Very upsetting for animal lovers, but important.

[blue]

OK guys, apologies in advance for any upset this will cause the animal lovers, but I'm posting this link to a petition by animalsaviours.org who are trying to do something about an appalling situation in China. Cats and dogs are being skinned alive for their fur, which is used to make trinkets. The animals are left to die in shock and agony. Apparently it's 'easier to skin a warm, living animal than a dead one.'

I'm linking directly to the page with the petition, please be warned if you explore the site there are extremely distressing photos and video demonstrating this practice is going on. You might want to avoid those.

http://animalsaviors.org/petition.html


Please, please take a minute out of your day to sign this petition, and if you visit any other boards with general interest forums, please post the link.

Thanks.

[RobB]

I've just signed.

Its dreadful but then no more dreadful than the French who slice off the legs of live frogs and then chuck the frog away into a basket to die.

Sadly animal cruelty goes on the world over.

[sound world]

Signed
(as quickly as poss so as not to see any pictures)

Closer to home,did anyone see Jamie Oliver's exposé of the UK's non-freerange chicken industry? Zillions of chicks are gassed every day,among other horrors.

[RobB]

No, I didn't see that but nothing surprises me these days.
It seems that nothing matters anymore so long as there's money involved.

[blue]

Thanks so much for signing, chaps. Hope everyone else who reads the topic will too. And again, please pass the link on to other boards if you can, and to friends and family who might feel strongly enough to sign.

[alx5962]

Very upsetting for animal lovers, but important : when you eat animals they need to be killed first

[RobB]

Very upsetting for animal lovers, but important : when you eat animals they need to be killed first

You obviously havn't watched 'Old Boy' where the hero eats a live squid ?

[alx5962]

Very upsetting for animal lovers, but important : when you eat animals they need to be killed first

You obviously havn't watched 'Old Boy' where the hero eats a live squid ?

I did ! You should know that as we watch the same kind of movies
oysters are eaten alive too BTW

[ruth1998]

My first thought was "Why don't they just kill them first?" I was sickened when I read the answer in your post.
Yeah, this stuff goes on all over the place, whether we know about it or not. I used to have a friend that was big against the horse slaughter horses in the US.
It's like...we're supposed to be different from animals. We're supposed to have (and use) a conscience. It's all so very sad.

[blue]

My first thought was "Why don't they just kill them first?" I was sickened when I read the answer in your post.

I actually left out the most upsetting part of the answer, in fact. The official explanation from the Chinese is that it's 'easier to skin a warm, living animal that's convulsing in agony than a dead one.' The convulsions help the skin to come off.

The discussion that ensued on the board I got this link from resulted in several people posting links to information about the practices that go on in slaughter houses in our own countries. Did you know, for instance, that pigs are killed by being stunned and then dropped into tanks of boiling water? (Again, apparently the skin comes off better.) Because they're not actually dead when they hit the water, there's a large mechanical arm in the tank that holds them down for the few minutes they struggle until they drown. Did you know that cows and calves and sheep are sometimes still alive when the skinning and splitting process begins? Or that horses sometimes suffocate to death in their own blood?

Yeah, me neither. I can't believe I've been contributing to this by being a consumer. Suffice to say, the upset this has caused me in the last few days has resulted in my deciding once and for all to go vegetarian. I've often had phases of vegetarianism over the years, purely because my body feels healthier when I don't eat flesh, but after learning all this I simply cannot have anything to do with it in any way. The suffering these animals go through on the way to death is something I'm not OK with.

[sound world]

You can just choose free range meat from animals whose lives (and deaths) have been respected.There are plenty of providers in the UK these days,since more and more people are finally waking up to the horrors of intensive farming methods.
'Going vegetarian' has just as many pitfalls.Unless the vegetables you buy are guaranteed organic,it's just another cycle of capitalism running amok with sprays and farming methods which endanger other natural wildlife.

[blue]

You can just choose free range meat from animals whose lives (and deaths) have been respected.There are plenty of providers in the UK these days,since more and more people are finally waking up to the horrors of intensive farming methods.

Yeah, from the reading I've been doing over the past few days, this seems to be an increasingly popular option for some people. The big obstacle for many people though is that free range, humanely killed meat is breathtakingly expensive compared to the ordinary kind. Most families on average incomes could never afford to eat free range meat on a weekly basis. It's so frustrating. I can understand why a mother with a family to feed would choose to buy a supermarket chicken for £3, and not a free range one for five times the price, you know? Until that problem is resolved, people are not going to switch en masse to free range.

'Going vegetarian' has just as many pitfalls.Unless the vegetables you buy are guaranteed organic,it's just another cycle of capitalism running amok with sprays and farming methods which endanger other natural wildlife.

Luckily I already buy organic vegetables, mostly - most of the big supermarkets have a good range now for not much more cost than the pesticide-ridden ones. This never used to be the case of course, when organic fruit and vegetables first came on the market they were hugely more expensive. But as the years have gone on and more and more producers have turned to organic farming, bringing the costs to supermarkets down, and consumers have let it be known that they'd prefer organic fruit and veg if they could afford it, the situation has improved enormously. Maybe the same thing will happen with meat, but it will take years.

For me personally now it's not even an issue of cost. I just cannot reconcile myself any longer to eating something that's been killed. It's become an emotional issue. I can't do it anymore.

I did my weekly shop today and spent a good amount of time looking at labels. It's amazing how many non-meat foods contain animal products. I've even had to change the yogurt I normally eat, because it contains gelatine. Ordinary cheddar cheese is made with animal rennet, which I've discovered is basically an enzyme taken from the body of a dead calf. Many wines are made with something poetically called 'islinglass' - the dried innards of dead fish. I mean, for god's sake. Why are so many non-flesh foods made with bits of dead animals?

Anyway, I feel a bit happier at least knowing I've made the choice to opt out of participating in this trade. I just wish I'd known all this years ago.

[alx5962]

I'm fully vegetarian since 2002 and I really want to tell the price of meatless meals is much lower than one with meat. The only problem is to be more inventive that's all. Of course it's easier to cook meat at first,
Of course to grow vegetables has a nature cost but to feed animals we need vegetables and at the end 10 times more cereals and vegetables are produced (and huge amount of water too) to feed these poor animals to produce the same amount of protein...

But I know it's a big change for ourself to going vegetarian so what I usually tell to my friends is to cook mealess meals 2-3 times a week at least if the feel concerned about future of humankind, as we save gallons of water and lowering global warming just by not eating meat for once.
We already need 2 to 5 times the surface of Earth I we would need to feed correctly the whole world at the same level of modern quality life we are used to live. So I guess it worth to try to feed in a new way from time to time. Your grand children will thank you for that.

[sound world]

I became a vegetarian in 1979 (!),for much the same kind of reasons as Beth now.
Back then I was considered some kind of weird crank (along with espousing all kinds of other green issues,all of which are more and more part of the mainstream,thankfully); luckily there were other weird cranks,and a few shops for weird cranks too.
Since then I've periodically returned to eating meat,but ONLY free range organic meat from places I know and trust.I'm lucky enough to have friends who are organic farmers and fully respect the life-cycle of their animals.
Yes,it is more expensive; but,personally,I don't ever believe there is any substitute for quality.You are richer in the long run by living your life qualitatively rather than quantatively,I am certain.I'm doing alright 30 years on.
I think what you're heading for looks like veganism,Beth.I used to have a vegan girlfriend,and life for her could be pretty tricky.Yep,lots of consulting labels.You have to give up a lot of nice things like most alcohol (isinglass-fishscales-is used to clarify beer among other things); leather shoes/goods/BOOTS etc etc.
Alex,I prefer to disagree about the possibilities of 'inventiveness' with vegetarian eating.I find that most meat-eaters are pretty unimaginative when it comes to cooking,and since meat overrides the 'accompanying' flavours,a lot of the subtleties of taste in vegetables become lost.I find vegetarian dishes are usually more interesting and varied,although until relatively recently the rest of the world didn't think so.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've eaten out and been offered (by meat-eating types) an omelette as the only vegetarian possibility.Luckily that has changed massively over the last decade.

As I said,most of the green issues that I grew up fighting for have become part of the mainstream.The last bastion is the worst of all,the biggest culprit,and the one that most people will argue themselves blue in the face to hang on to,that they can't give up,that they need every day etc etc.Can you guess what I'm talking about?

[blue]

That would be the beloved metal killing machine that travels our roads, Dave. Ugh. I once had a massive stand-up row with a colleague at my old job, who was a rabid anti-smoker and never stopped whining about the effects of breathing in other people's smoke. One day I finally had enough and pointed out to him that he, like all car drivers, was contributing to far more deaths from poisonous fumes than any smoker. You should have heard the maniacal rationalising crap he came out with. [l)]