Unsustainable meat farming

[Shannow]

Avoiding the other thread.

There's a doco on at present showing the "battery" farming of Dogs in South Korea for food.

Seriously, these animals are raised in cages like battery hens. Faeces and urine fall through the bottom of the cages, food and water in troughs at the side.

Just like a battery hen, except the animals are trying to engage the handlers. Jumping up, wagging tails etc.

Noosed, and thrown into metal cages for transport (we must do this, or we may be bitten), then hooked up to the mains for termination (used to be hung and beaten to death).

Was a nasty show.

But shows what humans will do for a meat, and a delicacy.

To battery farm dogs for sustenance is the ultimate entropy.

As an aside, my year 10 geography teacher spent a year in the phillipines exchange teaching. She recalled every meal for the year ended with the family dog getting the table table scraps etc. Her final night was a meat stew, which she willingly saved a portion for the dog who never turned up.

A vast difference between the cultures.

 

[moribundman]

I think I got a hair on my tongue.

 

[1sttruck]

Yeah, it's a cultural thing. In the 'Day in the life of China' book, where photographers spend one day taking pictures of a country, an image of someone looking at a puppy in a food market caused a row between the publisher and the Chinese government.

Not as funny as the little furry cat figures that were being sold a few years back, mainly to cat lovers, and someone found out that they were skinning real cats to make the figures.

At the local county fairs I find the pigs to be the critters that seem to be the ones that you give you the best 'look', that makes you guilty about why they are there.

 

[Auto-Union]

I saw a video of a animal market where a bear was in a oil drum, whailing because it's paws had been cut "clean" off to be sold. Nice. Enjoy meat.

 

[OriginHacker21]

Anyone watch the videos of KFC's Chicken farm where the workers were intentionally abusing the chickens? They would throw them against the wall as hard as they could or jump on them... Haven't been to KFC since. Videos like that really bother me.

Yes, I've had the unfortunate opportunity of seeing some Asian country and their cat skinnings. Blah.

 

[Aldaris]

I personally hate people in those Asian countries who raise rabbits for meat.

 

[Pablo]

I like rabbit, and I like bear sausage.

But I draw the line at dog and cat. And not cleanly killing an animal violates my religious morals.

I have eaten civet cat in China, but it's not really a feline.

 

[CBDFrontier06]

What a bunch of barbarians. I feel guilty for spanking my dog when he poops on the carpet. These people were clearly born with no human compassion. Gives me a STRONG desire to do it to them to watch them suffer. They need to know how much it hurts.

 

[Mr_Incredible]

It's just a cultural thing. I try not to take it personally when it's on the other side of the world.

France loves horse meat, but try to get that past a bunch of horse lovers.

We eat cows, but just try to get one of those cow-worshipers from India to eat a steak or burger.

When in Rome...

 

[CBDFrontier06]

If they employed humane ways of raising and killing the dogs, I would feel a lot differently...not good, but differently. But keeping them confined in cages, hanging and beating to death....not cool.

I don't pretend to know all there is to know about the cattle industry, but my experiences with some of the smaller outfits in Texas are good ones. They live happy lives being fattened up on pastures, rounded up, and hit in the head with one of those skull crackers, and it's over. That's about as humane as it can get.

 

[CivicFan]

I think there are farms where in the US where the animals are kept in cages, their beaks are cut off for easy feeding, and they are scalded alive for feather removal.

And you probably enjoy eating those chicken breast with no moral objections.

 

[CBDFrontier06]

Kept in cages, yes. Beaks cut off for easy feeding? No. I have a yard full of standard and bantam chickens and intact beaks are much easier to eat with than trimmed ones are. I have bought a few from breeders that trimmed beaks back a little to prevent injury to other chickens when they peck each other. Those are the ones that have the hardest time eating.

And actually, I don't enjoy chicken at all. I'm a cow guy. And as you might expect, I have my own supply of eggs.

 

[MarkC]

Pssst! Pablo eats weasels!

 

[sprintman]

I watched it. Somebody should nuke north and south korea and be rid of sh1theads like them once and for all. They hang the dogs and batter them to death. I knew the British guy wasn't going to eat the dog.

 

[Bret Chase]

Quote:

---

I like rabbit, and I like bear sausage.

But I draw the line at dog and cat. And not cleanly killing an animal violates my religious morals.

---

rabbit is one of my favs, we ate it alot as kids, never did much care for bear though. I've gotten kind of bored w/ the "normal" meats (beef, pork, chicken).. I just wish I could afford to eat bison or duck more. I've got moose in the freezer.. nobody eats it but me though...

 

[tdpark]

While I do not condone nor practice the act of eating dogs or raising them for consumption, I do happen to be Korean and genocide does not sit well with me. Please keep those comments to yourself.

 

[K-Man]

We have raised rabbit and do eat them. A common brand sold in grocery stores is Pel-Freez. Rabbits for consumption are not the same as the cute little cuddly rabbits sold for pets; the meat rabbits are much bigger. People in the US today have become squeamish about eating it, though, because of cartoon rabbits such as Thumper in Bambi, but during the Depression, many willingly ate rabbit then.

Many people in the US who don't hunt and don't live in rural areas are squeamish about hunting and especially eating venison (deer), again, I think, because of Bambi. You should have seen some of the visceral reactions some nonhunters had where I used to work in the city when a colleague who hunted brought in venison barbecue! Venison, hunted humanely and processed properly (many hunters are guilty of doing neither), is of course excellent and indistinguishable from roast beef.

Barring some national calamity, I guess I'll always eat meat and use leather products. But the animals used for those purposes had better be treated and killed humanely. Aside from the high fat content, this is one reason I eat virtually no pork, because I can smell hog farms and hog trucks miles away. Raising pigs en masse not only causes pollution from the huge amount of generated waste that has become environmental issues in areas of the US with a lot of hog farms, but it has to have an effect on the safety of the meat aside from the risk of trichinosis from undercooked pork.

Not eating dogs and cats, aside from identifying with them as pets and useful animals, makes sense because in nature they are carnivores and carrion eaters. The risk of infection and contamination from such animals historically has been rather high, and some major religions prohibit their consumption on these grounds. Check out the food restrictions in Leviticus sometime. Back when it was written, there were sound reasons for those prohibitions.

While we're on the topic, hurting, abusing, and painfully killing animals so someone can have a bear's paw or have fur on clothing or stuffed toys is anathema to me. Along the same lines as cutting off the live bear's paw is the practice of catching a live shark, cutting off its dorsal fin to be able to make shark's-fin soup, and then releasing the shark into the water to certain death. The recent scandals about real dog and cat fur being used on garments from Asia that had been labelled as having "fake fur" upset me greatly. But I'm someone who feels a twinge of sadness when I see a cat or dog that has been hit and killed by a vehicle.

Unfotunately, I suspect that we'll learn better only when it's too late. Many species are hurtling toward extinction, especially in parts of Asia where hunting for frivolous reasons such as making fashionable clothing, delicacies, or "aphrodisiacs" out of animal parts is common.

Sometimes I get the sad impression that the world really would be better off if 90% of its human inhabitants were to disappear overnight. Bad thought, but sometimes I just can't get it out of my head.

 

[sprintman]

Koreans are only matched by the Spanish when it comes to animal cruelty. Both peoples obviously have a serious psychological flaw in their makeup. Last night the dog story was the worst thing I have ever seen on television. I think I'll give the Korean in town a miss for lunch for a while.

 

[MarkC]

You shouldn't make mass assumptions about entire groups of people based on what some , even most of them do.
I hate animal cruelty, and I'll never eat a dog, cat, or other carnivore. I also think that people who particpate in any kind of cruelty to animals should be treated to some very harsh consequences, instead of the wrist-slapping they usually get.
ekrampitzjr has made several points that I strongly agree with, so I won't repeat them here.

 

[doitmyself]

If the general public was more in tune with our food production system (both meat and plant), I think changes would come about for a better, more sustainable system all around.

sprintman, in addition to the dog story, I always found it unpleasant to watch a certain guy tease and torment a wild alligator/crocodile, a half dozen people pounce on it, then tie it up in ropes. The violent twisting to free itself didn't indicate it was having much fun either. Does your country not fall into your "psycological flaw" definition?