I think it is every carnivore's duty to see an animal slaughtered at least once in his life, if only to dissuade that carnivore from buying silly quantities of meat, only to throw it away a couple of weeks later.

I grew up in and around slaughterhouses, and have fond memories of sloshing around the puddles of blood in my wellies as a small child (I can also remember being my school's official 'bring in a tapeworm', 'bring in some eyes' supplier, but I don't want to put you all off your dinner), but the horror of a modern, industrial slaughterhouse that I visited in my early twenties ensured that I was to remain a vegetarian until my next encounter with the slaugher of animals in rural Greece a couple of years later.

It was exactly the hands-on, straightforward method of slaughter that is being condemned by some posters on the Eid ul Adha thread that led me to reconsider my opinions on the eating of meat: That it wasn't the slaugher itself that disgusted me, but rather the way the animals were treated in the large scale meat processing factories, and the disregard for and waste of the carcasses of the animals processed therein.

I gradually came to believe that a family butcher cutting the throat of a goat in his back yard was not in the same category of wrongness as those big factories of death I'd seen back home.

I eat meat with a passion now - I love the stuff - but I try, wherever possible, to eat whole meat (that is, meat that looks like meat), and I really dislike having to throw meat away. In fact, I very rarely buy meat to take home for exactly that reason.

Having said that, I did just enjoy some very nice hackbraten and mashed potatoes, so I am something of a hypocrite.

But then, aren't most of us meat eaters to some extent or other?

As per DB's request, I've copied his post below to start the debate...

And I am sure that DB has his single malt Scotch ready, and is more than happy to watch this thread unfold .

Very likely...

Nah. This one's a real one, in response to a debate that has already taken the Eid ul Adha thread somewhat off topic.

There aren't any lunatic monomaniacs to expose this time...

Trust DB to come up with the most interesting topics to debate on
possibly also an open invite to trolls which invariably happen a little too much when he uses the line "Lets have an open debate"


my 2 cents. What ever you are, carnivore, omnivore, herbivore, ...till you are no more wasting food is a sin..

I despise your sort. For you - for the meat lover - murdering animals is the bit you really love if you ask me. Sloshing around in the blood in your wellies ? Drinking it more like, I'll bet.

I only eat raw grass, and then, grass that was already cut by some heartless GRASS MURDERER with a lawn mower. My son says his friends tease him for eating compost but I tell him, 'son, if it lives, it breathes, it feels and it loves, so we don't eat it'.

I will leave you to descend into hell with your meat eating friends where Beelzebub will surely strike a steak through your heart in an ironic ending to your evil existence.

Up with the veggies.

I fully agree, and lament the fact that meat has become so cheap as to be almost worthless. In the UK you can buy two whole chickens for a fiver, 20 burgers for 4 quid etc.. and they call that progress. I don't want to preach about people having to do something they're squeamish about, but just remember once in a while that meat is a luxury item which our bodies aren't built to consume on a daily basis.

Wrong. You don't slaughter something to teach yourself a moral lesson. Btw, this looks like a troll post.

I am speechless in a way. Explains your reasoning to most issues now.

True

Does this mean you eat meat even if you are full?

My opinion is eat whatever you want(except for some things ofcourse) if it makes you happy

Reminded me of another debate recently: they showed in the news how a truck with cows got into accident and one of the cows had to be shot. And a lot of people were upset, that how can they show such a thing, children might have been watching! And why did they had to shoot the cow, couldn't they just use some anesthetic or something and treat the cow later? (the truck was on the way to the slaughterhouse, by the way).

I found the opinions very confusing - so they eat meat, this cow was on its way to becoming their dinner...but God forbid that someone tells them that. Because they don't buy the meat of animals that were killed but from supermarkets, where no animal has suffered?

Agree with you.. lets see how many posts/pages till it becomes a meat eater (Relgion) Vs Vegetarian (Religion) mud slinging match

I'd suggest one step further and slaughter one yourself, under guidance. Nothing like unhooking a fish then fileting it / putting a sharp knife through the carotid of a deer or goat / shooting and plucking a grouse. Not sure I could punch a cow out, but eating meat without knowing the sense of closeness one feels to an animal one has just shot or slaughtered is lacking something important.

I find it very hard to reconcile my appreciation of meat with what goes on in commercial abbotoirs and try to get free range and when available wild meat whenever possible. It's also not easy to reconcile a mainly vegetarian diet is easy enough for us to survive on...

nice topic, DB. This is something I've been giving a lot of thought to lately in terms of my own meat-eating habits because of the glut of media (Food, Inc., We Feed the World) about food and nutrition. I grew up in a rural part of the US and have seen animals being slaughtered or hunted, as well as--full disclosure--participated.

I adore meat, but it's mostly because I know how it began the journey which ends on my plate that I don't eat an awful lot of it, and when I do, it's pretty good stuff and not reconstituted frozen something-or-other. Don't think I could deal with having to kill everything I eat...especially at Easter (lamb, anyone?) and Christmas (glazed ham). Having said that, it's the meat-processing plants and how the livestock are treated that I think bothers me more than the actual slaughter. The same goes for eggs from battery hens, by the way.

Hey man, you really don't have to do this now - they have all manner of tools.

You just need to visit a good Lebanese restaurant to realise that a veggie lifestyle is entirely possible e.g. humus, tabouleh, falafel, fatoush salad, vine leaves, baba ghanouj, grilled halloumi cheese, warm pitta etc..

Here is some of it, started a while ago by our dear now forever banned friend, the Canadian_dude

off-topic-vegetarians-vegans.

Nothing beats the taste of an animal that you have killed and prepared yourself.

Cheers

Jekyll

this NYT story might be of interest to you, Uncle M. It's about meat-eaters who want more of a connection to what they eat than simply buying local/organic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/fa...butcher&st=cse

... and fed fat & feisty first of course, no?