is horse meat readily available in your country?

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:20 PM, rixxx said:

Maybe you guys should see what happens to these horses on their way to slaughter houses (and the slaughter that takes place) because horses have a really shit time in comparison to their beef/pork/lamb counterparts.

 

 

 

I'm happy to send you a 3,000 word report on the transport of animals across the EU and how and why there are so many more welfare issues with horses, but I'm sure you'll either be bored to tears or just become a Pescetarian like myself.

can you summarise briefly how/why they have a harder time?

We have all kinds of meat here, horse also.

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:51 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:20 PM, rixxx said:

Maybe you guys should see what happens to these horses on their way to slaughter houses (and the slaughter that takes place) because horses have a really shit time in comparison to their beef/pork/lamb counterparts.

 

 

 

I'm happy to send you a 3,000 word report on the transport of animals across the EU and how and why there are so many more welfare issues with horses, but I'm sure you'll either be bored to tears or just become a Pescetarian like myself.

 

can you summarise briefly how/why they have a harder time?

I'm curious about this too. ALL animals have a shit time on their journey to your plate.

  On 2/19/2013 at 4:52 PM, Iain C said:

 

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:51 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:20 PM, rixxx said:

Maybe you guys should see what happens to these horses on their way to slaughter houses (and the slaughter that takes place) because horses have a really shit time in comparison to their beef/pork/lamb counterparts.

 

 

 

I'm happy to send you a 3,000 word report on the transport of animals across the EU and how and why there are so many more welfare issues with horses, but I'm sure you'll either be bored to tears or just become a Pescetarian like myself.

 

can you summarise briefly how/why they have a harder time?

 

I'm curious about this too. ALL animals have a shit time on their journey to your plate.

if the implication is that horses are shipped further afield for slaughter so therefore suffer more it's kind of irrelevant to this discussion... the nags finding their way into your lasagne are more likely to be decrepit romanian cart horses no longer fit for purpose. not farmed animals for meat export.

  On 2/19/2013 at 5:16 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 2/19/2013 at 4:52 PM, Iain C said:

 

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:51 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:20 PM, rixxx said:

Maybe you guys should see what happens to these horses on their way to slaughter houses (and the slaughter that takes place) because horses have a really shit time in comparison to their beef/pork/lamb counterparts.

 

 

 

I'm happy to send you a 3,000 word report on the transport of animals across the EU and how and why there are so many more welfare issues with horses, but I'm sure you'll either be bored to tears or just become a Pescetarian like myself.

 

can you summarise briefly how/why they have a harder time?

 

I'm curious about this too. ALL animals have a shit time on their journey to your plate.

 

if the implication is that horses are shipped further afield for slaughter so therefore suffer more it's kind of irrelevant to this discussion... the nags finding their way into your lasagne are more likely to be decrepit romanian cart horses no longer fit for purpose. not farmed animals for meat export.

They do farm horses for meat, the issue is that horses are much more flighty in comparison to cattle so they produce more cortisone (stress hormone). Horses have a higher centre of gravity and their base is disproportionate to their body weight to all other livestock, this means that they should be given more room to balance (they have to spread their legs a little wider to balance, causing them to over heat and become dehydrated) whilst in transit however they are cramped into small spaces.

The horses used would have travelled miles across the EU in cramped conditions with poor ventilation, poor lighting and hardly any water or food along the way.

This travel is basically down to French and Italian consumers not wanting 'non EU' meat so they slaughter them in the EU even though they technically aren't. Slaughtering the animals in their country of origin would be far cheaper and would decrease poor welfare imposed on thousands every year.

It is true all animals have a shit time however in the UK we have the 'five freedoms' law which protects UK animals against a whole range of welfare issues. Romania is still not a full member of the EU and therefore do not have any EU animal welfare ruling, that although not as strict as UK is far better than most countries.

We also 'farm horse blood' for use in petri dishes, we keep horses alive and bleed them every few weeks. They also use sheep however horse are much more common place.

Pregnant mares are also kept and used for the urine they produce for premarin (hormone replacement therapy) they are kept standing in stalls with a tube that takes out any urine from the bladder, they are not allowed to turn and move. When the mare gives birth if it is a male it is usually slaughtered in front of them or sent for meat (as the mares are fed little to have higher urine concentrations they are too small for meat). As horses ovulate after birth they are put back into pregnancy to start the whole shit again.

Basically, horses have a pretty shit time with humans but a lot of stuff is kept from the public.

So don't be puttin that shit in ma lasagne okaay

after watching Samsara i ate a hamburger with bacon on it, even though i was incredibly disturbed by what i had just seen. So yeah what Hoodie said. #yolo

I like the idea of not eating meat, just not the reality of it. In all seriousness, it's very tasty and satisfying. If there were an alternative non meat product that was as satisfying and tasty as meat I'd ditch meat in a heartbeat.

That sounds incredibly selfish I know, but i think that's just the bottom line for most people.

yeah... I think Utopia has the real answer.

  On 2/20/2013 at 10:20 AM, rixxx said:

yeah... I think Utopia has the real answer.

Where is Jessica Hyde?

in all seriousness, it's quite jarring how Utopia is being aired amongst all of this scandal.

I haven't been watching that, even though loads of it was filmed where I work. Is it abut horse meat in Findus lasagnes?

  On 2/20/2013 at 3:01 PM, westhead said:

I haven't been watching that, even though loads of it was filmed where I work. Is it abut horse meat in Findus lasagnes?

nope it's not, and I won't say any more than that as it'll spoil it.

also, hello fellow northern-dweller

Greetings Widnes from Liverpool!

I do plan on watching it, as soon as Panasonic release a 4oD app for my telly.

i am a guilty meat and cheese eater, but i love it. honestly who the hell can eat nothing but vegetables, nuts and pasta. and tofu. i fuckin hate tofu.

  On 2/20/2013 at 2:57 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 2/20/2013 at 10:20 AM, rixxx said:

yeah... I think Utopia has the real answer.

Where is Jessica Hyde?

 

in all seriousness, it's quite jarring how Utopia is being aired amongst all of this scandal.

Ha I know, if I'm not careful I can see myself becoming like Wilson Wilson THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.

http://youtu.be/uS1c29imcog

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/meat-environment-deforestation_n_1633735.html

  Quote

 

Should people eat less meat? Meat consumption isn't just something that impacts your health; it's also played a huge role in problematic deforestation. Animals raised for meat use very large amounts of land -- land to graze and land used to raise crops that feed livestock -- and it's increasingly coming from tropical forests, especially the Amazon.

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists calls meat "ecologically inefficient" and says people should eat less of it:

The inefficiency is particularly high for beef, which uses about three-fifths of the world’s agricultural land yet produces less than 5 percent of its protein and less than 2 percent of its calories. Beef production causes global warming through its effects on deforestation, both directly through pasture and indirectly through its use of feed and forage, and also because of the methane, a powerful heat-trapping gas, that comes from the stomachs and manure of cattle.

Sorry to keep steering this away from horses, I just see a much larger problem at work here, and OK'ing the attitude of "as long as it's not horse meat, I'm glad to eat it!" isn't going to help matters in the long run.

I believe an increasingly large proportion of the rainforest is also being pissed away for soya production, and I say that as a sandal-wearing mostly-vegetarian wanker.

Deforestation most certainly WILL NOT be solved by people eating less meat.

Yeah, agricultural practices in general are not promoting the life of our world forests. With that said, meat still has to eat crops, and by growing meat, we take up to 10x the crops and 12x the land (as with beef) we need to just grow equivalent crop energy. I understand your concern, and I'm not even advocating complete vegetarianism (just get it locally and occasionally and things will be fine), but I don't really understand your attitude here. Raising meat to feed humans requires far more crops, and land, than just raising crops. Eating less meat is part of the solution to deforestation.

My attitude is that the problem is due to a much larger system (ie capitalism) and as long as that exists, consumerist gestures like eating less meat only serve to make us feel better.

I've had a few Tesco Lasagnes and I'd definitely recommend it, I thought it had a bit of a richer flavour to it than the ones I purchased a few years back.

@iain: I agree that capitalism is the root issue here, and I'd love to see it go away. Dismissing other potential solutions in the meantime is not a worthwhile approach though - we don't have that much time before we completely eradicate the Amazon, for instance. Give it 10-20 years of this treatment and it will be gone (if you think we can replace capitalism in the next two decades, plz to be sharing your literature and ideas). I'm sure you're aware for the myriad reasons for keeping huge ecosystems like the Amazon around, so I won't blab too much here. Governments all over the world need to step up and introduce legislation to stop the ridiculous false economies that give us all the illusion of "cheap food" and exotic products year-round, and I'm definitely aware that the US government needs to shape the fuck up first off. It's pretty insanely difficult to even get anything resembling a "democratic" process injected into multi-national treaties in land use, and our representatives here in the US are in no place to reject their monetary overlords, Lobbies & Industry, which is insane.

Nevertheless, encouraging people to stop calling on this attitude of "I JUST CAN'T IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT MEAT!" seems worthwhile IMO. Sorry to hear you don't agree.

  On 2/20/2013 at 5:20 PM, abusivegeorge said:

I've had a few Tesco Lasagnes and I'd definitely recommend it, I thought it had a bit of a richer flavour to it than the ones I purchased a few years back.

The cottage pies are nice too - nicer than Sainsbury's ones, the gravy's that bit thicker.

  On 2/20/2013 at 5:23 PM, luke viia said:

@iain: I agree that capitalism is the root issue here, and I'd love to see it go away. Dismissing other potential solutions in the meantime is not a worthwhile approach though - we don't have that much time before we completely eradicate the Amazon, for instance. Give it 10-20 years of this treatment and it will be gone (if you think we can replace capitalism in the next two decades, plz to be sharing your literature and ideas). I'm sure you're aware for the myriad reasons for keeping huge ecosystems like the Amazon around, so I won't blab too much here. Governments all over the world need to step up and introduce legislation to stop the ridiculous false economies that give us all the illusion of "cheap food" and exotic products year-round, and I'm definitely aware that the US government needs to shape the fuck up first off. It's pretty insanely difficult to even get anything resembling a "democratic" process injected into multi-national treaties in land use, and our representatives here in the US are in no place to reject their monetary overlords, Lobbies & Industry, which is insane.

 

Nevertheless, encouraging people to stop calling on this attitude of "I JUST CAN'T IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT MEAT!" seems worthwhile IMO. Sorry to hear you don't agree.

To be honest I think this "encouragement" tends to make people dig their heels in and resent you while clutching a gross handful of bacon or whatever.

And it seems to me that there's a nasty undercurrent of classism in attitudes like that. "If only those poor unenlightened sods could put the Big Macs down and grow their own veg, we could save the world." I'm not accusing you of this, by the way - but I do pick it up when people make similar arguments.

Organic, local etc. food is not a realistic option for a lot of people. Yes you can eat well on a tight budget, but it takes a lot of time and energy that many working people don't have.

Indeed, I should probably stop giving the ol' Dawkins 1-2-1-2-you're-a-stupid-asshole-and-you're-what's-wrong-with-humanity in here. Besides being nicer, I'm still not sure what to try. Baby steps, I guess. Here in Washington state there's a bill coming up in August that would prohibit corporate campaign funding of any legislators; that seems like a good way to get the ball rolling locally, anyway. I'll stop sidetracking the horsie thread now. After this edit:

The funny thing about the classism tip is that it's only through corporate subsidies on global food markets that people can even get "cheap" meat shipped halfway across the world; to procure crap like that you need to have a rich corporate class calling the shots. Encouraging local food production might seem pretty bourgeoisie, but even my parents back in Nebraska do it, raising chickens and a huge garden in their backyard. I do know the attitude you speak of though, it's :handegg:able no matter where it comes from.