Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Politics & Current Affairs => Topic started by: Shaker on September 16, 2018, 11:40:53 AM
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Something else that won't happen: https://tinyurl.com/y97pqltm
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Something else that won't happen: https://tinyurl.com/y97pqltm
The main reason it won't happen is consumer habits, especially a demand for cheap meat. I don't see that farmers are to blame for trying to fill supply and demand, especially given the prices that supermarkets are prepared to pay.
After Brexit the UK's meat will be coming from the Americas at even greater environmental cost and with far fewer welfare checks.
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... and many of the consumers being carnivorous pet cats and dogs.
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The numbers are hardly comparable though are they?
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https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article164990657.html
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She cited studies, including a 2009 report in the British Journal of Nutrition, showing dogs can do well on a meat-free diet.
Nothing we can do about cats, however. Not yet at least.
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Nothing we can do about cats, however. Not yet at least.
Cats are carnivorous. Imposing a vegetarian diet on them isn't fair. Dogs are far more omnivorous by nature.
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Cats are carnivorous. Imposing a vegetarian diet on them isn't fair. Dogs are far more omnivorous by nature.
That's what I mean. Dogs like humans are omnivorous and also like humans can and do live perfectly well and happily on a vegetarian diet; cats are obligate carnivores and can't.
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That's what I mean. Dogs like humans are omnivorous and also like humans can and do live perfectly well and happily on a vegetarian diet; cats are obligate carnivores and can't.
I was agreeing with you. And I don't see how that can change.
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I don't know. Can cats live healthily on a non-meat diet fortified with (especially) taurine? I don't know enough about the subject to say.
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I’m reluctant to foist human values on cats without good reason.
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I was agreeing with you. And I don't see how that can change.
I can't believe I'm even suggesting this but
People could keep fewer cats as pets.
There, I said it. May the Ceiling Cat forgive me.
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The Celiing Cat knows, Jeremy. It can’t be unsaid.
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I’m reluctant to foist human values on cats without good reason.
Reducing meat and dairy production is a good enough reason for all manner of reasons, surely.
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I can't believe I'm even suggesting this but
People could keep fewer cats as pets.
Or we could go for the best, win-win solution: fewer people!
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Reducing meat and dairy production is a good enough reason for all manner of reasons, surely.
Not convinced we should force it on a species that is essentially a carnivore. Cats choose to live with us and they can survive pretty well without us. If we have them in our homes then we should accept that they are what they are and not something we think they should be. Spaying/neutering and vaccinations are different as they can save the cat's life.
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Something else that won't happen: https://tinyurl.com/y97pqltm
Try telling this to the chap I met this afternoon - at his farm....I wouldn't advise telling him face to face, though.
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I drive across France fairly frequently. I am always aware of the demands made on agricultural resources by our diet.
The Beauce - an area lying between the Seine and the Loire - is a vast prairie-like monoculture of maize (there are variations due to the need to rotate crops) and further south places like Poitou-Charentes and the Garonne valley have vistas of maize and sorghum and sometimes alfalfa.
Seldom is any livestock seen. When it is it will be, perhaps, half a dozen cows in a grassy field. Cattle - for beef and milk - are found in relatively small areas in Normandy, Brittany and northern France. My guess is that, perhaps, five times the land area is devoted to growing crops than to farming cattle. But this does not mean that the crops are for human consumption, they are not. They mainly are for cattle feed.
Our demand for beef means that cattle are not raised in fields, eating grass but frequently indoors in large number consuming concentrated manufactured cattle feed.
If just a portion of the land used to maize could be devoted to other crops it might be possible to provide people with a richer, varied and interesting diet. I would welcome this - and I am a carnivore ...
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My guess is that, perhaps, five times the land area is devoted to growing crops than to farming cattle. But this does not mean that the crops are for human consumption, they are not. They mainly are for cattle feed.
Our demand for beef means that cattle are not raised in fields, eating grass but frequently indoors in large number consuming concentrated manufactured cattle feed.
If just a portion of the land used to maize could be devoted to other crops it might be possible to provide people with a richer, varied and interesting diet. I would welcome this - and I am a carnivore ...
Got it in one 👍
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The beans grown around here are for cattle feed. Fields and fields of them.
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The beans grown around here are for cattle feed. Fields and fields of them.
That is a new one on me, I have never heard of beans being used as cattle fodder before, what sort of beans?
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That is a new one on me, I have never heard of beans being used as cattle fodder before, what sort of beans?
Magic ones.
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That is a new one on me, I have never heard of beans being used as cattle fodder before, what sort of beans?
Eh?
They've been grown for winter fodder for decades - Dumfrieshire was famous for the beab fields in the 1890s.
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Eh?
They've been grown for winter fodder for decades - Dumfrieshire was famous for the beab fields in the 1890s.
They weren't grown for cow fodder in my home island, or on the farm, which abutted our previous property, which had beef cattle. Nor are they grown in our present neighbourhood.
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They weren't grown for cow fodder in my home island, or on the farm, which abutted our previous property, which had beef cattle. Nor are they grown in our present neighbourhood.
It's official then. Cattle aren't fed on beans. Settled.
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It's official then. Cattle aren't fed on beans. Settled.
Silly! I didn't say that at all, I just said it wasn't something I had come across before.
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It's official then. Cattle aren't fed on beans. Settled.
My theory is that cattle struggle to open the cans (and who hasn't had that same problem at least once!).
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My theory is that cattle struggle to open the cans (and who hasn't had that same problem at least once!).
They should be given special can openers designed for the use of cattle. ;D
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Or we could go for the best, win-win solution: fewer people!
OK. After you.
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Wouldn't dream of it. You first.
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That is a new one on me, I have never heard of beans being used as cattle fodder before, what sort of beans?
Field beans, such as the Martock bean. Been grown for animal fodder for centuries.
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Field beans, such as the Martock bean. Been grown for animal fodder for centuries.
The clue that I got was when a local farmer said to me, 'the beans I grow are used as animal fodder'.
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Sterling work, Morse ;)
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Wouldn't dream of it. You first.
I'm not the one making the suggestion.
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I'm not the one making the suggestion.
For goodness’ sake. Just have three rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
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For goodness’ sake. Just have three rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
OK. Shaker, you go first...
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OK. Shaker, you go first...
You don’t take turns in Rock, Paper, Scissors.
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You don’t take turns in Rock, Paper, Scissors.
I know.
It was a joke.
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I know.
It was a joke.
Funnily enough I wasn't seriously suggesting that you and Shaker play Rock, Paper Scissors to decide which of you should make the ultimate sacrifice.