Nonononononono...

[rimturse]

Quote Louis Theroux in African Hunting Holiday "I'll eat the meat, but I won't kill the animal".


ARGH! I really hate this hypocritical attitude! It's right up there on the rub-May-the-wrong-way list, and whenever I hear this, I want to whack the speaker over the head with a skillet.

Comments

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

I eat chicken, but I don't want to kill chickens. Same with beef.

And fish. But I won't eat fish if it still looks like fish.

::rubs May the wrong way and watches spark fly::

It comes all dead and nicely packed from the store. I pay for it that way and I appreciate it.

I *can* imagine me killing a chicken if I had to. I can't imagine me wielding the necessary tools to kill and butcher a cow, though. I'd find someone else to do it and barter. I'll bet there are lots of people who'd rather butcher a cow than sew or make bread or grow carrots.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

*frizzles*

You're not the worst, though. At least you don't have the "killing animals is horrible and wrong, but I'll eat them" attitude.

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

Egads, I don't. I feel a little guilty for not thinking the first part sometimes, but I had such a surfeit of nature shows this spring that even watching Spencer chewing on his freshly caught mice, I just shrug.

He had one that was all twitching alive the other day. That was a little gruesome.

Considering where and when I live, though, I don't consider it practical for everyone, or each family, to kill their own meat, mainly because that meat has to live somewhere and pig styes, cow and sheep barns, and chicken pens don't go well with crowded urban areas.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

*nods*

No, it's not practical or even possible for people to kill their own meat. What gets me is when people refuse to realise that because they eat meat an animal must die, and that's why I believe that people should not eat meat unless they are prepared to "in theory" to kill the animal themselves or at least take responsibility: that "an animal had to die in order for me to eat this hamburger".

Like Louis Theroux yesterday, the whole program his attitude was "killing animals is wrong" and it culminated with him trying to kill an animal and having a total break-down, because he could not, what to the viewers looked like, commit such an atrocious act. And yet he'd eat the meat.

Or a relative of mine, who thought that people who killed their own chicken were halfway on the road to being homocidal maniacs, and yet she happily eats her steaks,chicken wings, bbq pork, you name it.

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

She's only a quarter of the way to being a homicidal maniac, obviously, so you're probably still safe. . .for a while.

Maybe Louis should have started small. He could have squashed a few ants and mosquitos, worked up to slightly larger bugs, eventually maybe some cockroaches and later still, mice.

People are full of strange contradictions, though. I find that I myself am both more and less tolerant of people as I age. In the abstract, I have patience and understanding of humanity; in specific encounters I fail miserably at both. Well, not always, I suppose. But sometimes.

[toeknuckles.livejournal.com]

heh. a very good part of why i went vegetarian.
after some major health problems, i started eating fish, but i grew up fishing, and while i won't kill fish now it's more of an eco thing than "i can't kill a fish" thing.
i mean, i don't LIKE killing fish, i've always hated it. but i would/can do it. since the seas round here are over fished, though, i buy from sustainable fisheries mostly. makes me feel a little better about the whole thing. ;-)

with a cow though...or a pig. i reckon if me and a cow were trapped together on a desert island, that we'd just die together. i can't imagine ever being able to do it.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I can completely relate to that.

We're meat-eaters, but very careful where we get our produce from. We always buy ecological milk and eggs, most of the meat we eat comes from our neighbour, where we can see the animals living a good life on the field, before it is slaughtered and ends up in our freezer. With the fish, either C catches them himself or we buy fish with healthy populations. I'm a bit careful about fisheries, as many of them still pollute the environment with an excess of nutritients, but it's looking better and better for the fisheries with recirculation systems.

[toeknuckles.livejournal.com]

i worry about the polution with the fisheries too...but from what i understand, there are laws that are supposed to be on top of that. just gotta hope they actually enforce them properly, which is another thing all together, of course.
but yeah, sounds like the way you select your meat is pretty much ideal.