this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I actually respect vegans that are vegan to prevent the suffering of animals.

I get it. Grew up farming. Chicken houses are an industrial horror machine.

We've recently bought a play farm and hope to raise or hunt all our meat. Only the slaughter and butchering of steers will be outsourced. Takes some serious equipment to handle an animal that large.

I'm an omnivore by evolution and enjoy meat and hunting. I'm always a little sad when I kill something, however. I figure that sadness means I'm human and is a good thing. When I eat meat from something I killed, it means more. There is a lot of respect involved in it as well something like religion.

If more people had to kill their meat, we would probably live in a very different world and there would be a lot more vegans.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

we used to live in a world were almost every slaughtered their own animals to eat and withing a rounding error everyone ate meat. its only icky to us today BECAUSE we dont interact with it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

If people had to kill their own meat, not only would there be more vegans, but people who did eat meat would probably eat a lot less on average than the average person today does. It would probably make a lot of people healthier too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It would eliminate fast food that's for sure.

Healthier is debatable. Meat is, relatively speaking, pretty good from a health perspective.

Most of what we eat that's "bad for us" is refined carbohydrates. Sugar, fried starches, breads, that kinda shit. The burger patty is far from the worst offender on the plate.

If suddenly everyone is slaughtering their own animals, the foods they turn to to replace this calories aren't going to be leafy greens, they're going to be shitty carbs. Shitty carbs are already most of people's diets.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's a fair point, I was mostly thinking that many people consume far too much meat, and that reducing it would be healthy, but if it's only being replaced with trash then it wouldn't be any better

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

If we're talking about processed meat, that's probably true. Even a small amount is probably too much.* If we're talking about like, grilled whole cuts? Which admittedly probably isn't typical in most diets, hard to get too much of that. And would be much more common if we were butchering our own meat. But so too would probably be sausage and cured meat so, now I'm not so sure things would change that much.

*Guilty as charged.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

people would probably eat less meat sure just because of the logistics of it, but did u forget that history is a thing? 150 odd years ago most people regularly slaughtered their own animals a few hundred years further back and basically everyone did, and at the same time almost everyone with very very few exceptions ate meat.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Of course they did, they also had drastically less options than they do today. It's no coincidence that veganism is a fairly new concept, it's only fairly recently that it's become feasible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My point is that slaughtering ur own animals is in no way a deterrent for eating meat at least no more that any other prep for any food is. Also Pescetarianism was available as a life style and very few people chose it despite not having to slaughter anything smart, and despite fish being very easy to kill and butcher from a literal and moral perspective.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Well I agree with you that I don't think it was much of a deterrent, because that was the reality of how people were raised. But I think these days many people have never killed the animals they eat, and they were also not raised in the same conditions, so I suspect that forcing people to kill their own animals today would indeed be somewhat of a deterrent, at least to certain groups of people. But this is of course all just my opinion and speculation.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If more people had to kill their meat, we would probably live in a very different world and there would be a lot more vegans.

I agree with your overall post, but you have the conclusion backwards.

The closer you are to hunting or slaughtering the more it's just a normal part of life. I've never met a vegan when I grew up in a rural area around farms, only after I moved to the city and it's almost exclusivly people that grew up in the city.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

vegan here who grew up on farms. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they aren't common.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago

Oh you’re vegan, too? Because I’m vegan!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Well, I wouldn't say vegans are common anywhere (where I've lived). It's like 1-2% of the population.

And while my point indeed was totally anecdotal, it goes beyond just knowing people. There are other hints. I still often visit family in my childhood home area and even today you can notice a different in marketing. Restaurants there often don't even mark meals as vegan on the menu, while restaurants in big cities often have an entire section for vegan meals.

Also supermarkets specialising on bio food and such (our equivilant of like wholefoods) aren't present at all. You'd have to drive like 30km to get to one. Also in regular supermarkets meat replacement options are either not availible or poorly stocked.

So I'm not sure if it's a result or a cause, but I'd say it's much harder to be vegan in a rural area, just from a logistical standpoint. And you get a lot more local farmers markets, so you also have access to fresh and relativly cheap meat.

I've tried to search for some statistics about the distribution of vegans in urban and rural areas, but didn't find anything useful. I did find some quora and reddit threads with quite a few replies of people that have similar expirences to mine.

If you have any, please share.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, you're right it's a different thing to doing it in cities, cooking is important. In my experience, I have lots of vegan rural friends however that's due to my social circle and isn't representive. In the uk apparently we are on 4.7% vegan now (1567% increase in 10 years) its become noticeably more over the last few years but probably not to the same level as cities.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is that from people converting or because of immigration from places like India?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To be honest I'm not sure. The increase I have seen has been across all ethnicitys, mostly younger people though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ah interesting

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

You might be right. When I was young; didn't meet vegans until I experienced big cities.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Really, all you need is a small tractor to lift the steer after you've skinned it and to drop the gut. Skin the animal on the ground and roll it from side to side to get it all off, split the chest and cut out the anus, start lifting at the rear legs with chains through the achilles tendon, and pull the anus through, then as you lift more you can free the gut from the backbone and gravity will pull the gut down as you get higher.

Let it all fall on the skin, pull out the bits of organs you want or can feed the dog, and you have the carcass hanging now. Split with a sawsall and a long demolition blade. Make yourself a handhold between the fifth and sixth rib, then cut through the spine and breastbone above the 6th rib.

Leave as much fat on the inside of the cavity as possible so the tenderloin and brisket don't dry out when hanging. Try to hang it at 2-4C for a couple weeks.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This sounds like excellent advice. I don't even have a small tractor yet. Before steers, I'm going to have to string new fence. Next spring, if I'm lucky and have worked real hard, I'll be getting a bottle calve or two.

Did find a cinder block shed with a good roof that wasn't even listed. Has a loading ramp for a pickup. I'm real tempted to just outsource it.

Have a hernia and don't know if I can do it.

Do have a root cellar that will be perfect for hanging.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

It's not a bad job, but with a hernia you might find it distinctly unenjoyable. There's quite a bit of bending and kneeling as you skin, obviously.