"The Cove" wins an Oscar

[iiyamadude 6]

Fabulous!

 

All we need now is an ever so important response from the man himself!

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

I see where you are coming rom, BUT Human's are omnivores, so meat is an important part of our diet.

probably not as importantant as most think. Except for really marginal areas where game is more abundant than vegetation (the arctic, deserts, etc) anthropology has shown that the majority of food prehistoric humans ate was veg, rather than meat. Meat requires a much bigger output of energy to track down and hunt, and was probably only consumed infrequently by most of our ancestors. So i don't buy the 'its our nature to eat meat' arguement.

Quote:

I go back to my same point, if it wasn't for taste then we wouldn't eat anything!!
Nature has provided taste as a sensation to encourage us to eat things that aren't deathly. Yes, the food you mention does have its "immoral" parts,
BUT what exactly is HUMANE slaughter? The natural world slaughtes worse than us, eating the animal as it lies there. The Crocodile will grab an animal and drag it underwater until it drowns or becomes maleable enough to spin off a leg. A shark will simply bite into its victims until it dies of either blood loss or consumption. A snake will strike, render its prey paralysed then swallow and digest it whole. A spider will inject its food with a protein dijesting enzyme that will literally liquidate its prey's insides as it stands...then suck the juices out leaving an empty bag of skin. What exactly would you have us do??

act like humans, not animals.


C'mon, are you serious? Animals that can't choose to act, kill, or eat any other way are supposed to be role models for our actions?

Quote:

This is what I don't get from Enviro's....WE ARE ANIMALS. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD. YOU CAN HUFF AND HAA ABOUT A LOT OF STUFF BUT WHEN IT GETS DOWN TO IT, WE ARE GOVERNED BY THE SAME URGES AS ANY OTHER ANIMAL ON THIS EARTH.

if thats the message you're getting, i suggest you change sources and read decent book on the subject. Diet For America, The Food revolution, Eating Animals (about animals and food), or The Sacred Balance, A Green History of The Earth, Collapse-How Societies Chose To Succeed or fail, The Weather Makers, The End of Nature are good general places to start on humans and environment.

All of those books arguements are slightly more nuanced that the ones you are apparently exposed to.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

I see where you are coming rom, BUT Human's are omnivores, so meat is an important part of our diet.

probably not as importantant as most think. Except for really marginal areas where game is more abundant than vegetation (the arctic, deserts, etc) anthropology has shown that the majority of food prehistoric humans ate was veg, rather than meat. Meat requires a much bigger output of energy to track down and hunt, and was probably only consumed infrequently by most of our ancestors. So i don't buy the 'its our nature to eat meat' arguement.

Quote:

I go back to my same point, if it wasn't for taste then we wouldn't eat anything!!
Nature has provided taste as a sensation to encourage us to eat things that aren't deathly. Yes, the food you mention does have its "immoral" parts,
BUT what exactly is HUMANE slaughter? The natural world slaughtes worse than us, eating the animal as it lies there. The Crocodile will grab an animal and drag it underwater until it drowns or becomes maleable enough to spin off a leg. A shark will simply bite into its victims until it dies of either blood loss or consumption. A snake will strike, render its prey paralysed then swallow and digest it whole. A spider will inject its food with a protein dijesting enzyme that will literally liquidate its prey's insides as it stands...then suck the juices out leaving an empty bag of skin. What exactly would you have us do??

act like humans, not animals.


C'mon, are you serious? Animals that can't choose to act, kill, or eat any other way are supposed to be role models for our actions?

Quote:

This is what I don't get from Enviro's....WE ARE ANIMALS. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD. YOU CAN HUFF AND HAA ABOUT A LOT OF STUFF BUT WHEN IT GETS DOWN TO IT, WE ARE GOVERNED BY THE SAME URGES AS ANY OTHER ANIMAL ON THIS EARTH.

if thats the message you're getting, i suggest you change sources and read decent book on the subject. Diet For America, The Food revolution, Eating Animals (about animals and food), or The Sacred Balance, A Green History of The Earth, Collapse-How Societies Chose To Succeed or fail, The Weather Makers, The End of Nature are good general places to start on humans and environment.

All of those books arguements are slightly more nuanced that the ones you are apparently exposed to.

what relevance does quoting books have to do with this quote?

Quote:

This is what I don't get from Enviro's....WE ARE ANIMALS. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD. YOU CAN HUFF AND HAA ABOUT A LOT OF STUFF BUT WHEN IT GETS DOWN TO IT, WE ARE GOVERNED BY THE SAME URGES AS ANY OTHER ANIMAL ON THIS EARTH.

are you seriously trying to say that we AREN'T governed by the same basic urges as any other animal? That we AREN'T part of the natural world?

Did I once even say that we should use Animals eating habits as a role model??

How DO you kill/slaughter Humanely??

[HelperElfMissy 42]

Are we the only species agonizing over how our dinner feels?

 

Maybe that is the question Tubby is asking here.

 

True.

The human race is pretty gosh darn narrow minded and short sighted, we react more to immediate issues than to long term issues. And we would probably eat less meat if it had to be chased across a paddock, caught, slaughtered and prepared with our own hands.

 

But I do see Tubby's point here.

[Mantas 3]

Yes, I wonder how many people could tuck into a lamb roast if they had to look into it's little eyes while they slit it's throat.

[thursday 1]

that's why we buy from butchers.

[Go Native 70]

I've killed plenty of animals I've later eaten including lambs and pigs and of course plenty of fish, crabs, mussels, yabbies, rabbits, roos, etc. I worked in a boning room for quite awhile as well on school holidays and am pretty good at dressing a carcass. Once took part in a Tibetan ritual killing of a yak and got to drink the blood passed around after the throat was slit. I do like blood straight out of an artery

[HelperElfMissy 42]

^^ did that not make you throw up?

 

I thought fresh blood in the stomach made one throw up... I always have (oral surgery/wisdom teeth) and really bad blood noses as a kid (because of my blood clotting disorder you would have thought I had done a round with Mike Tyson!!).

[grungy-gonads 54]

A boning room?!?

[Go Native 70]

Didn't exactly chug down gallons of it MB, just a sip.

GG it's where they take the meat off the bones and pack it up to be delivered to supermarkets, export, etc.

[grungy-gonads 54]

That should be obvious I suppose.

I just heard boning and thought shagging!

Sorry

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

what relevance does quoting books have to do with this quote?

Quote:

This is what I don't get from Enviro's....WE ARE ANIMALS. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD. YOU CAN HUFF AND HAA ABOUT A LOT OF STUFF BUT WHEN IT GETS DOWN TO IT, WE ARE GOVERNED BY THE SAME URGES AS ANY OTHER ANIMAL ON THIS EARTH.

TB, in the preceding paragraph, you give examples about how animals kill without compassion, and how harsh the natural world is when it comes to eating.

Then, you say you don't understand the environmentalist stance, and give your interpetation

WE ARE ANIMALS. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD. YOU CAN HUFF AND HAA ABOUT A LOT OF STUFF BUT WHEN IT GETS DOWN TO IT, WE ARE GOVERNED BY THE SAME URGES AS ANY OTHER ANIMAL ON THIS EARTH.

So what i am getting from you, is that because you think environmentalists are all about 'being art of nature' on one side, and then 'deny your carnivorous instincts and eat veggies' on the other, you see a contradiction, and that is what you don't get'.

Is that a fair assessment?

Quote:

are you seriously trying to say that we AREN'T governed by the same basic urges as any other animal? That we AREN'T part of the natural world?

i wrote that list of books, because they offer a more complete and coherent environmentalist viewpoint that the one you seem to have mistakenly picked up. I have not heard anyone with half a brain try to argue that point, because it takes the human experience to reductio ad absurdum.

A very good book that primarily deals with humans and their relationship to the natural world is David Suzuki's (he's a geneticist, by the way) The Sacred Balance.

Quote:

Did I once even say that we should use Animals eating habits as a role model??

How DO you kill/slaughter Humanely??

You gave examples of fairly grotesque eating habits of the animal world, and then ask the question 'what would you have us do?'

To me, that is a bit of an obvious answer. We as humans, have many, many options available to us, ones NOT available to animals.

We have technology to make killing safe, swift, and pretty much painless.

We have the ability to empathize with other species, like pets or 'cute' animals.

Generally, we feel compassion, and reduce the amount of suffering we cause to other life. Usually this is confined to human relations, but people with bigger hearts include other types of life as well. I don't suppose you are the type of guy to go around kicking dogs, just because you can. We generally abhor that kind of behavior. (that new book, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer is a meditation on just this)

And finally, we can make decisions based on the future. If we over hunt a certain animal, they will eventually cease to be a food source. Or we can choose different food sources over another, if one seems to be unsuitable (like staying away from big macs when you are on a diet).

Animals can't do these things, or if they can, at a level so low that we don't really understand.

So, to answer your question, i would ask us to consiter all the above when deciding what to eat. For me, humane slaughter is attempting to reduce slaughter in the first place. Personally, at this point in our civilization and development, i don't see any need to slaughter animals at all, except in extreme circumstances. Most of us don't need it for nutrition, so really its only for taste that we choose to kill.

But if you are really needing a definition of 'humane slaughter', the best i heard was from my instructor for my BC Hunter safety course (CORE) when i was 16.

He said "If you shoot an animal, its your responsibility to make the cleanest kill possible. And if you only injure it and it runs away, it is you responsibility to do everything in your power to track it down and end its suffering".

[Mantas 3]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

. Most of us don't need it for nutrition, so really its only for taste that we choose to kill.

The privilege that come with being at the top of the food chain. It's part of the primeval gene that still lingers in us today. Not so easy to ignore. Meat was the richest and quickest form of protein and energy available for our ancestors (it was pretty hard to grow vegetables in the ice or desert).

So long as it's done sustainably I have no problem with killing animals for food. Like GN, I have also killed and eaten my own prey many times.

[Kraut_in_HongKong 0]

BTW, does Yoshinoya serves dolphin? Was there with the kids and they said one item of the menu was dolphin. Didn't bother to investigate, kanji and hanzi are not necessarily the same anyway and maybe it was all an error.

 

PS: We all had the usual beef bowl. I don't eat wild animals that are endangered. That includes tuna too.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Mantas

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

. Most of us don't need it for nutrition, so really its only for taste that we choose to kill.

So long as it's done sustainably I have no problem with killing animals for food.

my thoughts exactly.

Oyuki, don't get me wrong. I don't think that any way is ok, and I do feel that a quick and as painless a kill as possible is the best way (its also best for the meat itself, adrenaline and other stress hormones are thought to have an undesirable effect on the quality of the meat)
I do advocate sustainable slaughtering, and do feel that we should try and use as much of the animal as possible so as to keep wastage to a minimum (just don't tell me what I'm eating).

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

i wrote that list of books, because they offer a more complete and coherent environmentalist viewpoint that the one you seem to have mistakenly picked up. I have not heard anyone with half a brain try to argue that point, because it takes the human experience to reductio ad absurdum.

what point are you meaning?

[Oyuki kigan 0]

The point that "We are part of the natural world" => "We are governed by the same basic feelings as animals" => which seems to suggest that we are slaves to our 'natural drives', and should live accordingly. If you follow that line of thought thru, the conclusions get kinda weird.

[HelperElfMissy 42]

Re: Adrenalin making the meat not as good...

 

I read somewhere the exact opposite. That some Korean's beat their dinner dog to get the adrenalin pumping through the meat just prior to slaughter.

 

That made me really sad.

It would make me sad if it were a fish being battered, or chicken being chased around a pen, or dolphin being maimed like in The Cove. I think we ought to show respect to the animal about to give it's life to sustain ours.

[JA2340 16]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

what kind of person would

-butcher non-food-animals (like buffalo) for sport until near extinction?

Please explain what, exactly, is a "non-food" animal? and why is a buffalo not a food animal?

[Mantas 3]

There are some guys out there JA, plenty actually, that 'trophy' hunt. That is kill the animal, take the horn or antelas only and leave the carcass to rot.

 

I have a mate that does just that, though it's mostly feral animals in Australia. ie. goats, pigs, foxes ect.

[Mantas 3]

There are some guys out there JA, plenty actually, that 'trophy' hunt. That is kill the animal, take the horn or antlers only and leave the carcass to rot.

 

I have a mate that does just that, though it's mostly feral animals in Australia. ie. goats, pigs, foxes ect.

[JA2340 16]

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Technically, most of us can be completely healthy without meat.

That, unfortunately, is a load of rubbish! IF you want to go without meat you have to do all sorts of wierd things to plants to make up for the nutrients you miss out on through not eating meat. ie create "milk" from beans.

I wish the vegos of this world would answer me a simple question ... IF we are not meant to weat meat, why do we have incisor teeth? (these are the ones intended to tear the flesh)

[BagOfCrisps 24]

I think they are the ones for eating tofu, JA.

Or perhaps, celery.

[JA2340 16]

But, oh sensible bag, the tofu to which you refer is the stuff that has been really screwed with! It was BEANS FFS! and made to "represent" (or possibly even "replace") meat, so the vegos don't get all squeamish.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Originally Posted By: JA

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

Technically, most of us can be completely healthy without meat.

That, unfortunately, is a load of rubbish!

No, it isn't. There are people all over the world who live full, healthy lives without meat. Entire vegetarian cultures, like some Hindu sects, refrain from meat from cradle to grave.

Quote:

IF you want to go without meat you have to do all sorts of wierd things to plants to make up for the nutrients you miss out on through not eating meat. ie create "milk" from beans.

Wrong again. You don't have to do anything to the veggies. If you want to mimic the texture of animal products, there are some ways to do it, but hardly anything more extreme than what meat has to go through to be safe for consumption.

Nutritionally, there is not much you have to do to veggies. One small exception might be to get a complete protein. Meat is a complete protein, but no one veggie contains all the essential amino acids. But there is an easy way around this, one that every meat-poor country has figured out already. Mix vegiies together, especially beans and rice.

By the way, tofu was not created to mimic milk, its not like people were drinking lots of milk in China and Japan.

Quote:

I wish the vegos of this world would answer me a simple question ... IF we are not meant to weat meat, why do we have incisor teeth? (these are the ones intended to tear the flesh)

So what, because we have sinuses that drain forwards, we should all walk around like gorillas? Or should i say that because we have long intestines (like herbivores) we should only only eat veggies?

Genetic or evolutionary arguements are pretty much meaningless. Unless you want to disprove leading nutritionists and dieticians, its pretty difficult to disprove that most people can't live without meat.