I'm one who cares about it, and for quite a few reasons...and I take just a few simple steps to remedy the current situation for meats in the US.

My reasons, cruelty is one, but another that stems along with the cruelty is nutritional value. One big issue with factory farms is the ratio of Omega 3 fats to Omega 6 fats...Omega 3's in abundance are good for us, Omega 6 in abundance are bad. Factory farmed meat has a ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 of 1 to 10. The beef I purchase for my family at a farm (grass fed) is at a ratio of 1/1 or 1/2. This is huge on health and heart disease.

Factory farm cows are sick. The grains they are fed destroy their rumen (it's a stomach in cattle that ferments grass for digestion), They become more susceptible to disease, and are fed antibiotics in their feed to keep them from dying before they are slaughtered (this is bad for us, as it gives those who eat this meat constant exposure to antibiotics). They are made fattier with the grains, not healthier. The diet changes their rumen to be more acidic, and allows for an E-coli that is passable to humans to be bred (the E-coli that is in grass fed cows is destroyed in the human guts acidity, but the grain-fed rumen has a similar ph to the human gut and makes for E-coli that makes us sick). At about 16 months, they go to slaughter just before the grain diet would kill them.

These animals stand around in their own filth, with little room to move. They are mass processed. These companies have gotten to the point that they strip everything they can to make a buck. Hamburger that would normally be tossed due to E-coli contamination is now treated with ammonia, and then sold to us at the super market, ect. (I've been eating grass-fed beef for a few years now, and tried to cut out budget a bit when we ran out of hamburger with supermarket burger. We ended up throwing it out because we could taste the chemicals in the beef.)

Everything we eat is affected by how we raise it. The scary thing is that to get the same nutrition out of foods at the supermarket, compared to 70-80 years ago, we'd have to eat 3 times as much. Our mass production has cut down nutrition by that much pretty much across the board.

There's too much wrong with the food system in the US currently. Almost all of it was caused by a man named Nixon. For me and my family, because of what is wrong with the system we've decided to buy a small farm in 4-5 years, and raise our own food, it's that much of an issue to us (and government regulation continues to try to kill small farms, and we feel this will continue).

Between our food system and the food pyramid over the past 40 years America has gotten fatter and sicker. We've become dumb consumers that can't think for ourselves (adding carbs/sugars, and removing healthy animal fats from our diets) and eventually, this really will kill us. Food science is all about profit, not health, and the USDA food pyramid is about getting rid of surplus grain ect, not about the health of Americans. They are NOT a medical association.

I could probably write for days, as this is an issue that really frustrates me, but I'll stop here. I do hope things change before it's too late.

ok, I came here cause I thought you were talking about the meat in your pants and I was like...wha? What do you mean where did it come from?

Ok, I do, I buy big store brands. They are a bit cheaper and I hope a little more cleaner than smaller brands that I never heard of before...either way, my friend works in the meat factory, he tells me horrible things. He became a vegetarian right afterward.

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ok i was an animal science major and i know that being cruel to the animals does not normally happen. maybe for every 100 companies maybe 5 mistreat their animals. i know there are some out there, and that is horrible that they would do something like. but they need them to be healthy as well as safe not only for meat but for their hides as well. The shows and videos you have seen have all been from maybe 1 or 2 places but trust me if they want their money the companies will take very good care of them and i know cause i have been to several farms. as for the grains that is to fatten them up and their rumen will be fine because of the reguritation and chewing their cud.

but i guess everyone has their own opinion

Okay, jokes aside.. I know where meat comes from, what happens to those poor animals, but I'm still going to eat it. I know that sounds horrible but yeah.. The beast in me reminds me that meat tastes good. So I will continue to consume those poor souls.

Last edited by Identity Crisis at 2:36 am, Feb 22 2011

The opening of throats and letting the animal bleed to death, which we saw in the video, isn't a result of industrial profit chasing, it's the Halal way of slaughtering, so thank religion for that, thank islam, for that bit of needless suffering you so oppose.

But yeah I care where my meat comes from, probably not in the way you'd think but I do care. I'd much rather have an animal that was shot in the woods not far from here, hung and bled out, gutted, skinned and chopped up by someone I know. But I am not opposed to mystery meat as long as it tastes good.

(P.S. Peta are a bunch of wankers.)

Last edited by havoccc at 7:16 am, Feb 22 2011

One note. Cows aren't fed with grain. They're fed with corn. It's cheaper, and just as bad ^^

Corn is a grain.

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"Officially, this machine doesn't exist, you didn't get it from me,
and I don't know you. Make sure it doesn't leave the building."

Good point. I'm an idiot blah blah blah.

this is where i live

the only thing i care about meat is that whether or not they are clean...

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its cold down here fam ~

Yes.
I refuse to eat anything from McDonalds. Also any of those $1 microwave "meals" are out. Mostly those obviously genetically modified animals. Like when you buy chicken and there are those huge legs or wings with extra meat that really shouldn't be there and tastes and looks weird. Chicken legs the size of turkey legs...
I live in Wisconsin, so most of the beef (store bought) is fresh, so there's no big problems there. I do get a steak every now and then that's laden with fat and chewy meat.
As long as the animal was worn down with a broken spirit, beat to death over the course of an 8 hour shift with sticks, and crammed into a pen with 5-10 other critters that was made for one, and filmed. Can't forget to get the emotion in the chicken's eyes before slinging them against the wall. Or when the cow has a sledgehammer brought down on it's skull 5-10 times before it stops making sounds to the song "You Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer (I must witness this, whilst dancing the Macarena with Mexican migrant workers and simultaneously clubbing baby seals to line the inside on my blood-stained boots with their fur). Those are my main qualifications for meat. Basically, if it pisses off PETA, it's good for me.
Also, anyone ever tie a horse or cow to a truck and drive? Those beasts sure can take a lot of road rash before shutting up. Literally paints the road. Fills up cracks, too.
Another fun thing: Chasing down deer in a field with a truck. They sure are slow on uneven, mushy ground. Then hitting them with a baseball bat until they give up. Finally, when they collapse, we take score and leave the deer to fertilize the field.
I don't give two poops about animals. As long as the merciless beating they received doesn't change the taste and/or texture of my meat or the quality of my coat, I don't care. They'd die one way or another. Imagine a cow out in the wild being eaten alive by a pack of wolves. But that's different, isn't it?
"What if you were an animal?"
I'd be painfully killed by a friggin' human! I'd only hope I was a cat taken in by some old lady, I guess. Or a hemophiliac. Or something willing to eat people, but since we taste like ass nothing will. I'd be a vulture, gleefully vomiting on people who get near me, eating the rabbit you "accidentally" clipped with your back tire yesterday
I could write for days about how little I care, but I'll stop here. All in all, we are the top of the food chain and those animals should be happy we don't cook them all alive (excluding certain Asian countries ). Tie yourself to a cow if you don't like it. Nobody cares about the films PETA makes aside from PETA and their supporters. Everyone else is like "So that's how they got them so tasty!"

Oh, I do find the idea very disturbing that antibacterial-cure might actually fail if you eat much chicken from factory farming. It seems they get so much antibacterials our bodies get used to it...

..it's not that your bodies get used to the antibacterial...
The bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics.. So, they become "super bacteria", which then requires stronger antibiotics... rinses and repeat.

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"Officially, this machine doesn't exist, you didn't get it from me,
and I don't know you. Make sure it doesn't leave the building."

Couldnt help but notice...




In conclusion, slits to the 2 veins gives a quick death whereas stunning is more of torture than other ways of killing an animal.

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Rape is imminent.

Well to tell you the truth no, meat is meat and I don't care much because from the quality of the meat in the junk I eat recently I judge it is very possible that it may come from very unhappy dogs, cats, rats, pigeons and other animals that may live in the vicinity. Well the food's taste is decent so I really do not care about the origin of the meat.

I'm sorry... every time PETA comes up I think of the Onion News Network.
Heroic PETA Commandos Kill 49, Save Rabbit
Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women


But seriously. No. Not too affected by the PETA shock and awe tactics. They take the rare and worst possible instances of animal cruelty in the food, drug, cosmetic, and zoo industry in order to target the public (with some rather despicable advertising aimed at children).

Regarding Antibiotics:




They're not supposed to use broad spectrum antibiotics. We don't use the same antibiotics for medical purposes as the food industry uses in their feed.

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