I'm not a vegan but...

I'm not that big on eating meat either. Especially when I'm preparing it myself. I end up losing my appetite for it because raw meat looks gross. I'm making pot roast tonight and DH bought a huge chunk of meat for it. The package says it's a top round roast which I believe is the shoulder of a cow. I started to cut it into chunks and noticed it looked suspiciously like a giant heart. It was real fatty too. I'll probably won't eat much of it. I used to like eating meat more than I do now. I don't know what happened but it just grosses me out anymore.

I hear ya. I'm not a vegitarian or vegan either, but at the same time, I'm not a big meat eater. Whenever I do make a meat dish of some type, I always just give myself a small portion and divide up the rest between Dh and kid.

You'd have loved it here about 30 minutes ago, I was separating and packaging up ground venison, mmmm, squishy :-) Cats LOVED every second of it though! I had 6 cats pushing three big dogs out of the way for snacks!

I understand completely... My cousin raises pigs to show in the county fair where he lives. After the season, they butcher them and eat them! Every time I go over there I have to ask if the meat they're serving me has a name. If it does, I can't eat it...

I got reminded today about why i'm eating less kinds of meat. Waiting at the bus stop, one of those huge trucks that carries cattle to their death zoomed past (it was empty) the front of the truck said 'kebab king' and the worst smell hit me when it went past.



So this is one of the reasons i've managed to stick to chicken and fish

If you do a little research on the chicken, you might not want to eat those, either. There's not a lot of difference in how they are farmed. Fish-farming, too, not so great.

As I'm reading this I am eating a pastrami sandwich... It was so good for the first few bites..

I have to admit somtimes I crave meat... and my family normally has at least some meat every day. But I am compleetly uposed to eating anything that had a name.

When I was younger my brother used to torment me when I had my bunny "Flipper" (he was an amputee bunny) My brother used to call "Haussenfeffer" (sp?)

It's so good to hear others who have these feelings! I've been a vegetarian almost my whole life (following my mom's example), and although I do feed my cats meat, and I don't make obnoxious remarks to meat-eating friends in restaurants or anything, I do have to admit... it flabbergasts me that anyone can look into the eyes of a cow and then go have a hamburger.

Some years ago in Chicago, I think it was, cattle were being herded through a narrow path into the building where they were to be slaughtered, and there was a ten-foot fence keeping them in... but one cow panicked and somehow SCRAMBLED OVER THE FENCE and escaped! It made the national news, because there were people trying to help the cow hide from the authorities who were out to catch her. She was caught eventually, but because of the public outcry, the meatpacker let her live (or so the press was told, anyway -- I hope it was true).

Anyway, we've all seen cows. They're beautiful, gentle creatures, but they are not built for grace or agility, and they are not known as bold adventurers.

But this cow knew she was facing death, and her terror was so great that she miraculously climbed a ten-foot fence to save her own life. What courage! What a passion to live! How can we possibly justify killing such a creature?

I've heard people claim that meat is necessary for protein and such, but that's nonsense -- it is not good for our health, and as for protein, beans and peas are far better for you. As for feeding the world, you can feed many, many more people with the corn or wheat you can grow on ten acres than you could ever feed with the number of cows those acres can support. So even from a strictly practical viewpoint, meat just doesn't make sense.

In this day and age, at least in industrialized countries, meat is completely unnecessary except as pet food. In fact, we'd be healthier without it. But we still raise and slaughter innocent creatures just because it's always been done that way, and nobody has the political courage to say, "Let's start retooling to help ranchers turn their land to other uses, and phase out this particular type of animal cruelty." (Same reason the tobacco companies are allowed to continue producing an addictive drug far more deadly than heroine or cocaine -- because changing things would require a long-term commitment and a significant economic shift.)

I'm afraid the only way it will ever change is if more people become enlightened and demand begins to dwindle. Not in my lifetime, I'm thinking, but maybe within this century.

Okay, I'm done with the soapbox. Who's next?

Originally Posted by SwampWitch

If you do a little research on the chicken, you might not want to eat those, either. There's not a lot of difference in how they are farmed. Fish-farming, too, not so great.

Click to expand...

I know but i was a huge lamb/beef/pork eater the last two years since i met Tristan, so cutting those out completely for the last 6 or so months has been a huge step, and extremely difficult without completely going vegetarian.

The raising of livestock is also taking a HUGE toll on our environment.
Here is an interesting read about it, called "livestock's Long Shadow"-some of you guys have probably heard of it.
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/libr...d/A0701E00.pdf

I'll never forget travelling cross-country & passing the stockyards in Southern California.Hundreds of the poor things were in this horrible hot dirty stinking field with nothing but the baking sun & the dirt. No green grass, nothing but misery. You could smell it long before you passed it & had to roll up the windows because of the flies. I don't want to imagine the monstrous things these poor creatures have to see before death comes to them.
I remember a documentary I saw years ago about slaughtehouses & remember it being horrible.
Have you ever read the book "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair?
Meat has been kind of grossing me out too, especially beef & definitely pork-I can understand why Muslims think pork is dirty. Sometimes chicken will gross me out with the veins & tendons.
We have access to fresh deep-sea fish markets around here, I'm not so sure I'd be willing to give that up, but it is expensive.