Could You Kill To Eat?

[sunny-dave]

An interesting question which this thread sort of wandered towards :

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1377438-4.html


If we can avoid the argument about 'enjoying the kill', could you actually kill an animal to eat its meat?

I don't mean if you were starving, I mean just as part of your normal diet.

My own view is that everyone that eats meat should have to go on a visit to an abattoir, just once, to understand the process.

If you can't do that, then are you a hypocrite?

Should you be forced to be a vegetarian?


I'm very uneasy about the use of a proxy just to protect you from something difficult/unpleasant and wonder if that can lead to a rather disconnected attitude to life (both human and animal).

If you are prepared to have someone kill and prepare an animal on your behalf, then I think it is important that you understand what is being done. I've been there, seen it and (whilst it isn't my ideal way of spending a morning) I think it was a valuable experience.

[flump1]

As a farmers' daughter my siblings and I were under no illusion where the animals we saw born were headed. However, while I do eat meat , I could not dispatch a beast of any kind for my dinner. I enjoy meat tremendously but dare not think of it's last moments. Thanks Dave !!!

[craft1948]

I think if the choice was between a bit of butchering and starvation some of the vegetarians/vegans would abandon their principles...

[Psybbo]

I've spent time on farms so I know the procedure and no, I couldn't kill an animal to eat myself. I don't eat fish or sea food but I do eat pork/bacon/chicken but if I had to kill those animals, I would become a vegan

[humbersloop]

with no compunction at all Dave, and will do so again

what makes me just as angry as those vandals who don't kill for the pot is the disconnect some people do have, while blithely scoffing cheap meat, poultry and fish, industrially farmed in barbaric conditions and degraded food chains

[sunny-dave]

I too would rather have a pheasant or a rabbit than a turkey twizzler, sloopy

[humbersloop]

and while I'm at it, to all those people who'll be picking up cheap lobsters, smoked salmon, venison and umpty-odd bird roasts in their festive shop - it's you I'm looking at..

...there's proper reasons that stuff costs money

[Old_Geezer]

"If you can't do that, then are you a hypocrite? " No obviously not, How on earth could anyone even think they could make a connection ? All it means that in today's sheltered lifestyle most folk are too soft to cope with the realities of life. One might as well ask, if one could not perform surgery then aren't they a hypocrite to expect to go into hospital and get a life saving operation ? Different folk have different skills and it is the blend of character types that makes a society string and fit for the environment.

"Should you be forced to be a vegetarian?" No of course not. Why should anyone be bullied into a lifestyle they hate just because someone else thinks it's ok or amusing to force things on them ? Bullying should be fought not encouraged.

I think it is important that society as a whole understands and controls what is going on, not every individual person. Same as in any industry. It is a complete nonsense.

[Old_Geezer]

makes society STRONG..
Like I typed >>>>>>>>>>>:-(

[sunny-dave]

It's who shoots them and why ...

I have a friend who is a highly skilled marksman - mainly on clays - but often called in to deal with 'the wrong animal in the wrong place' - escaped wild boar - that sort of thing. But he doesn't take pleasure in it - that seems to me to be the crucial point.

He does shoot the occasional pheasant for his pot (and sometimes mine), but his stomach is turned by the mass driving of semi-wild birds over incompetent, uncaring 'hoorays'.

[pixie373]

....exactly, sd

[Slapshot]

Ohhhh interesting thread Yes I would, I have done in the past, no problems really. My mum worked in an abbatoir on the west coast when I was a kid, been in seen it understand it, made sure my kids do as well.

As to humane killing, I think if we all visited modern abbatoirs we'd find them to be as humane as is possible within eu/government guidelines. They have to be if they want to sell the produce

[woofgang]

Good point Dave. I used to know a lady who loved to shoot. She had done it all her life and trained her own HPR's (we had pups from her) She used to go on wood pigeon and rabbit shoots over farmers' crops and would also deal with marauding foxes. She rented land in Scotland and used to go up there with friends after game birds. She shot a rat once in her garden in Wimbledon but that's another story. Everything she shot got eaten except the foxes and the rat. She was very scathing indeed about "business shooting", both the people who ran it and the hoorays who paid for it. The pleasure she got was from doing something well, spending time in places she loved and using her skills usefully. She saw the killing as needful rather than enjoyable.

[woofgang]

she liked to eat the game and work her dogs. This was around 20 years ago when renting land in scotland was cheap as chips. No she didnt need to do it but she figured if she wanted to eat meat, specifically game, then shooting wild game herself was quite a humane way of doing it. This lady was both green and organic long before it was fashionable. She died about four years ago, a great character lost.

[woofgang]

of course you weren't. Its nice to see a discussion that doesnt degenerate into nsne calling between the bloody hsnded butchers and the hard line vegans

[2sp_]

Can I just point out that vast majority of game birds shot on commercial shoots are either eaten by the estate shot on, taken home for eating by the shooter or sold to game dealers for selling into the food chain.

[jno]

Vegetables have feelings too.

[i]new research from the University of Missouri finds that the vegetables in your salad bowl aren’t exactly living the life of Riley. Those veggies can actually hear themselves being eaten and mount a defense against the attack.[i]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/07/eating-your-vegetables-might-not-be-cruelty-free

[woofgang]

quite possible 2sp, but its butchery rather than sport.