Please buy Free Range animal products!

[Stupot]

I'm also against this kind of cruelty described in the previous two posts (who in their right mind wouldn't be), but it should be said that these investigative TV shows are sensationalist and heavily edited for maximum emotional response.   A lot of people will fall for anything if it is presented to them on a news channel by a man in a suit.  They're as concerned about ratings as they are about chickens.  So to us it may look like this kind of behaviour is going on all around us, and chickens are dropping like flies left, right and center.  But how do we know they didn't just film one or two bad eggs and make it look like an international crisis.

Not all intensive farmers are the spawn of Hitler... some of them are just trying to earn a living.

[Dualnames]

An animal isn't happy if it dies a fast death.. an animal isn't happy if it dies a slow death.
An animal is happy if it gets to live.

A human is happy if he/she dies a fast death, a human isn't happy he didn't get the fast death and got the slow death.

A human is miserable if he/she gets to live if life has been bad with him/her so far.
Not buying meat won't change the fact that millions of animal life a sucky life and die.

Example:
Chickens are fed so much they can't even walk. Do you think they care how they die? If you were in their place Meowster, would you? Not really. And even if companies were forced to "respect" what they kill to make your food..they would. But still make the poor things suffer while alive, but well ...they'd treat them right before they kill them.

So the point shouldn't be "They kill them without respect, don't buy products"
But "I'm willing not to eat chicken anymore, since they treat them without respect do the same so companies will consider a different approach."

Not that it would work.

[Meowster]

Chickens are fed so much they can't even walk. Do you think they care how they die? If you were in their place Meowster, would you? Not really. And even if companies were forced to "respect" what they kill to make your food..they would. But still make the poor things suffer while alive, but well ...they'd treat them right before they kill them.

I never said anything about how they feel about dying, it's the life they lead before death that bothers me, and probably quite bothers them too. I don't understand what you're saying? "They'd make them suffer while alive but treat them right before they kill them"? What does this sentence mean?

So the point shouldn't be "They kill them without respect, don't buy products"
But "I'm willing not to eat chicken anymore, since they treat them without respect do the same so companies will consider a different approach."

I think you've entirely missed the point I've made over and over again. You can buy free range meat from butchers, that is certified as having come from farms with good animal welfare practises. If you buy this meat instead of badly farmed meat, you are 1) helping to 'force' intensive farmers to change their practises since more people will be buying free range and 2) supporting the farmers with decent practises who already exist.

I'm not quite sure I get your point to be honest, but it sounds like you're saying the only way to change anything is to stop eating meat at all?

Stupot: I'm glad you're against the cruelty but if you don't believe it really happens on a wide scale then I can't really do much to change your mind. I've seen these places with my own eyes, it's a well known fact they exist, it's not just propaganda from animal rights activists. The people who claim they believe it's all just propaganda are usually the people who feel uncomfortable, in my experience, of buying this meat and want to pretend to themselves it isn't happening. But it is and if you don't believe that I don't know what to say to convince you.

Look at all the cheap meat products in the cheapest supermarkets - everything from frozen chicken pies to chicken tikka sandwich filler, or ham spread, or own brand mayonnaise... where do you think all this incredibly cheap meat comes from?

ProgZ: My issue is animal welfare AND hygiene too. The animal welfare one bugs me most as I don't buy cheap meat so I'm not putting myself at risk by eating it, whereas animals will continue to suffer horribly whether I avoid their meat or not

Also talking of Bird Flu, I believe that it was shown that the bird flu travelled by road routes used to transport cheaply produced live animals. Don't quote me because I'm not sure of the exact details, but I believe scientists proved that it mainly travelled because of humans, and not migratory birds etc. Then look at things like BSE which I believe originated from feeding cows cheap feed made of each others brains or something? So yeah the hygiene is a pretty fucking big issue and one definitely worth mentioning. Also if it helps people make a change to more ethically farmed meat and some animals are happier in the process, win

[Goldmund]

Jeez Goldmund, you seem very upset. You think this thread is soley crafted simply to upset you.

Honestly, I think the thread is crafted to make me crave these:

You think I'm really attractive and cool.

Sure, but also devastating to my cholesterol level.

[Meowster]

Don't worry Goldmund, in time you will realise that nobody is out to get you personally and that you may be overreacting just a little bit.

[Dualnames]

No i say it's hypocritic (if I spelled this wrong kill me) to refuse to eat meat from an animal that has been badly killed without respect and all, and do it while eating a meat, presuming that this one you're eating has been given the right respect on its death, despite both of them were badly treated as they were alive.

[Meowster]

So you're in support of my argument? I'm not sure I quite understand? The point I'm making is that ideally, animals should be given a good life AND a fast and painless-as-possible death. This is what you're saying too, right?

[Nacho]

I think that he means that if you REALLY care about animals, turn vegetarian. (I think that' s what he mean, that doesn' t mean I really agree...)

[Dualnames]

So you're in support of my argument? I'm not sure I quite understand? The point I'm making is that ideally, animals should be given a good life AND a fast and painless-as-possible death. This is what you're saying too, right?

Point is they usually get none of those two, so well unexpectedly it just occured that I do agree, yes. Not sure if deciding not to buy meat or at least certain meat will do any good. If it would do, I'm quite sure that only not buying meat at all would really shake someone. But well, don't know for you, but I really can't turn into a veg. Can't refuse a souvlaki.

[vict0r]

Honestly, I think the thread is crafted to make me crave these:

That looks like a goddamn tasty burger! I prefer steak though.

[Galen]

Is it really that bad if I want my meat to have suffered a bit before it died?


...

I'm just kidding. I'm a veggie

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Goldmund.  At Mittens you and I definitely need to track down some big sonofabitchin' burgers like that.

And eat them all.


Mittens Burgerfest 2009!

[Creed Malay]

http://mobilemeatmachines.blogspot.com/2009/01/chicken.html
Doing my bit to spread awareness about battery farming!
You see? I CARE!

[PixelPerfect]

Only way a consumer is really going to know how his/her food is grown/bred is to visit the farm producing the goods, and even then the farm is subject to change due time. Of course we don't have time to visit farmers in this day and age unless we're on Top Chef. That's why reasonable laws towards both the consumer and farmer should be placed to ensure the sanitary aspect of food. I think the sanitary aspect is coming ever more important as it's quite obvious that every company - whether daycare, your doctor or the meat processing plant - in the whole world is trying to cut corners in wherever they can if it turns profit.

Meowster: I'm not entirely sure about this, but if I recall right, the "free range" label doesn't have any real value in it. You can pretty much stick it in your product and you're good to go. At least in some countries from where the producer then can export to other countries. Just a recollection so I could be wrong about this one.

Have you thought about writing to a congressman/what have you? Legislation is pretty much the only effective way to make a change these days. Wearing a slogan t-shirt and pointing fingers is only a sure way to get ridiculed. Also it wouldn't hurt to know all the details other than few youtube clips and PETA leaflets and come up with more solutions than to just "change brands", "vote with your wallet" or "stop eating meat". The sanitary approach would be a whole lot more sane and approachable by the average person than the chicken have feelings too one.

I myself would want to enforce laws and practices that would produce only clean food. That's the only thing that matters to me personally, but I wouldn't mind finding some other answers to things like debeaking and other cruel-seeming methods. Somebody should just innovate as efficient methods for the problems farmers face everyday without it costing a fortune.

Food for thought:

shoppers duped with 500 million 'free-range' fakes
Organic food scams

5. Is it true that a lot of "free-range" eggs are from birds that are really being raised in confinement?

Yep, it's true, all right. All the "official" free-range systems that I've come across are scams, at least by my standards. This includes both the totally unconvincing U.S. free-range egg producers, and the "Let's give our scam a governmental seal of approval" EU system.

My test for a free-range system being "real" goes like this: If you move all the feeders and waterers outside, do any chickens die of hunger or thirst? Obviously, in a true free-range system, where all the chickens wander in and out of the building all day, it doesn't really matter if the feeders and waterers are indoor or outdoors. They'll be fine either way.

But in fake free range, the goal is to run a factory-farm operation while getting a price premium for the "free-range" label. The best way of doing this is to discourage the chickens from going outside, through the use of doors that are too few or too small, and by other methods. If only a handful of chickens actually go outside, you've really got a confinement operation, and can run it like any other factory farm. But if most of the chickens never go outside, if you moved the feeders and waterers outdoors, many of the chickens would die.

Here's how you do this: Chickens can recognize about 100 other chickens, and hang out with the ones they know. If they have to go past a lot of strangers to get outside, they won't go outside. So all it takes is a long walk past other chickens, and they'll never even try to go out the door. Given the immense size of modern chicken houses, this problem is almost insurmountable. You have to use more and smaller houses if you want to do it right. This, plus the other sources of increased labor in real free range, makes real free-range eggs very expensive to produce. I guess consumers prefer scam eggs to the more expensive real ones.

The same situation is true to an even larger degree with free-range broilers, since meat birds have been bred for lethargy, and are less willing to trek long distances to reach an outside door.

Above quote is from http://www.plamondon.com/faq_myths.html

[Meowster]

Hey Pixel,

In the UK there are strict laws around what you can label as free range. It's also very easy over here to see when things are for instance, approved by the Soil Association (which garuantees the highest standard of animal welfare).  I think organic food is a completely separate issue.

Some people still ATTEMPT to label things misleadingly (I once nearly bought battery eggs because the farm name was FREEDOM FARM and was plastered in big letters across the box...), but the attempts are weak because of how strict things are over here.

The US could perhaps adopt a similar approach? The fact that people are allowed to misleadingly label things and that there are no strict guidelines as to what makes up "organic" or "free range" etc is pretty poor for the consumer really, and also it shouldn't have to prevent people from trying to buy ethically... but from what I can see, it does...

[PixelPerfect]

I agree 100% that the choice to consumer should be made easier than to make him/her plow through pages of guidelines and regulations in order to make an educated decision about a few food items. Good to know UK has things going good over there.

Maybe people in other countries would care more as in make the "right" decision if the "free range" was thoroughly enforced with inspections and the review would be publicly available (so you could count on it) and there were one of two different stickers on the box depending. "free range" text or "battery" text. Only problem is that people in charge usually try to play nice and go with the money making rather than public good.

You have your heart in the right place and it's good to know that not all of us are so absorbed by ourselves as most of us are.

[mkennedy]

Unfortunately it seams that being a vegan is not enough to save you anymore.
Now we have to worry about e-coli in our spinach or salmonella in our peanut butter.
What exactly are we supposed to eat anyway?

[Nikolas]

What exactly are we supposed to eat anyway?

You have a couple of lovely pics in the above posts to show you what you're supposed to eat! 

(joke, sorry, couldn't resist, don't take it seriously, thank you)

[Peder 🚀]

What exactly are we supposed to eat anyway?

Mostly everything but with variation as the main subject.
Its not bad eating fat food etc, you just gotta eat less fatty food aswell.
If you eat alot of different things all the time I think you will live more healthy than people who ONLY eat VEG etc.
And you can allways have a salad to your dinner no matter what you eat!
Ive even eaten pizza with salad to it! (quite nice actually!).

Now this has nothing to do with free range products..


Anyway, here in Norway I think mostly everything is free range anyway, also we dont have the cheaper solution of meat products like you do mostly everywhere else. So mostly everything is allready good quality etc.
Also the life on meat here seems to be better, and you dont have to throw it away if its a couple of days out of date.
(though you should offcourse still be carefull.)
(We do have some but mostly frozen meat, like burgers. but other than that there aint much cheaper solutions.)

[mkennedy]

I meant what can be eaten SAFELY without dying a horrible death from food poisoning.
The safest thing I could think of would be to just cook the hell out of everything before you eat it weather it's meat, or veggies.

As for the whole animal rights stuff, one day they will be able to grow meat in a lab and then you won't have to worry about its feeling because it will just be a slab of muscle tissue with no brains or organs.