Bijou Drains
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I found the following article very interesting.
https://www.policyforum.net/love-hurts-environmental-risks-in-the-cut-flower-industry/
Although not strictly a animal issue, it does fit in with the idea of conservationism.
An issue it raises is the concept of virtual water. What this means in effect is that when water is used in the production of foodstuffs, etc. through export the water cycle begins to be broken. Having read some of the literature on this it appears to be a bit of an inexact science. The water used in production does not always leave the water cycle, however it is a concept that we would need to use in Socialist Production. One thing that Vegetarians and vegans don’t always readily acknowledge is that generally speaking meat production does not involve the huge transport distances some vegetable and fruit production does. Just look in the green grocery section of the supermarket to see where a great deal of the produce comes from, especially out of season stock.
“The music/scanning angle is a bit of a bugger when I’m scanning in stuff from 1919, though.”
I don’t know, Vesta Tilley Live at Leeds was a great album and what about Ivor Novello’s experimental acid jazz rendition of Keep the Home Fires Burning 🙂
We stress all the time that we are beings by the term human being. We never say pig being, elephant being, canine being, but always human being.
We don’t always say human being, we sometimes just say human, sometimes we also say human kind.
I also never say fly being, wasp being, if you use the term being as meaning a living thing, I would also never say “tonight with my dinner I am going to have some cabbage beings and a few brussel sprout beings”. So what?
Alan
With that kind of genetic material in you, woe betide any comrade that crosses you at conference!!!!
But I do applaud your dislike of cruelty, although I think you are naive about “humane” killing, and in Bijou’s case misinformed about farmed animals living longer lives, which is ridiculous.
If you read what I was saying, I was talking about potential not actual and stated I deplore the trend in modern life of eating only very young animals, becasue they are supposed to be better. For instance mutton and hogget is hardly eaten now, because of the so called superiority of lamb, similalry boiling foul are often wasted because of their age. The article you yourself quote states that older cattle if cooked properly can be very good. I would argue that in a socialist society meat production would be far more local, more humane, and that as more time would be available cooking skills, lost over the years, would redevelop.
I would certainly feel more comfortable eating mutton stew, with mutton fresh off the Cheviot Hills, than eating rice and lentils flown or shipped half way around the world, or green beans flown in from Peru.
Returning to Alan’s earlier question about biting the testicles off male lambs, I suppose if there is such a thing as an urban legend, then that must be a bit of a rural legend. In actual fact they fit a tight fitting elastic band over the lambs scrotum and eventually the nads wither away and fall off.
Agan this would be unnecessary in a Socialist society as it wouldn’t be necessary or desireable to continue the current practices. The castration is done because it is said that the testosterone makes the meat of male lambs taste slightly stronger, (although there is little evidence of this and it is not done on many countries).
The cull of male lambs would also not be necessary or desireable. It is currently done for mainly economic reasons, one ram is allowed to live and that ram then “services” several flocks. Obviously for the ram that is selected a pampered life and a couple of months every year of non stop sex awaits. I would argue that the impact of this (although saving the famer the cost of raising less productive rams as well as ewes) is a long term tendency toward inbreeding and susceptibility to disease.
This is just one example of how socialism could introduce more humane and environmentally friendly farming methods.
Alan Johnstone wrote
“So meat-eater will have a temporary respite as the present generation of slaughter-men carry out final culls of farm animals.
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Again i have to say that work which leads to occupational diseases that cannot be avoided will end in socialism and second-best alternatives will substitute.”
Bit of a contradiction there Alan.
Whose going to slaughter the remaining domestic livestock?
As I said earlier in this thread, the Peter Rabbit brigade imagine that living a non domestic lifestyle is wonderful, long and ends in a pleasant death. Sadly it doesn’t, it is usually short, stresssful and ends very violently.
But then there is the butchering of the carcass that is required. Can a person intellectually divorce themselves from the connection?
I have been on several short butchery courses, all of which were well attended by amateurs like myself. I often get a side of mutton or pork and break it down into the different cuts, make sausges, black puddings, white puddings and haggis. I am also quite happy to gut and clean fish, fillet and clean game birds, etc. I don’t think I have develped psychological problems through this process, I do however recognise that an animal has been killed in the process and do my best to ensure that every part of the animal that can be used as food is, including roasting bones to make stock and making broth from the carcasses.
As to Gregg’s, I am not a fan of their meat products, they were decent in the 60’s & 70s, but their sausage rolls aren’t very good, vegan or not. They are however the only place you can get proper stotty cake (they only sell them in the North East). Back in the day the Scottish bakers Crawford’s had a few branches on Tynesde, now their Scotch Mutton peppered pies were a thing of wonder! I am sure you remember them well Alan, washed down with gulps of Creamola Foam and a bit of Scottish Tablet for your puddin’
Bevan, when he was involved with setting up the NHS, said that he got the consultants on board by “stuffing their mouths with gold” a few of them have made it their job to keep their mouths stuffed full ever since.
In a similar way to Matt I have a bit of skepticism with regards to the necessity of inhumane and cruel practices in meat production (although I accept that killing in itself could be defined as cruelty). I worked as a Social Worker in West Northumberland for many years, often working with farming families and most were very compassionate about the way they raised their animals and the way they looked at wildlife. For example for the most part they detested the local hunt brigade, but as they were for the most part tennant farmers, they had to put up with them and their destructive ways. However if they wanted to get rid of a fox they would rub a bit of polyeurathane foam against a car window at night time. It makes a sound like a rabbit in trouble and when the fox popped up they shot it quickly and humanely, not chasing it until it was exhausted and then watching it have its guts ripped out.
The Peter Rabbit brigade would have us believe that wild animals live out a blissful existance and die peacefully in their beds, being comforted by their close family and friends. For the most part wild animals lead a pretty precarious existance, live a lot shorter lives than their domestic counterparts and die either a long slow death of starvation and hunger or by being ripped apart by their long feared enemies.
Given the choice I’d rather have a relatively longer life in a comfortable and humane Socialist farm and then a quick and relatively pain free death at the end of it. To that end I tend, when I can, to eat Mutton and Beef as this is the closest I can get to what I described above. I do however deplore the modern trend of eating relatively young animals because people don’t have the where with all to cook older animals properly.
As to how cattle would survive in the wild, you only need to look at the precarious existnace of the Wild White Cattle of Chillingham to realise that their lives would be precarious and short lived.
