So, I didn’t eat meat for a year…but it made me a little ill because I’m a tad skinny. I had no energy etc. THen a while back I started eating meat here and there again. I won’t buy meat or prepare it at home…but seriously, every time I eat meat now I get terrible visions in my head of cows hanging upside down…so I tried a bit of chicken (like Subway) and then I can’t get images of chickens without beaks and broken legs etc…and I can imagine how they scream.(yeah yeah, very silence of the lambs) The auntie at school always makes those mini chicken legs…but all I can see is how tiny the chick was when they chopped it up. Or I go past the market and see all the chickens stuffed into cages on top of each other…
and now it’s even started with tuna in cans too! I can see the little fishies trying to get air on the boat…and I want to bawl every time I walk into Carrefour and see those crabs all tied up…their mouths are still moving. If I’m not willing to whack that crab over the head and kill it…how can I take part in the death of any living thing?
ugh…
maybe I should just buy organic chicken or something…its really really bugging me!
yes, but their beaks aren’t chopped off while they’re young so they don’t peck each other in the cages. At least they had a life. I wonder if they get killed in the same way other chickens do…like, do they kill them one by one or do they also shock them so they can fit into those upside down killing machines where their necks get sliced by just pulling the row of chickens past the blade. That way many gets missed and they only die once they are thrown into that machine that defeathers them
[quote=“Battery9”]yes, but their beaks aren’t chopped off while they’re young so they don’t peck each other in the cages. At least they had a life. I wonder if they get killed in the same way other chickens do…like, do they kill them one by one or do they also shock them so they can fit into those upside down killing machines where their necks get sliced by just pulling the row of chickens past the blade. That way many gets missed and they only die once they are thrown into that machine that defeathers them
hmmmmm[/quote]
Why not just go to the day market and choose the fully-beaked unpecked bird you want and have them do the blue bucket runaround for you? Then the lady with too much lipstick will defeather it for you and yank out the guts…
What gets me is baby carrots. Those guys never even get the chance to grow up…
The brain is a puny organ. You are experiencing the unsophisticated vestiges of cognitive dissonance at having gone against a set of moral behaviour you believe to be correct. You can either go back to your former behaviour or stick with your original decision and roll your eyes at what your ridiculous carcass is throwing at you this time.
I came to the conclusion that the other lady with the lipstick has celery and I was told by another lady with lipstick at the meat stand across from the lady with the lipstick that celery has feelings too … now every time I cut celery I hear it screaming and I can see all the other celery brothers and sisisters scream and try to run away, but they can’t they are buried in the sand … by this evil farmer … :ohreally:
Hay, don’t you all be mean about people’s dietary choices, m’kay?
Me, I don’t eat caviar because I don’t chow down on the unborn, or clams or shrimp because I subscribe to the quantity of souls theory of vegetarianism. Which is why I think the Japanese are morally correct to eat whales.
Let’s see…pull chicken’s neck through a blade…dead chicken. Wring it’s neck by hand…dead chicken. Chop it off with an axe…dead chicken. I don’t see the difference. One must still kill the chicken to cook and eat it. Same with other living things, except maybe oysters. If you believe in the Bible, even God condones eating meat in moderation. Yes, countries that produce mega-tons of meat products a year must devise seemingly cruel, automated, mechanized ways of processing in order to produce enough to meet the demand. The only way to stop it is for almost everyone to become vegan. Don’t see that one happening.
On a personal note, I subscribe to the Foxworthy way of thinking: There’s a place for all of God’s creatures…right next to the mashed potatoes and gravy.
well, I guess I hope that chopping off a head one by one isnt as cruel as shocking it and hanging it upside down and then doing a half assed job at cutting the neck so its still alive when it drops into that defeathering thing…
B9 I know just how you feel! I’ve gone stretches before not eating meat because I can’t get immages of the live animals, and thoughts of how they’re killed, out of my mind. Plus, I really do belive that a diet of meat isn’t good for anyone involved, or the environment, for that matter.
Usually, I start by giving up cows, then pork or chicken, then anything else. Here in the States, those three are really the only choices, anyway.
Ultimatly, though, I go back to eating meat because I’m not that great a vegitarian cook, there are NO vegitarian options around here, outside of home, and I miss the flavor of the meat. That last bit always makes me fell horrible for a while.
But times when I’m off meat I usually feel healthier.
It just never ends with me. It’s a cycle. I’ve decided not to give myself a hard time over it any more. Now, if I want to eat meat, I accept that, and if I don’t want to eat it, I don’t.
I’m a part time vegitarian, I guess. I guess that’s like being a part time virgen, but I can’t help myself.
I try to be a piscatarinan, but occasionally I relapse and eat some chicken. Must be the need for B vitamins, cos I don’t really like legumes and nuts. Luckily, I like tofu so I get protein there. I never touch beef, mutton and pork.
Well, you could say you sometimes eat vegetarian food.
Ain’t no such thing as a part-time virgin though. And when people in all seriousness say they have become virgins again, I can’t help laughing out loud. “Suuurrrre, you’re a virgin, honey, and I’m a bloody giant banana.”
I was a vegetarian 'til I was 22-3, and a vegan for five years for various reasons. It’s really easy for me because I don’t like meat much and I hate dairy products.
It was better for my health in that I was much thinner, but bad for me because I didn’t really eat a balanced diet (it is possible to be a healthy vegan, but your average 19 year old doesn’t really bother with stuff like that.), with little protein or calcium. I had quite a poor immune system, and I’m short. I also wonder if my bad eyesight and difficulty in balancing my moods/concentrating is related to poor nutrition as a child?
One of the good habits being a vegan develops in you is that you read the labels on everything, and rarely eat processed food. Meat doesn’t make you ‘healthy’; although it contains a lot of good nutrients that can be got easily, such as iron and other minerals, it’s heavy on the system. You can be a healthy veggie, but it’s harder if you don’t plan carefully.
If it matters to you, B9, just be a vegetarian. Read some books and get into cooking good stuff. Don’t eat food you don’t like. Why should you?
It’s hard in Asia where such a lot of the culture revolves around social eating, though. In Britain, I almost never eat anything I haven’t cooked myself.
In Taiwan, I congregate with Buddhists. That takes care of the problem for the most part.
Of course, someone who has an objection to Buddhism or can’t stand Buddhists for some reason won’t like this solution.[/quote]
I first got interested in Buddhism in Thailand; Thai Buddhists have different and to me, slightly more logical beliefs about vegetarianism. Vegetarianism in east Asian Buddhism comes more from incorporating local animist beliefs about ‘purity’ than Buddhist tradition, which is pretty ambiguous on the matter, to say the least.
No objection to Buddhism at all, although the Mahayana traditions are pretty uninteresting to me. Many Taiwanese Buddhists propound ideas that I find distasteful, although I’d be the last person to attack another’s right to follow and enjoy their religious beliefs. ‘Being compassionate towards all beings’ is a wonderful goal, though it can be a dualistic trap.
