Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

[dibl]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

Gory as the images are, and shocking to anyone who has not been involved in slaughtering livestock, the only thing that should disturb people is the fact (assuming it's true) that the animals were not killed humanely prior to being strung up.

Personal opinion -- people handled this type of information more maturely when there was a butcher shop in every village and kids did not grow up thinking hamburgers grow on hamburger trees. :P

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

Gory as the images are, and shocking to anyone who has not been involved in slaughtering livestock, the only thing that should disturb people is the fact (assuming it's true) that the animals were not killed humanely prior to being strung up.

I don't know what part of the pictures makes you question the veracity of my statements about the cows being awake--do you not see them looking at their killers? By the way, it's undercover images like these that will become felonies if the meat industry has its way...

[de_koraco]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

Please show me how the REALITIES of factory farming match up with the above.

a) Gestation crates and these calf crates (I'm not sure as to the official English term) are not the norm in animal breeding and upkeep. Young animals are usually kept in confinement for a limited amount of time, yes, though not so their meat will "ripe" well, but for health reasons, due to a weak immune system while they're fed on mother's milk. The same goes for piglets, but they're usually kept in groups. Tying the animals up is still legally allowed, but the only ones practicing it are small farmers (under 50 cows, under 100 pigs and so on).

b) Cows don't mind being housed in boxes. They're herd animals, they don't need personal space and me time like we do. Concrete or rubberized boxes also reduce diseases tenfold. Plus, not all cows are kept in boxes, it's just the milk cows. Meat cows (correct me if I'm wrong on terminology again) are always kept outdoors on factory farms. They're only stuffed indoors on small farms.

c) The whole shock and awe thing with slaughterhouses is ridiculous. You can't herd a fully conscious cow and string it up, because it's a 1000 pound animal, and the slaughterhouse workers aren't supermen. Historically, the preferred method for slaughtering animals has been a shot to the head with a special type of gun (again, I'm not sure of the name, Javier Bardem used it in "No Country For Old Men"), followed by slitting the throat. The animal is not fully conscious, because otherwise it would be all over the place, and that would would benefit noone. The preferred method nowadays is gas. You bring a bunch of animals into the elevator, gas them, they drop dead in seconds. Bardem-guns are still used in probably most of the slaughterhouses, I'm sure there's a slaughterhouse or two that does the very old school mallet to the head thing, but ten years ago Windows XP was considered modern as well...

I mean, killing animals is no picnic any way your turn it, I fully understand people being repulsed by it or not wanting to consume animal meat, but let's not have PETA's propaganda contaminate Linux forums. The only thing missing in your pictures is a comparison with photographs from Auschwitz.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

eat all you want...not over-do the calories

Energy is energy. 3000 calories a day from three half-pound steak sandwiches or 3000 calories a day from three 6.5 pound servings of broccoli is still too much.

As for primitive humans, pretty clear that they FIRST ate plants and fruits, isn't it?

Actually, it's not at all clear. Primitive tools designed to deliver spear points thrown from a distance illustrate that hunting is an ancestral characteristic from very early on. Furthermore, see below.

You might dig up the works of one of the few nutritional anthropologists in the world, Dr. Katherine Milton, U. Cal at Berkeley, as she has done work on this.

Thanks for that, I was not aware of this person's research. A sampling of her research is available online. A notable paper is her 1999 work, "A hypothesis to explain the role of meat-eating in humans." Here's a snippet:

No question about it, we don't need to eat meat.In fact, we have a society literally killing itself...with major diseases, many of them caused by or made worse by meat products...--heart disease, cancer, diabetes... If you are eating a lot of meat, it's because you want to because you like it or because of food addiction. You are not eating it because you need the (very little) nutrition it contains.The trade-off cost (for the enjoyment) is, of course, risks to health and possibly longevity.

These claims are overly broad. No one here has advocated a purely carnivorous diet and no one here is advocating gluttony. As for "very little nutrition" and "possibl[e] longevity risks," Dr. Milton would appear to disagree with the certainty of your claims, and possibly with the actual claims.

As for science, I mentioned the popular Fuhrman book. He's compiled the science, in major journals, from leading research universities. The book is a good place to start as it is readable and organizes the subject matter linked to specific research citations.

I examined this the other day. It's an extended research paper characterized by a hyperbolic writing style and selective presentation of the facts. It contains very little actual science, which is to be expected from someone advocating a form of food religion. Note: many books advocating the Atkins diet deserve the same criticism, so please don't think I'm singling out this particular author.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

Please show me how the REALITIES of factory farming match up with the above.

a) Gestation crates and these calf crates (I'm not sure as to the official English term) are not the norm in animal breeding and upkeep. Young animals are usually kept in confinement for a limited amount of time, yes, though not so their meat will "ripe" well, but for health reasons, due to a weak immune system while they're fed on mother's milk. The same goes for piglets, but they're usually kept in groups. Tying the animals up is still legally allowed, but the only ones practicing it are small farmers (under 50 cows, under 100 pigs and so on).

b) Cows don't mind being housed in boxes. They're herd animals, they don't need personal space and me time like we do. Concrete or rubberized boxes also reduce diseases tenfold. Plus, not all cows are kept in boxes, it's just the milk cows. Meat cows (correct me if I'm wrong on terminology again) are always kept outdoors on factory farms. They're only stuffed indoors on small farms.

c) The whole shock and awe thing with slaughterhouses is ridiculous. You can't herd a fully conscious cow and string it up, because it's a 1000 pound animal, and the slaughterhouse workers aren't supermen. Historically, the preferred method for slaughtering animals has been a shot to the head with a special type of gun (again, I'm not sure of the name, Javier Bardem used it in "No Country For Old Men"), followed by slitting the throat. The animal is not fully conscious, because otherwise it would be all over the place, and that would would benefit noone. The preferred method nowadays is gas. You bring a bunch of animals into the elevator, gas them, they drop dead in seconds. Bardem-guns are still used in probably most of the slaughterhouses, I'm sure there's a slaughterhouse or two that does the very old school mallet to the head thing, but ten years ago Windows XP was considered modern as well...

I mean, killing animals is no picnic any way your turn it, I fully understand people being repulsed by it or not wanting to consume animal meat, but let's not have PETA's propaganda contaminate Linux forums. The only thing missing in your pictures is a comparison with photogr
aphs from Auschwitz.

You're wrong on all counts. In THIS country, calves are separated IMMEDIATELY after birth from their mothers and deliberately kept anemic, and confined in tiny crates so they cannot move around, in order for their flesh to be "perfect" for veal. Please don't spread misinformation.

Slaughterhouse workers don't need to be supermen to lift cows up by their legs--they have chains and machinery that do it for them. Again, please don't spread misinformation.

You're literally wrong on all counts...

[de_koraco]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

alrighty...

Edit: OK, so I looked it up. Veal holding pens (ha, I found it!) are still present. They typically slaughter calves very early on in Europe. The US Humane Slaughter Act prohibits killing conscious animals though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humane_Slaughter_Act

It does allow for the kosher and halal ban on knocking the animals unconscious, but I don't believe those industries are exceptionally large, plus it's a traditional vs modern industrial slaughter, and well, the modern style wins. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, a majority of US slaughterhouses is built according to designs that make it impossible for the next animal on death row to see what's going on in front.

[Qqmike]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

@ SteveRiley

Clever snippet on Dr. Katherine Milton. (hmmm ... " ... hyperbolic writing style and selective presentation of the facts ...")

As for the physics lectures, I do recall having taken the obligatory six or 12 undergraduate physics courses at one time, so I've heard about that thar term "energy." Of course, Steve, no one suggests you eat 3000 cal/day. You've again missed a key point re veg diets. (They are filling--fiber, water, nutrition. You won't consume more than you need. Not true of meat diets.)

And the rest of it, et cetera. Looks like you've got it all figured out for yourself, Steve.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

That's why I provided a link to the entire paper plus her archives, so that people could investigate more on their own. Her writings certainly aren't hyperbolic, and they seem to be very comprehensive.

If I gave the impression that I thought a 3000 calorie daily intake was appropriate, that's my mistake. The overarching point is that a too-great caloric intake, regardless of the form, is unhealthy. You seem to operate under the assumption that those who add meat to their diets automatically consume too much food.

And the rest of it, et cetera. Looks like you've got it all figured out for yourself, Steve.

No, I don't pretend to have "it all figured out." Absorbing the research of respected scientists in many fields is an ongoing interest of mine, and on a number of occasions I've been swayed to change positions on various points because new research emerged supporting new hypotheses that possess better data and explain more phenomenons than previous data and hypotheses. There exist, to date, no credible studies -- that is, randomized controlled trials over long periods -- demonstrating that the consumption of any amount of meat is uniformly detrimental. Until and unless such evidence appears, those who advocate plant-only diets have no scientific standing for their claims.

[Qqmike]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

OK.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Sacre Bleu! France willingly eats McD's..

Well put Steve. There are, on the other hand, several credible studies that link diabetes and cancer to processed flours and sugars. Even so, I won't be insisting that everyone who comes within earshot convert to my way of thinking.