Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too

[December]

Would you agree that modern agriculture, necessary as it is, is fragile as hell in the face of major unforeseeable problems in society? The dependence on fossil fuels and a complex “just in time” distribution network and so on?

Interesting. Speaking in agriculture and fuel in the same paragraph inexorably leads me to also think in the food-vs-fuel problem.

In 2007 and 2008 I saw the price of essential foodstuff like milk and bread increase to absurd levels... and they didn't lower since then. Biofuel, China, India and our path of excess in the West must seriously be reviewed.

One guy said that the path of excess leads us to the tower of knowledge. But I don't like to know that I'm paying €0,80 for 1l of milk. Also 2€ for 1kg of bread is a robbery, specially when it tastes 3rd grade surplus foreign flour.

[Freomæg]

I am glad that you would love to see it and I hope you will someday.
It’s the most natural thing in the world; it makes food taste more and it would probably make you a better person.

It certainly is a most natural thing, but the point is: how many meat-eaters have done it? Part of me believes that all meat-eaters should at some point be called-on to slaughter an animal. There's very little honour in eating meat whilst having none of the stomach necessary to actually kill it. We probably would all be better people if we at some point had to slaughter our food.

[The Black Prince]

Interesting. Speaking in agriculture and fuel in the
same paragraph inexorably leads me to also think in the food-vs-fuel problem.

In 2007 and 2008 I saw the price of essential foodstuff like milk and bread increase to absurd levels... and they didn't lower since then. Biofuel, China, India and our path of excess in the West must seriously be reviewed.

One guy said that the path of excess leads us to the tower of knowledge. But I don't like to know that I'm paying €0,80 for 1l of milk. Also 2€ for 1kg of bread is a robbery, specially when it tastes 3rd grade surplus foreign flour.

Well the supermarkets are making huge profits over the backs of the farmer and the consumer in that case. Because the prices of milk and other agricultural produce are only a third nowadays of what it was in 2007.


Dairy prices Netherlands 2007-2009

It certainly is a most natural thing, but the point is: how many meat-eaters have done it? Part of me believes that all meat-eaters should at some point be called-on to slaughter an animal. There's very little honour in eating meat whilst having none of the stomach necessary to actually kill it. We probably would all be better people if we at some point had to slaughter our food.

Well I've done it. And I also think a large part of our members from the Americas who have a hunting license did it. Also other members who grew up on a stockfarm or who's (father was) a butcher, have done it.
And if you ask me, it is overrated in literature and the media. It is more like Jamt said, it is one of the most natural things in the world, my father did it, my forfathers did it and though I have no proof of it, I think al my ancestors did it. Hell, monkeys also still do it: if a chimp can purchase flesh in some kind of way he will prefer it above plants and nuts.

Though in most NW-European countries, for as far as I know, it is illegal and a capital offence to slaughter an animal yourself. For the Netherlands you need to be licensed as butcher and in the possession of a special chamber where blood and other not usable products must be kept separated from eachother and ready to be picked up by specialized transporters for further destruction.
Next you need to take care that everything that is slaughtered is being researched for animal diseases: cows for BSE and FMD. Goats for Q-fever etc..

[Freomæg]

Well I've done it. And I also think a large part of our members from the Americas who have a hunting license did it.

That may be so, and good for you. But you'll agree that still, only a small percentage of all meat-eating Americans have slaughtered an animal. To me, that's what's unnatural. In fact, I'd call those peoples' actions as unnatural as my action of not eating meat at all. At least I'm not pretending to be a real carnivore whilst eating pre-packaged beef from Brazil.

[nisse]

That may be so, and good for you. But you'll agree that still, only a small percentage of all meat-eating Americans have slaughtered an animal. To me, that's what's unnatural. In fact, I'd call those peoples' actions as unnatural as my action of not eating meat at all. At least I'm not pretending to be a real carnivore whilst eating pre-packaged beef from Brazil.

I agree that not knowing where food comes from and how it was obtained is unnatural, but this is not limited to meat. There are plenty of people who have never been on a farm. Period. That does not mean they're not entitled to eat *anything*.

As for being a carnivore, we aren't. We are omnivores and that's determined by our physiology and *traditional* diet. It has nothing to do with being able to actually kill your food yourself.

[Fortis in Arduis]

As for being a carnovore, we aren't. We are omnivores and that's determined by our physiology and *traditional* diet. It has nothing to do with being able to actually kill your food yourself.

Whilst human beings may be omnivorous, that does not mean that meat-eating is optimal for us, even if it is traditional.

What it does mean, however, is that human beings referring to themselves as 'carnivores' are the most laughable of our species.

Some traditions such as alcohol and tobacco consumption, and the excessive and bizarre consumption of 'famine foods' which have become 'delicacies' in Cantonese cuisine (I shall spare us all the details...) are traditions which are decidedly retro.

There are traditional reasons why pig production is beneficial to humans, because we occupy a similar position in the food chain.

Producing pork has meant, in the past, that in times of famine, the pigs can be killed and eaten and their land used for extra production of non-animal foodstuffs.

However, this is 2009, and without the prospect of famine in Europe, what use is pig production?

Look at Cantonese cuisine and extrapolate.

We do not need meat, it is excessive, and should be restricted to areas where arable farming is not possible, so as to maximise our food surplus (which is an economic weapon of war against those nations which cannot produce a surplus) and our potential for population growth.

[Lahtari]

If those future food exporting countries would shut down the pipeline of food towards the - by than - dependant West, large scale hunger would occur and chaos would be the effect. This basically means that in such a world the countries that control the food source, have the power and the ability to gain more power, while the dependant countries will grow weaker and weaker.

Don't know about other countries, but at least in Finland we have storages for about 2 years (in addition with a heavily subsidized farming industry). So in this situation we would have plenty of time to increase domestic farming, don't you agree?

[Lahtari]

That may be so, and good for you. But you'll agree that still, only a small percentage of all meat-eating Americans have slaughtered an animal. To me, that's what's unnatural. In fact, I'd call those peoples' actions as unnatural as my action of not eating meat at all. At least I'm not pretending to be a real carnivore whilst eating pre-packaged beef from Brazil.

Sorry, but that's just as stupid as saying it's "unnatural" for people who don't have guts to kill another human being to enjoy peace and national independence (even if they can serve in army support). Or that someone afraid of using a chainsaw should not buy wooden items. Or that someone who don't have the patience to learn how to play a musical instrument should not listen to music.

[Klärchen]

It certainly is a most natural thing, but the point is: how many meat-eaters have done it? Part of me believes that all meat-eaters should at some point be called-on to slaughter an animal. There's very little honour in eating meat whilst having none of the stomach necessary to actually kill it. We probably would all be better people if we at some point had to slaughter our food.

Well, I am accustomed to seeing a lot of blood, as I formerly worked in a hospital. But why should I try to get accustomed to see others suffer? And animals - at least the higher developed ones, also suffer and don't want to die. We should at least not justify our actions by comparing ourselves to the animals which have no sense of discrimination.

[The Black Prince]

Don't know about other countries, but at least in Finland we have storages for about 2 years (in addition with a heavily subsidized farming industry). So in this situation we would have plenty of time to increase domestic farming, don't you agree?

Well I meant it rather in a future scenario.. And Finland with the other 'geographic' Nordic countries (Dan-Nor-Swe-Ice) have in such a situation the advantage that they are relative less dense populated (ca. 25mln people) than f.i. the Benelux (28mln), Germany (82mln), France (62mln) or the British Isles(66mln).

Anyway I must also say that I don't know the exact agricultural situation in Finland f.e.: what you grow and raise yourself, what you export (beside timber and Nokia..), what gets imported, etc.. Two years of reserve is something.
However you also know that all the European countries have gas and oil reserves for several years storaged. But when The OPEC shuts down the oilcrane, prices will go up in the West, despite the amount they have in in reserve.