My views on vegetarianisn, veganism and eating meat

[Tokis-Phoenix]

This thread is about my views on vegetarianism, veganism and eating meat and more.


Vegans


Most people become vegans because they are against the killing of animals for the eating of meat, many vegans are completely against the killing of animals altogether and do not just change their diet but also many other aspects of their lifestyle so they do not support the killing of animals in any way (for example many vegans do not wear leather or eat honey- bee's may apparently be harmed in the process of harvesting honey etc).

But in my opinion veganism is flawed, because you can never completely remove yourself for the animal aspects of our food chains even if all you eat is fruit and veg and stuff etc.

Point no.1;

To grow crops you need manure, you can use chemical fertilisers, but these are very damaging to the environment. To obtain manure you need to farm animals, and part of farming animals is slaughtering for their meat or when they become sick or too old to fulfill their purpose.
So no matter how much fruit and veg you eat, the process of producing such products relies heavily on the farming of animals to produce manure to grow such products, so basically the aim of the vegan (for which many people is to remove themselves from the animal side of farming) is simply impossible.

Why not use human manure though, some may ask? Simply put it is not that good to use human waste to fertilise the feilds. Human waste for a start is highly acidic, and will alter the ph of the soil when used on it. All plants have a preferance as to what ph of the soil they can be grown in and many will not grow well (or even at all) in the wrong ph of soil, particularly if it is heading very much towards the opposite end of the ph scale the plant needs to grow.
So only farmers which have very alkeline soils can use human waste as a fertliser.
Secondly it needs to be processed to remove all the chemicals like bleach that may be in it and to kill off all the diseases in it, this is not an environmentally or cheap process to do.
Thirdly it smells horrendous- pig manure smells bad enough, but human manure smells unbelievably bad, it can stink out the feilds for as much as a month or more and this is another reason why people don't like using human waste- it is not nice if you live in a house next to some feilds which have been dosed with particularly stenchy manure which stinks out your whole property for weeks on end, it could even de-value your property and isn't very good for your well-being.


The only way for vegans to eat foods which do not rely on the animal food chain would be to rely on fruit and veg doused in chemical/artificial fertlisers. However there are many problems with these.
For a start, they are not good for the soil quality in the long term, chemical fertilisers do not raise the quality of the soil in the long term, they are a quick fix solution to poor soil quality, and if you are to rely on them you need to dose the feilds with them on a much more regular basis than what you would need to with animal manure (which is far better at raising the soil quality and biodiversity of feilds in the long term).
Secondly it is not environmentally friendly to produce such artificial fertilisers nor use them on feilds- GM fields which are doused in artificial fertilisers tend to have less biodiversity than organic feilds dosed with manure, worms can eat animal waste but they cannot live off chemicals.
Artificial fertilsers cause far more deaths and destruction to natural wildlife ecosystems than using natural manure. If the point of the vegan is to save animals, then it would be better to use animal manure from the animal farming process than to use the much more environmentally damaging artificial fertilisers.

Simply put, it is near impossible for vegans to remove themselves from the farming of animals.



(continued in a moment)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

(Continued)

I also see a lot of people becomming vegan for environmental reasons now days. The point of becomming vegan for environmental reasons is also flawed in my opinion as well.

Veganism is only posible as a relatively healthy option to undertake in this day and age because of the great deal of importing foods that we do now days. If we lived in a world where each country only lived off the plant products it could produce seasonly in its country, then veganism would be impossible as a liveable choice because there would not be enough diversity in the vegans diet for the vegan to live sustainably off it in a healthy manner.

But this relianance on importing thousands of tons of out of season food products or of food products which cannot be produced in your country altogether has a very negative effect on the environment;

Negative effect no.1: Important thousands of tons of food products creates an aweful lot of transportation emissions/polution which is very bad for the environment. A plant which is out of season is for more un-environmentally friendly to produce than a plant which is in season and can be grown in the country in question etc.

Negative effect no.2: The importing of plant food products has encouraged many countries to grow plants for their products which are not native to their countries, these non-native agricultural plants have a negative effect on the countries own native wildlife/ecosystems in many ways, more than often because such plants have no use or benefet to the countries own native ecosystems/food chains.

Negative effect no.3: Feilds used for the growing of crops have become increasingly large over the last hundreds years or so, agricultural feilds are becomming unbelievely collussal in this day and age. If a feild is only growing one type of plant in it, then the larger the feild the worse it is for wildlife, because such a huge mono feild is becomes the equivilant of an "environmental desert" as far as the wild animals are concerned- if the animal in question can live off this one type of plant well, then that animal will be sure to thrive, however it will then most likely be seen as a pest and so efforts will be made to exterminate it.
If the animal in question cannot live off the plant/crop in question, then the feild presents itself as a vast track of land which the animal cannot live off in anyway and so the animal will suffer- the larger the feild of this crop, the worser the situation for the animal in question.

For example, Hare's are a mammel which is threatened and may be facing extinction in the near future and the main reason why its numbers are declining is directly because of the collusal one-plant crop culture we have. In the past when feilds used to be smaller, hares could travel short distances from one field to another to find plants it could eat. Hares need a very varied diet of plants to survive.

Now days though because agricultural fields are becomming larger, hare's have less chance of finding plants they can eat, and they have to travel longer distances to find such food (and of couse the more the animal has to travel for food, the more vunerable it makes itself to predators).
Because feilds are becomming larger they are also making the natural ecosystems even more unbalanced, which then leads to pest animals and plants becomming rife. So farmers are using more products like herbicides so they can continue to have collossal agricultural feilds without to many problems- the herbicides though makes the fields have even less variety of plants growing in them which makes it even worse for hares.



Feilds for the farming of animals on the other hand tend to have a great deal more biodiversity than feilds for agricultural farming, because as long as there's lots of grass (often many varities of grasses) growing in them, the farmer is not generally concerned if there are other plants in the feilds- a farmer is not going to use pesticides or herbicies on a field which is only used for grazing cows or sheep on it etc.


So basically feilds used for the farming of animals are actually more environmentally and wildlife friendly than feilds used for the growing of crops.
If we were to all stop farming animals tommorrow, not only would thousands of semi-domesticated species of farm animals go extinct (if you do not understand why this would happen i can explain), but it would force us to become more reliant on agriculture, which as you can see has many problems with it, especially when you try not to farm animals to help it etc.


(continued in a moment)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

(continued)

For health reasons, obviously the biggest problem vegans face is how to obtain the vitamin B12 (although of course there are numerous other vitamins/minerals which vegans can lack due to their diet).
(taken from wikipedia);

"Vitamin B12 deficiency is potentially extremely serious, leading to pernicious anemia, nerve degeneration and irreversible neurological damage.[15] A regular source of vitamin B12 is particularly important for those over the age of 50 years, and pregnant and lactating women (and for breastfed infants if the mother's diet is not supplemented).[1]

Evidence suggests that vegetarians and vegans who are not taking vitamin B12 supplements do not consume sufficient servings of B12 and often have abnormally low blood concentrations of vitamin B12.[16] This is because, unless fortified, plant foods do not contain significant amounts of active vitamin B12.[1]

It is essential, therefore, that vegetarians consume adequate amounts of dairy products, eggs, dietary supplements or foods that have been fortified with B12 (such as certain yeast extracts, vegetable stock, veggie burger mixes, textured vegetable protein, soy milks, vegetable and sunflower margarines, and breakfast cereals).[15]"


... ... ...


One thing i do wonder though, is that where do people get the vitamin b12 to make supliments from it? Is it obtained from animal products? Does anyone actually know here?
If such a vitamin supliment was obtained from animal products, then it would defeat the point of the vegan diet.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

(continued)

I think vegetarianism is really good if you are doing it for the sake of your health and your vegetarian diet includes dairy products and eggs and perhaps some animal fats (like lard in pastry). Vegan diets tend to have problems with lack of diversity in the diet (since a large percentage of recipes are not posible in vegan diets) and have problems obtaining certain vitamins and minerals directly through the diet.

IMHO Having a diet which focusses on vegetables and fruit but has a little bit of animal products in it is good for your health.


People were evolved to eat all sorts of animal products, but we were never evolved to eat them all the time. For example, based on archaeological and historical evidence, we know that in places like England the average persons diet did contain animal products but that a large part of it was actually what we would call vegetarian.
Poor people or people with not very larger incomes make up the largest part of the population, and this is the way it always has been. Meat in in the olden days was expensive to produce and many people could not afford to eat it very often at all. Even in the victorian times, most people were lucky if they could afford to eat meat once a week, which is one of the reasons why events like the once weekly "Sunday roast" were so special to so many people.
In the medieval times dairy products were considered the poor mans foods, many people would own a cow so they could produce dairy products like milk, butter, cheese and cream- these products would help bulk out the poor persons otherwise very green diet.
In ancient times, meat and other animal products were generally eaten more in the wintertime when vegetables and fruit were not abundant, while during the summer their diet would turn more vegetarian when fruit and veg was more abundant.



So basically, animal products have played an important part in our evolution, society and diets, but for those which were not very wealthy, for most people animal products were not eaten that regularly, and this is the way we have evolved to be in more recent evolution.

There is no doubt that animal products can have many benefets for our diets/health, but we now live in a day and age which is very abundant in cheap food, animal products have never been so cheap and it is completely possible for the poor person to eat animal products everyday if they wish.

However i do not think all these cheap animal products are a good thing. For a start, it is easy to become obese if you eat a lot of animal products- a packet of bacon has a lot more fat and energy in it than a packet of strawberries. In western society we are now having to deal with increasingly large levels of obesity in our societies, and ironically, it is not the rich who are getting fat, but rather recent studies point to lower income area's having the highest levels of obesity, and i personally believe that this is because of the over-abundance of cheap fatterning animal products and the problem with out increasingly physically relaxed lifestyles.

I think it is only good to eat animal products every day or every other day if you lead a very physically active lifesyle, like if you are an athelete or body builder or are a solidier etc. Because otherwise if you eat animal products on a regular basis and do not lead a very physically active lifestyle, then you are bound to pack on the pounds.


I am not a vegatarian but i would say that based on what i eat i am probably verging on being one, i still eat animal products, but very rarely- i think the last time i ate meat was probably a month or two ago.
This was not entirely deliberate- i originally cut down on animal products because i refused to buy ones which were not farmed in a morally correct manner, but it was quite difficult to always find free-range and organic animal products this inevitably led me to eat less animal products in general as i cut out all the battery, barn range, 0 grazing etc animal products.

I initially missed eating a lot of animal products on a regular basis a great deal at first, but i think eating meat is more of a habit more than anything else, and after a couple of months my taste buds stopped craving certain animal products as much or even altogether- for example, because i didn't eat chicken for so many months, because it couldn't find any free-range chicken, my taste buds eventually stopped craving for it altogether. I used to love chicken, but now days i don't see what i liked so much about it- its so bland. I still love beef, lamb and pig meat, however pig meat is the meat i eat the least (no reason in particular i guess, maybe a small part of it is because it is a very fattening meat to eat, regardless of what form you eat it in).



I personally feel there is nothing wrong with eating animal products like meat as long as the animal in question was farmed and slaughtered and in a humane manner. For me this by far the most important thing of all when it comes to eating animal products- while on the one hand i don't find anything morally wrong with eating animal products, i do find it very morally wrong to animal products which have been products with methods of farming like battery, barn range and 0 grazing methods etc.
These methods of farming are downright animal cruelty and are often very horrific, they give the animals no quality of life whatsoever, the animal just lives a life of suffering.
I don't want to buy animal products which have been farmed with such methods because i disagree with them morally and i don't want to financially support such methods of farming by buying their products.

I think every person who decides to eat animal products should realise that this is a lifestyle choice they are undertaking and they should understand and know exactly where their food comes from. They should comes to terms with the fact that they are eating a creature which once lived and was intelligent and had emotion (i believe that all farm animals are intelligent, i lived and was raised on a farm and i base this belief on my many experiences living on a farm interacting with animals, i would even say chickens are more intelligent than animals like cats)- because this is the truth.
Do not go fooling yourself into thinking that its ok to eat one animal but not another based on its intelligence, because at the end of the day all semi-domesticated animals are intelligent as far as animals go and many are much more intelligent than animals we often only keep as pets like cats and rabbits for example. It does annoy me when people say things like "Oh i only eat chicken but not pork because its ok to eat chickens because they are dumb"- i disagree with such statements on so many levels.


I do think we need to change so much about farming at the end of the day, both with the farming of animals and agriculture. Farmers need to get paid more for their animal products so they can afford to give their animals a better quality of life, at least for me i am happy to pay more for meat if i know that because i am paying more the animals are getting a better quality of life- as it currently stands supermarkets like Tesco's pay 3p per chicken, how can any farmer be expected to afford to give his chickens a good quality of life when he is getting payed that little?

So i disagree with the cheapness of meat, because its over-abundance and chespness is causing our populations to become obese and its cheapness is also having a detrimental/negative effect on the animals quality of life.

 

[Goldiegirl]

You don't need manure or fertilizers to grow crops. I have a nice garden and all I do is stick the plants, seeds, bulbs in the ground, add some water and a little sunshine and there ya go....

 

[made of stone]

You don't need manure or fertilizers to grow crops. I have a nice garden and all I do is stick the plants, seeds, bulbs in the ground, add some water and a little sunshine and there ya go....

That was my very first thought, too, as I read the opening lines of the thread. It depends on how fertile the land is, of course.

My next thought was that you can keep animals to produce manure without slaughtering them - quite possibly millions of people around the world are doing so right now as I type...

made of silage

 

[Sarapva]

My next thought was that you can keep animals to produce manure without slaughtering them - quite possibly millions of people around the world are doing so right now as I type...

made of silage

That was my first thought! I think keeping animals for manure (fertilizer) where it's needed is a good idea. The animals aren't likely to be so manipulated or confined if their purpose on the farm is to produce manure and not meat.

I agree with a lot of what you've said, Tokis-Phoenix - You made your arguments in a very intelligent and compassionate way. Organic farming and less cruel methods are growing here in the U.S., and it sounds like it's the same in the UK. I think the average person, when they learn about how most meat and animal products gets to us, doesn't want to support that.

I don't eat any meat and very little eggs (not battery-farmed) and milk. I don't know where vitamin B12 is found, but it seems to be in a lot of products like soy milk, etc.

 

[Revenant]

Alright! Revenant up to bat for veganism! Well, sort of....

I feel that animal products in themselves aren't ecologically unsound, but rather that it is the farming techniques employed to meet our ever growing demands for more and cheaper meat.

Vitamin B12 can be extracted from a kind of algae, and there are a couple of supplemental companies that already offer these supplements. I believe that a lot of the vitamins can also be made in a labratory.

The difference between how an outdoor toilet and a solar toilet smells has a lot to do with the kind of bacteria present. Outdoor toilets don't allow oxygen into the mix, and so a lot of the bacteria is anaerobic, and it is the anaerobic bacteria that causes a lot of the bad smell. Solar toilets or incinerator toilets quickly get rid of excess moisture, and so the bacteria (depending on whether they can even survive) is aerobic, and from what I've read, aerobic bacteria doesn't really produce that awful smell.

There are also some other organic fertilizers that can be used, and to add to that, is that there are also some crops that don't require as fertile soil as some of the crops that we grow regularly. Amaranth would be one example of a hardy plant that grows in poor soil.

I almost forgot, that a lot of the monocrops are grown for the animal industry. Loads of soybeans are grown and then put into cowfeed. There's a great loss of land use, and a loss of calories too. A cow just doesn't provide us with anywhere near as many calories as it has consumed.

Biodynamic farming could still provide healthier and more environmentally friendly animal products, the manure still used as fertilizer, and the animal could also be employed to do they're bit of weed management in places like olive or orange groves.

The advantage that animal products do offer is that a few of their nutrients are much easier for our bodies to absorb. For a few, a vegan diet might be extremely unhealthy, for example, a person that couldn't digest beans well at all would have trouble getting enough protein.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

You don't need manure or fertilizers to grow crops. I have a nice garden and all I do is stick the plants, seeds, bulbs in the ground, add some water and a little sunshine and there ya go....

That was my very first thought, too, as I read the opening lines of the thread. It depends on how fertile the land is, of course.

My next thought was that you can keep animals to produce manure without slaughtering them - quite possibly millions of people around the world are doing so right now as I type...

made of silage

You do need fertiliser to grow crops, growing plants in your garden is a very different buisness to growing crops in feilds (if you ploughed out every plant in your garden and started afresh every season with new seeds, i'm sure the soil quality in your garden would go down a lot more), if you do not fertilise the soil the feild will lose its fertility for sure a great deal over the years.


When my parents bought their farm off my fathers father, the farm was in a very bad way, it had been over-farmed and the soil quality was very low because my grandfather did not put much empthasis on using fertilisers like manure to fertilise the soil.

Back then in the 80's, artificial fertilisers were all the rage, people thought they were the best thing since sliced bread, people thought you were nuts if you decided to opt for the more expensive animal manure.
But my mother back then had bad feelings about artificial fertilsers, she didn't think they were that good for the soil or the environment (which as we know now days is very true). She and my father decided to use lots of animal manure and a better crop rotation to help improve the quality of the soil, its taken many years for this to pay off, but now the soil quality of the farm is very good (much better than any of the other farms in our area that decided to keep with the artificial fertilisers back then) .


Silage isn't that fantastic, yes its still a fertiliser but its not a very nutritious fertiliser as far as fertilisers go and it isn't very good for the soil in that when it drys out it just turns to dust (and because it doesn't hold moisture very well, the nutrients start to run off or evaporate off the feilds).

Animal manure on the other hand is much better, not only does it contain a lot more nutrients, but the fibres and stuff in the manure holds the soil together and also helps lock in moisture into the soil, acting as a natural sponge which helps release water slowly in the surrounding soil, which also helps keep the nutrients in the soil. So animal manure is certainly a lot better than silage by far.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Alright! Revenant up to bat for veganism! Well, sort of....
I feel that animal products in themselves aren't ecologically unsound, but rather that it is the farming techniques employed to meet our ever growing demands for more and cheaper meat.
Vitamin B12 can be extracted from a kind of algae, and there are a couple of supplemental companies that already offer these supplements. I believe that a lot of the vitamins can also be made in a labratory.
The difference between how an outdoor toilet and a solar toilet smells has a lot to do with the kind of bacteria present. Outdoor toilets don't allow oxygen into the mix, and so a lot of the bacteria is anaerobic, and it is the anaerobic bacteria that causes a lot of the bad smell. Solar toilets or incinerator toilets quickly get rid of excess moisture, and so the bacteria (depending on whether they can even survive) is aerobic, and from what I've read, aerobic bacteria doesn't really produce that awful smell.
There are also some other organic fertilizers that can be used, and to add to that, is that there are also some crops that don't require as fertile soil as some of the crops that we grow regularly. Amaranth would be one example of a hardy plant that grows in poor soil.
I almost forgot, that a lot of the monocrops are grown for the animal industry. Loads of soybeans are grown and then put into cowfeed. There's a great loss of land use, and a loss of calories too. A cow just doesn't provide us with anywhere near as many calories as it has consumed.
Biodynamic farming could still provide healthier and more environmentally friendly animal products, the manure still used as fertilizer, and the animal could also be employed to do they're bit of weed management in places like olive or orange groves.
The advantage that animal products do offer is that a few of their nutrients are much easier for our bodies to absorb. For a few, a vegan diet might be extremely unhealthy, for example, a person that couldn't digest beans well at all would have trouble getting enough protein.

Solar toilets wouldn't be a viable option in countries like england, ireland, wales etc where there isn't a great deal of dry weather or sunlight all year round. I really can't see that many people over here opting for solar toilets.

Amaranth may or may not require much fertiliser, i don't know much on the plant, i don't know if it can be grown over here or whether it needs to be imported, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of crops require fertiliser.

At the end of the day, there is no doubt that animal manure makes the best fertiliser, every farmer knows this in this day and age.
Animal manure is full of nutrients and its very good for the soil in many ways, animal manure has always played a vital part in the food chain for as long as animals have been around.



Yes there is no doubt that a certain percentage of mono crops are grown for animal feed, but if people farmed animals in a more organic manner which gave the animals a better quality of life by keeping them outdoors, then there wouldn't be such a need for mono crops.

With outdoor cows in this country, the farmer keeps the cows outdoors all year round and only substitutes their diet with stuff like hay during the wintertime when grass is sparse.

Mono crops for animal feeds have only really come about through things like battery farming, a battery farm pig never goes outdoors to eat stuff like fruit, veg and grass etc, so battery farms rely heavily on animal feeds to keep their animals fed.
If we stopped farming animals indoors so much there would be hardly any demand for animal feeds at all, so there wouldn't be so many mono crops.



"There's a great loss of land use, and a loss of calories too. A cow just doesn't provide us with anywhere near as many calories as it has consumed."



Thats true, but on the other hand a cow eats plants that we do not eat. A cow can survive off grass, while we can't. Its a lot more environmentally friendly to have some cows living in a meadow full of wild flowers and insects and birds and small mammels and stuff sharing the meadow with the cow, than to plough up the meadow and get rid of the cows and just grow a crop of one type of plant. You cannot deny this? It isn't just as black and white as "A cow just doesn't provide us with anywhere near as many calories as it has consumed".

The more farmers follow the ways of natural ecosystems, then more environmentally friendly (particularly towards wildlife) it is to farm. There's nothing natural about vast one-crop feilds, but the way of the free range organic animal farmer does reflect natural ways of food chains better a great deal more.
Crops don't fertilise the soils they are in, they just suck out the nutrients, on the other hand though a cow is like a living poop machine, as it chows down the grass it poops as it goes along, the poop creates food for all kinds of bugs and insects (there are hundreds of types of bugs and insects, mostly beetles, worms and flies, which live directly off animal poop) which then themselves create food for other animals, the poop fertilises the feild which helps all kinds of life grow.

There is no doubt that a feild used for grazing cows on is going to have a heck of a lot more biodiversity than a feild of wheat or potatoes is gonna have.
Farming animals may not be that good for the ozone in the respect of all the gas they produce, but they are far better for the environment and its wildlife when farmed out doors than any crop could ever be. In a day and age where all sorts of creatures are going extinct, farming animals outdoors can be a very good thing (particularly if the farm animals in question are native to the country they are being farmed in).

 

[Sarapva]

The difference between how an outdoor toilet and a solar toilet smells has a lot to do with the kind of bacteria present. Outdoor toilets don't allow oxygen into the mix, and so a lot of the bacteria is anaerobic, and it is the anaerobic bacteria that causes a lot of the bad smell. Solar toilets or incinerator toilets quickly get rid of excess moisture, and so the bacteria (depending on whether they can even survive) is aerobic, and from what I've read, aerobic bacteria doesn't really produce that awful smell.

The regular composting toilets do this - but there is another way to compost "humanure"! Basically, it's composted the same way as any other compost, adding soil or other organic material to it, and left for at least a year. After that, it doesn't smell and can be used in gardens. I did this when I lived in Alaska, having no running water, though I didn't use it as fertilizer. But after a year it's just like regular soil.

How can humanure be recycled?
Humanure can be recycled in two basic ways. First, it can be applied raw to agricultural land. In this case, humanure may be called ﾂ"night soil.ﾂ" Unfortunately, raw applications of humanure to soil can still create pollution and spread disease, so this method of recycling is strongly discouraged.

The second method of recycling humanure is through a process called ﾂ"composting.ﾂ" This is the process used by the humanure compost toilet system described in this manual.

http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/manual.html

 

[Revenant]

I think we agree on a lot of things actually, and as I said before, I don't think that animals themselves are to blame for some of the enivronmental problems, but rather the overconsupmtion of meat and the farming techniques used to meet the growing demand for meat.

I don't know how viable meeting our meat and dairy demands would be if we used only free range livestock. I mean, like I could see keeping livestock free range on fallow fields (fields left alone for a year <-- just included that not because I don't think people here know what that means, but rather I'm not sure that I spelled that at all correctly), or keeping them in orchards and groves. But would that produce enough to meet our current meat and dairy consumption?

It might be possible to increase the number of livestock kept in places unsuitable for vegetable farming....

I don't know that keeping all those cows on free ranges would be a good thing if livestock owners were cutting down trees or doing other things for the sole sake of keeping those animals. Ranchers cutting down trees for ranches is one of the reasons the rainforests in Brazil are being cut down at such an incredible rate.

As to amaranth, it was just an example. I read somewhere that rice in a lot of places is actually very damaging to the ecosystem, especially since it requires flooding. I actually don't know a lot about that though.

Just to add to what we know..... it's also possible to equip solar toilets with their own heating systems, so when there isn't enough sun, there is still enough heat to get the job done. I've also seen a couple of impressive looking incinerator toilets (the ash can still be used for fertilizer). Compost toilets are another option, so long as we aren't having to produce loads more peat moss or sawdust to keep everyone's composting toilets going.

I believe I said this in another thread, but decreasing the amount of meat we as a society consume, and employing biodynamic farming techniques would be more ideal for the environment. People could still get their meat, although it might not be as much as some would want.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I think we agree on a lot of things actually, and as I said before, I don't think that animals themselves are to blame for some of the enivronmental problems, but rather the overconsupmtion of meat and the farming techniques used to meet the growing demand for meat.
I don't know how viable meeting our meat and dairy demands would be if we used only free range livestock. I mean, like I could see keeping livestock free range on fallow fields (fields left alone for a year <-- just included that not because I don't think people here know what that means, but rather I'm not sure that I spelled that at all correctly), or keeping them in orchards and groves. But would that produce enough to meet our current meat and dairy consumption?
It might be possible to increase the number of livestock kept in places unsuitable for vegetable farming....
I don't know that keeping all those cows on free ranges would be a good thing if livestock owners were cutting down trees or doing other things for the sole sake of keeping those animals. Ranchers cutting down trees for ranches is one of the reasons the rainforests in Brazil are being cut down at such an incredible rate.
As to amaranth, it was just an example. I read somewhere that rice in a lot of places is actually very damaging to the ecosystem, especially since it requires flooding. I actually don't know a lot about that though.
Just to add to what we know..... it's also possible to equip solar toilets with their own heating systems, so when there isn't enough sun, there is still enough heat to get the job done. I've also seen a couple of impressive looking incinerator toilets (the ash can still be used for fertilizer). Compost toilets are another option, so long as we aren't having to produce loads more peat moss or sawdust to keep everyone's composting toilets going.
I believe I said this in another thread, but decreasing the amount of meat we as a society consume, and employing biodynamic farming techniques would be more ideal for the environment. People could still get their meat, although it might not be as much as some would want.

I appologise i haven't been able to reply back earlier, i've been having some problems with my computer.

I agree that we are over-consuming animal products, i think that a lot of people eat far too much of them for their own good (and i'm talking about for their health and perhaps respect of animals too), and i think it is also a big problem that many of us have become accustomed to cheep animal product prices.
In the past, fruit and veg always used to be cheeper than animal products, but now i'm really beginning to wonder if this is still really the case, i have seen some very cheap animal products and some very pricey fruit and veg for sale...



I think that we should increase the prices payed for animal products- i think this would have many good consequences;

a. Many farmers are being forced to sell up their farms and stop farming because supermarkets have taken over the market and demand ridicously cheap prices for the products they pay, many farmers are forced to either suply the supermarkets and maybe stay in buisness, or to not suply the supermarkets and go out of buisness for sure.

Many farmers do want to offer their livestock a better quality of life, but simply do not have such an option because they get payed so little for their produce now days. Pretty much every area of animal farming is now a struggle due to the cheap prizes enforced on farmers by the supermarkets (and also to an extent the consumers too).

I think people really do need to realise that you simply cannot give an animal like a chicken a decent quality of life while it is been raised on a farm when the farmer is only getting payed 3p per every chicken he raises.
People demand cheap animal products but also many complain about the conditions so many animals are raised in, but on the other hand they are not really willing to pay more for their animal products- at the end of the day, if you want happy farm animals you've got to give the farmer some decent cash to allow him to give those animals that good quality of life.


Not all farmers are bad people, many of us do deeply care for our animals, we all know that one day we will send them off to the slaughterhouse (where we hope that they get killed in a humane manner), but until that day we want to be the best carers for our animals and make sure that they lead a good, happy and healthy quality of life.
We do this buisness because it is an age old tradition that when gone about in the right way, is good for the environment, good for our communities and people, good for our economies and country, and good for preserving many hundreds of types of semi-domesticated species of animals etc.


At the end of the day I am strongly against the immoral methods of farming like battery, barn range and 0 grazing etc- i only support the better methods of farming, but i think the people that run such immoral farms are no worse than the consumers that only care about cheap food prices and do not care in the slightest where their food came from or what sort of life the animals led etc.


b. I think raising the price of animal products would also be good for the health of our nations. I think there are many health benefets to eating all sorts of animal products, but i think a lot of these animal products when over-consumed upon actually start to have a negative impact on our diets/health depending on our lifestyles.

I am not calling for people to stop eating animal products altogether at all, i wouldn't agree with that, but i do think that if a lot of us reduced the amount of animal products we ate and the exact types of animal products, and we increased the ammount of fresh fruit and veg we consumed, IMHO it would most likely have a positive effect on our health (i know that certainly for me, cutting down on but not completely getting rid of animal products in my diet, has had a positive effect on my health in numerous ways).

I believe that increasing the prices of animal products would not only have a positive effect on the animals and people that farm them, but also for the consumer which buys them, since i think if animal products costed more than a lot of people wouldn't eat them so regularly all the time etc.

(continued in a mo)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

(continued)

I also think if animal products were more expensive, it would perhaps make people think more about the animals that these products are made out of, and this might help foster a healthier respect for animals from the general public.

It really does upset me sometimes how little people think of animals, yes i eat meat and other types of animal products, but as an omnivore i do respect animals a great deal and i do put a lot of thought into what exactly i am eating.


I think there are many people in our society, that although are happy eating animal products, i do not think they have really truly made the mental psychological connection between "living animal=meat=food".

They know that the the pork they are eating came from a pig that once lived, however i believe that if a real live pig was put in front of them, and they were allowed to look at and touch the pig, and the pig was then killed right in front of them (in a quick/humane manner of course) and it was butched and cut up in front of them and the prime pork fillets were them cooked in front of them etc...I basically wonder how many people would then be able to eat that pig's meat, when the pig was breathing, feeling and grunting along in front of them only a little while earlier?

I think if someone couldn't eat the pigs meat in that situation, then they should really seriously question if they should be eating meat at all. At the very least, i certainly don't think someone should be eating meat if they couldn't eat meat in such a situation.

... ... ...


When i was a child, i kept miniture bantam chickens as pets. Because we had both roosters and hens, the hens inevitably became broody sooner or later, and come spring and summertime the farm would be full of mother hens waddling around with dozens of cute fluffy little chicks avidly following behind them.

With bantam chicken chicks, you almost always get more male chicks then you do female ones, usually you get about 60% males and 40% females. This is because in the wild when the chicks grow up and matured, the males will visciously fight each other over the hens and there would be numerous rooster casualities from predators picking off the battle injured looser roosters etc.


The problem with raising the male chicks into adults then, is that they will inevitably fight a great deal if there aren't enough females between them (and even if there are, the roosters will still fight each other occasionally), the roosters will also over-harrass the hens if they aren't enough hens between them too, and they can be quite brutal towards the hens when trying to mate with them (since for the rooster to balance on the hen he needs to grab a hold of the feathers on the back of her neck to help him balance, and having her feathers pulled can be painful for the hen and she may even start to lose the feathers on the back of her neck if she gets too much attention from the roosters etc).

So basically, you need to do something about the excess roosters, otherwise if you keep them you will have problems and the roosters and hens will never really be that happy. You can seperate the roosters into separate bachelor group pens, but the roosters will still occasionally fight each other and because they have such high sex drives, they may even attempt to mate with each other in the absence of hens, making the less dominant roosters lives a misery in the flock.



With my chickens back then, our solution to the problem of excess roosters was to raise them until they were fully matured and were of a decent size, and to then kill them and eat them.

I always had a couple of roosters which under my strict instructions would never be killed, but as to the rest of the roosters, they would all be killed at some point sooner or later.

Me and my brother would go into the chicken house after the chickens had gone inside it to sleep for the night, we had a big long net used for catching large koi carp in which we would use to catch the selected roosters. After catching the rooster in question my brother would then ring the chickens neck, this is a very humane method of killing birds, the chicken would quite literally gasp for a few moments and then it would be dead.

A few days later, i would find the rooster prepared and cooked on my plate, sitting there deliciously roasted and seasoned and stuffed on my plate with a few boiled and roasted vegetables covered in gravy. And i would tuck into the delicious chicken and enjoy its meat very much, and i would leave none of it to waste, i would even break the bones and eat the marrow out of them, and anything that was left over would be then used to make a scrummy chicken stock for soup etc .
I think it is very important to make an effect not to waste animal products.



Why i am telling everyone this though? Because i think people should know where their food comes from, they should care about its quality of life, they should respect the animal who's life was sacrificed for their plate and they should seriously understand that animals are killed for food and that all farm animals are intelligent- they need to come to proper terms with the fact that the food they are eating once lived, breathed and loved (and i would definately say that even chickens are capable of many emotions, including love, i have seen it for sure).


(continued in a mo)...

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

(continued)
With the cutting down of tree's to make farm land for animals, you also have to understand that it is done for agriculture too. I don't agree whether the rainforest is cut down for cheep beef or wheat, biofuels, palm oil or mahogany wood etc, i'd rather it was not cut down at all to be honest, and although i do understand that part of the rainforest is being cut down for cheap animal products like beef, i think we also have to admit that it is cut down for many more reasons than just that, even parts of the rainforest are being cut down for agriculture.



I do think in this country the government needs to do more to encourage farmers to encourage wildlife onto their farms and to make their farms more environmentally friendly.

People have been farming in England for over 6000years, and over the thousands of years, out wildlife has definately adapted a great deal to our farms, very little of the british landscape is actually natural, and a great deal of our wildlife only thrives because it can live on farms. Farming in this country can actually be a good thing for the environment and its wildlife because the wildlife has adapted so much to the farming way of life, but farming can only be good for the environment when it is gone about the right way and it reflects the more ancient methods of farming more.

I think the government should do more to encourage farmers to plant hedge rows and tree's on the boarders of their feilds, hedges rows in particular are real havens for wildlife when the hedges are allowed to go a bit wild and they start to support more different varieties of plants, like wild primroses and cowslip flowers etc.
I think the government should help pay for the replanting of our farms feild borders, because by doing so it would have imense benefets for our wildlife and the boarders of such feilds are not used for much anyway, so would be not great loss to the farmer or anything like that.


"Old methods 'aid' farm's wildlife

A conservation body is claiming success in helping a mid Wales farm to boost wildlife in its fields and hedgerows"

"it is a great example of how a variety of wildlife can benefit with a return to more traditional farming";

BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | Mid | Old methods 'aid' farm's wildlife

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"bump" i am interested in hearing more people's opinions on these subjects, i appologise if my posts can be quite long sometimes though .

 

[Sarapva]

I meant to post here a while ago! I looked at the link of the farm in Wales - it's interesting how going back to traditional farming can bring back endangered animals. It shows how our industralized farming can hurt things more than we realize.

Organic farming is growing in the U.S., where no pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used. Only about 5 years ago there wasn't much organic produce in grocery stores, but now the organic sections are steadily getting bigger! There are also local and small farms that are farming organically, but not getting certified as organic (which sounds like a complicated process).

 

[pugtm]

I meant to post here a while ago! I looked at the link of the farm in Wales - it's interesting how going back to traditional farming can bring back endangered animals. It shows how our industralized farming can hurt things more than we realize.
Organic farming is growing in the U.S., where no pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used. Only about 5 years ago there wasn't much organic produce in grocery stores, but now the organic sections are steadily getting bigger! There are also local and small farms that are farming organically, but not getting certified as organic (which sounds like a complicated process).

but you realize of course that it will in the end hurt more than its saves since industrialized farming yeilds more crop per square foot, in the end we will need to cut down more forests and that endangers still more animals. this way soon hypodronics will take over and we will be able to have less farmland yet again. and imagine when all of africa and south america will switch over.

 

[centrajapan]

Perhaps I should have put this under the food cricis thread but since I read the Wales farming I decided to post on this thread.

My grand parents are farmers in Japan. There is an increase in organic awareness in Japan just like any other place in the world. however given the conditions in Japan with hot humid summers and rain alot of vagetables especially tomatoes easily get virus or get eaten by insects. There are both good and bad insects for the plants. Red lady bird is good because they eat other bugs but the yellow lady birds are bad because they eat the crops.

I saw the bbc link on traditional farming in Wales. I would be intrested to get more detailed info of traditional farming. I know round up is really bad but if you have a a over grown field with lots of weed and want to plant crops there how would you make the field ready for planting say abogines?

If you are a farmer you need to have weed, pest management. I am wondering how that is possible with using traditional methods which are fairly easy.

I just planet lots of pine trees on a piece of land. It used to be a field. Since the grass was already high I decided to plant trees instead of potatoes.I planted a couple of thousands. In 2-3 years I am going to cut it and sell it as Christams tree. There is money to be made from the Christmas tree business.

無農薬 is organic in Japanese. City dwellers often romantacise the country side life style but I can tell you. Farming is hard work. In the summer its really hot and in the winter its really cold. And say just before harvest there comes a storm your crops are ruined.

In Japan you often see old ladies and men with a hunch back alot of it has to do with hours and hours of hard labour they did either in the rice paddy or in the field.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Perhaps I should have put this under the food cricis thread but since I read the Wales farming I decided to post on this thread.
My grand parents are farmers in Japan. There is an increase in organic awareness in Japan just like any other place in the world. however given the conditions in Japan with hot humid summers and rain alot of vagetables especially tomatoes easily get virus or get eaten by insects. There are both good and bad insects for the plants. Red lady bird is good because they eat other bugs but the yellow lady birds are bad because they eat the crops.
I saw the bbc link on traditional farming in Wales. I would be intrested to get more detailed info of traditional farming. I know round up is really bad but if you have a a over grown field with lots of weed and want to plant crops there how would you make the field ready for planting say abogines?
If you are a farmer you need to have weed, pest management. I am wondering how that is possible with using traditional methods which are fairly easy.
I just planet lots of pine trees on a piece of land. It used to be a field. Since the grass was already high I decided to plant trees instead of potatoes.I planted a couple of thousands. In 2-3 years I am going to cut it and sell it as Christams tree. There is money to be made from the Christmas tree business.
無農薬 is organic in Japanese. City dwellers often romantacise the country side life style but I can tell you. Farming is hard work. In the summer its really hot and in the winter its really cold. And say just before harvest there comes a storm your crops are ruined.
In Japan you often see old ladies and men with a hunch back alot of it has to do with hours and hours of hard labour they did either in the rice paddy or in the field.

With your question over what to do with the weed infested feild, the best and most environmentally friendly methods to get rid of the weeds would be to put some pigs (the best option) or small goats in the feild- pigs and goats eat pretty much everything and pigs in particular will dig up the soil a lot in search for things to eat and so help airate the soil as well as eat off all the troublesome plants . Of course though you will need to make sure the feild is safe for such animals (it needs to have a water trough and the fencing needs to be secure, the feild also needs to be clear of any objects lying around in the field that could cause harm to the animals, like plastic bags or bits of old abondaned farm machinery etc).

You don't have to buy your own pigs or goats, there are many people who own their own pigs or goats but don't have their own land and so look for people willing to rent out their land so people can put their animals on it- my mother does this a great deal with her land, although there are thousands of sheep, cows and pigs on the farm, very few of them are actually owned by us but rather belong to other people paying us money to put their animals on the land.

When the pigs or goats have done their work, just plough the feild over and plant whatever you want on it



Whatever you do though, don't use weed killers/herbicides like Roundup though, not only is it very environmentally damaging, but it is also damaging to the health of people too;

Mitra Ardron

"An epidemiological study of Ontario farming populations showed that exposure to glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, nearly doubled the risk of late miscarriages. Seralini and his team decided to research the effects of the herbicide on human placenta cells. Their study confirmed the toxicity of glyphosate, as after eighteen hours of exposure at low concentrations, large proportions of human placenta began to die. Seralini suggests that this may explain the high levels of premature births and miscarriages observed among female farmers using glyphosate"

"In 2002, a scientific team led by Robert Belle of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) biological station in Roscoff, France showed that Roundup activates one of the key stages of cellular division that can potentially lead to cancer. Belle and his team have been studying the impact of glyphosate formulations on sea urchin cells for several years. The team has recently demonstrated in Toxicological Science (December 2004) that a "control point" for DNA damage was affected by Roundup, while glyphosate alone had no effect. "We have shown that it's a definite risk factor, but we have not evaluated the number of cancers potentially induced, nor the time frame within which they would declare themselves," Belle acknowledges."

"There is also new research that shows that brief exposure to commercial glyphosate causes liver damage in rats, as indicated by the leakage of intracellular liver enzymes. The research indicates that glyphosate and its surfactant in Roundup were found to act in synergy to increase damage to the liver."


etc...So its very nasty stuff, for both us and animals and wildlife alike.

 

[centrajapan]

For preparing the soil. Pigs and goats is probably a very good idea. Can pigs only survive on weed though? I think they need more than weed. Like apples, corn and stuff. If I ever become a farmer Ill buy pigs and goats.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

For preparing the soil. Pigs and goats is probably a very good idea. Can pigs only survive on weed though? I think they need more than weed. Like apples, corn and stuff. If I ever become a farmer Ill buy pigs and goats.

Yes they will need extra foods designed for pigs to help bulk out their diet, same with the goats, but if you get either animal they will deal with the weeds in the field and they will help fertilise the soil and stuff too .