etc. etc....

i think my real question is... do we really have to have had physical contact with some(one/thing) to know that its wrong? ive never witnessed female circumcision, or met a victim of that practice, but i still know that its not something i believe in. i know, from what ive read and what ive been told that it hurts, and its unnecessary, and that i think that its wrong. ive never been murdered, or known of someone who has, but i know that i think thats wrong. ive never been beaten by my spouse, or signifigant other, and i dont know anyone personally who has, but i know that spousal abuse is wrong. just as someone who has never met a cow, might still know that killing them is not something that is necessary, or that they believe in.

i recently saw a vegetarian timeline...it told about the earliest known vegetarians and the progression of the diet until now. that would help to clarify the question about the 1900's vegetarians (because i honestly dont know)..

--oh, and as a side note, i dont convert... i have my beliefs, you have yours, i like my food, you like yours... and thats a-ok. --

[MaggieL]

Jen, I think Toad's question had to do with how much contact with potentially-food animals (he mentioned cows specifically, presumably because beef is so commonly eaten in this culture). Sounds like you've mostly had contact with pets, not food aniumals, so you may actually be confrming UTs hypothesis.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by MaggieL
Jen, I think Toad's question had to do with how much contact with potentially-food animals (he mentioned cows specifically, presumably because beef is so commonly eaten in this culture). Sounds like you've mostly had contact with pets, not food aniumals

Well, at least some of them aren't eaten in THIS country.

[jennofay]

the hens we kept were for eggs. they were "food" animals, not in the sense that we were making fried chicken out of them, but in the sense that they were providing us with food.

i have had contact with beef cows, dairy cows, chickens and turkeys intended for meat, etc. not at my own home, but at other various locations.

my point still remains, though... do we have to have physical contact with something to understand it? perhaps the fact that people are more health conscious, and vegetarianism isnt as mysterious...along with the introduction of more vegetarian convenience foods, people are sarting to take a look at what they eat. although people are not in as close contact with "food animals" as they might have once been, other factors in the environment (as mentioned above) have lead to peoples rethinking of their diet.

i have never met an elephant, but i know i dont want to eat one. and i know killing them isnt something i agree with.

i think that the question that was first put on the table was, as maggie clarified, what is the correlation between people moving away from physical contact with animals and their migration towards an animal-friendly diet. in order to answer this, one must look at all the factors that could cause such a revolution of vegetarianism... theres much more here to look at than you may think.

[Undertoad]

I lived for a few years in cow country and even helped out on a few farms, one a mini-farm for the raising of a Mennonite family with 15 kids. I helped feed the pigs, I didn't help with the cows. And I would have eaten any one of them.

I guess what I'm saying is that the argument that we're so far removed from our food is silly. I think, for better or worse, veggie-ism is way on the rise. I think it's fine for most people. I also think it's partly because of the movie "Babe", because that's what people think their meat is, all chatty and with tons of personality, etc. I wouldn't eat "Babe" but I'd eat any of those pigs I helped feed.

[jennofay]

i agree, it is a silly argument. i probably sound like im contradicting myself, but im not, really

whether people physically handle an animal or not, they are still aware of where thier food comes from, and its a personal decision whether or not to eat it. i think that outside factors besides whether they have had contact with a cow in the past are what make the decision for most. like you said, "babe." its just a change in society and people cant sit and pinpoint one reason for the change.

[jaguar]

Most of hte meat we buy is from a butcher rather than prepackaged so you cna see the carcasses hanging up an dwatch them hack lumps off - you don't get much closer than that in suburbia.

Buddhist theory of Karma probably has a role to play with it making a bigger impression on the western world (good to see), i know allot of teenage girls who dno't eat meat because of the fat factor too, its often seen as unhealthy.

[warch]

First, I am a meat eater and was raised in the suburbs. I love bacon.

I married a guy who grew up on a pig farm and pork is a necessary staple of his diet. nothin'says home like a big piece of farmer sausage with fried onions...anyway...

About 10 yrs ago we moved from a northern city to Austin, TX. We had a small apt on the east side- And on New Years- SQUEEEL! - you would hear many of the neighbor families slaughtering their holiday pig in their driveway- blood rolling right down into the street- Austin City Limits. A noisy reminder of just where that sausage comes from.

[Griff]

As I type this, there is a doe hanging by my woodshed waiting for me to saw her up. An urbanite who hunts on my place gave her to me last week as a goodwill gesture (he got an extra doe tag this year and noticed I didn't have one). I hunt occasionally if half-heartedly and have slaughtered all the common farm animals. My position is if you wouldn't kill it you shouldn't eat it (you don't have to actually kill it, just accept responsibility for it) . Right now we only have chickens and dogs on the place. The dogs are not that charming so the chickens, who are free range, are the only meat source presently on farm.

I thought Starchilds perspective was pretty interesting and don't have a serious problem with any of it since he apparently wouldn't try to impose his decision on others. With chickens roaming here, we get a few predators so I'd have to defend the farmers right to be armed.

I'd encourage my fellow omnivores to consider how the animals they eat are raised and processed. If you can afford it, its pretty easy to get beef and chicken right off the farm that are not pumped full of antibiotics or over-grained. Our centralized food production has done a great job feeding the country but as with any other concentration it creates problems (especially with terrorism on peoples minds). Feed lot systems concentrate waste (fecal if not financial) and disease producing more potential pollution and health problems than necessary, but I'd never support legislating the end of the feedlot system since it puts relatively high quality food within reach of almost everyone.

As far as going vegetarian, its an individual lifestyle choice and as long as its a choice not a mandate its cool. Its easy for me living in a rural area to assume that many urbanites have lost touch with land, food, and nature. There does seem to be a lack of understanding about the realities of food production. The same industrial food production technique that feeds the masses and frees up land that can be returned to the wild also reduces the quality of life for farmers and animals, threatens diversity in foods (plants and animals), and relies heavily on transportation. Vote with your food dollar, its the best way to achieve balance with all these conflicting needs and values. Griff descending from the soapbox.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Griff


I thought Starchilds perspective was pretty interesting and don't have a serious problem with any of it since he apparently wouldn't try to impose his decision on others.

No...read carefully: "However I realize that legal bans on hunting and
food-killing would be extremely impractical <i>at present</i>."[emphasis added]

The implication being that as soon as it became "practical", sie would be implementing hir own moral values as law. I think that's a very scary thing in a lawmaker. The purpose of law isn't to implement moral values, it's to enable people with *differing* moral values to live together.