I see that almost everyone in the topic not only eats meat but most can't even imagine life without eating plenty of it even for every meal. But through most of the human history people were mostly vegetarians, meaning that they ate meat only a few times a year at most. Even the Roman gladiators were vegetarians and ate a lot of barley.

Animals were held for other purposes than for eating. Like sheep for their wool and cows to plow the fields, but today they barely live for long and are grown for food.

But, today that life is forgotten. People would rather eat some low grade meat like spam and hot dogs than non meat products. Like, a lot of people don't know what the alternative is and think that vegetarians eat mostly soy products like tofu. And there is that suspicious mentality for non meat eaters that they are in some ridiculous cult, (like you have to have some ideological reason for not eating meat every day, rather than just behaving like humans behaved for most of the history) which no doubt comes from meat industry, similar how oil companies are trying to portray drivers of electric cars.

And how can you blame people when the quality of food is degraded. People used to be filled with just eating bread which today is unimaginable when our bread is little more than a spiderweb that we use with eating meat. And even meat is not "meat". Sure if you eat a steak, but most people eat meat products without knowing what is in it, and we even have a saying "Anyone who loves sausages should never watch them being made" and we're fine with it.

For most of human history people starved on little more than bread. I think that anyone who wants to change the way we view or eat or produce food ought to be careful invoking a mythical past where people were Just Fine Thanx without all the food options we have today. Even today, with them, food insecurity is still a huge issue. Nothing about prehistory, or written history since, suggests that the people living such lives were comfortable with that lot.

It is weird and cultish, btw, to assume the things casually suggested so far account for why we raise livestock. We obviously care more than any other species and more than at any other time for our own species and the meat industry tricked precisely no one into enjoying steak. We haven't gotten there yet but it's pretty much inevitable that someone suggests self righteous suicide for our species as a "solution"...to cruelty.... - which would complete the trifecta of - "everyone else is a monster - the world is run by an evil conspiracy - the solution is this here kool-aid".

I saw if you want to live on fruits and berries...be my guest.

If you want to have an omelet...go for it.

Ice cream...knock yourself out.

Want burger or a pork chop now and then...have at it.

Vegetarianism and veganism can become quite cult-like.

Fuxxake...some people would bitch if they were hung with a new rope.

(August 14, 2024 at 8:28 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: For most of human history people starved on little more than bread.  I think that anyone who wants to change the way we view or eat or produce food ought to be careful invoking a mythical past where people were Just Fine Thanx without all the food options we have today.  Even today, with them, food insecurity is still a huge issue.  Nothing about prehistory, or written history since, suggests that the people living such lives were comfortable with that lot.  

It is weird and cultish, btw, to assume the things casually suggested so far account for why we raise livestock.  We obviously care more than any other species and more than at any other time for our own species and the meat industry tricked precisely no one into enjoying steak.  We haven't gotten there yet but it's pretty much inevitable that someone suggests self righteous suicide for our species as a "solution"...to cruelty.... - which would complete the trifecta of - "everyone else is a monster - the world is run by an evil conspiracy - the solution is this here kool-aid".

The Lakota or the Blackfoot thought nothing of stampeding a couple of hundred bison off a cliff to strip them for roasting, making jerky, tipi shells, coats, bowstrings, water-bottles, sewing needles, warrior decorations, tipi-ties, and more. They also saw themselves living in harmony with nature. Not sure those bison would agree.

They still had folks out gathering plant-foods, weiring fish, and so on, too.

As noted above, even vegans support an industry that kills animals for their own dietary preferences, albeit indirectly, which still undercuts the moral arrogance of some of them.

I'm not sure there's much morality involved in feeding.

The Grand Nudger Wrote:For most of human history people starved on little more than bread. I think that anyone who wants to change the way we view or eat or produce food ought to be careful invoking a mythical past where people were Just Fine Thanx without all the food options we have today.

Thing is that people today are the ones who are starving. Talk to any dietitian and he'll tell you that people in the US are malnourished and also overeating themselves to death.

Go into any store and almost all of the food you can buy is junk: it's designed to make you hungry and eat more. Now, is that a coincidence or is there some industry behind it who will encourage you to keep buying this useless food with pride?

The Grand Nudger Wrote:It is weird and cultish, btw, to assume the things casually suggested so far account for why we raise livestock. We obviously care more than any other species and more than at any other time for our own species and the meat industry tricked precisely no one into enjoying steak.

And yet, I said the opposite. I excluded the stake and talked about other meat products. Although, the stake today is not what it used to be but is 50% fat and thus full of cholesterol.

So much to unpack. It's the grain industry that's selling you all that shelf stable garbage, not the livestock industry. Food deserts don't carry fresh meat or veg and won't no matter what we grow. Ironically, the same industry that we're told would pick up the slack in a more ethical and healthier future. I have doubts about the claim and the industry itself.

Steak is health food in comparison.

(August 14, 2024 at 11:36 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: And yet, I said the opposite. I excluded the stake and talked about other meat products. Although, the stake today is not what it used to be but is 50% fat and thus full of cholesterol.

I don't know where you're buying your steaks, but we have center-cut sirloin or boneless New Yorks perhaps once a month, and they sure aren't 50% fat. I'll put up a pic in here next time I get some.

ETA: from a few years ago, a center-cut sirloin, baked potato, and cob corn:



Wasn't any 50% fat, but it was 100% great.

Burger meat, one of the fattiest beef products you'll find, is 27% fat - but this is achieved by holding back the fattiest cuts of alot of cattle - as a cow is 11% fat by weight. At 30% fat by weight you've reached the limit of what the usda will allow you to call "fresh beef sausage". Beyond that, say with particularly low quality processed meat products, the protein is adulterated with GRAS cellulose, not additional fats - as it's cheaper and helps the product hold it's form. Additionally, you can continue to call a thing "beef" so long as you're not adding other meat products.

If we squint in just the right light we might suspect that this notion comes from enhanced marbling patterns in modern herds. It's true that todays cattle have more fat - but this is due as much to the improved conditions for modern livestock as it is the increased efficiency hanging more weight with less feed on fewer acres. The marbling isn't a plot, if producers didn't have to feed it in they wouldn't. It's consumer driven. How we like it. It's very difficult to get good marbling on grass fed beef, but the producers who can pull it off charge a premium for their trouble.

(August 14, 2024 at 10:46 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(August 14, 2024 at 8:28 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: For most of human history people starved on little more than bread.  I think that anyone who wants to change the way we view or eat or produce food ought to be careful invoking a mythical past where people were Just Fine Thanx without all the food options we have today.  Even today, with them, food insecurity is still a huge issue.  Nothing about prehistory, or written history since, suggests that the people living such lives were comfortable with that lot.  

It is weird and cultish, btw, to assume the things casually suggested so far account for why we raise livestock.  We obviously care more than any other species and more than at any other time for our own species and the meat industry tricked precisely no one into enjoying steak.  We haven't gotten there yet but it's pretty much inevitable that someone suggests self righteous suicide for our species as a "solution"...to cruelty.... - which would complete the trifecta of - "everyone else is a monster - the world is run by an evil conspiracy - the solution is this here kool-aid".

The Lakota or the Blackfoot thought nothing of stampeding a couple of hundred bison off a cliff to strip them for roasting, making jerky, tipi shells, coats, bowstrings, water-bottles, sewing needles, warrior decorations, tipi-ties, and more. They also saw themselves living in harmony with nature. Not sure those bison would agree.

They still had folks out gathering plant-foods, weiring fish, and so on, too.

As noted above, even vegans support an industry that kills animals for their own dietary preferences, albeit indirectly, which still undercuts the moral arrogance of some of them.

I'm not sure there's much morality involved in feeding.

There really isn't. You get hungry, you eat food. Couldn't be simpler. How people got it into their heads that there's some kind of "moral" impetus behind eating food is beyond me.

(August 14, 2024 at 11:36 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:

The Grand Nudger Wrote:For most of human history people starved on little more than bread. I think that anyone who wants to change the way we view or eat or produce food ought to be careful invoking a mythical past where people were Just Fine Thanx without all the food options we have today.

Thing is that people today are the ones who are  starving. Talk to any dietitian and he'll tell you that people in the US are malnourished and also overeating themselves to death.

Go into any store and almost all of the food you can buy is junk: it's designed to make you hungry and eat more. Now, is that a coincidence or is there some industry behind it who will encourage you to keep buying this useless food with pride?

The Grand Nudger Wrote:It is weird and cultish, btw, to assume the things casually suggested so far account for why we raise livestock. We obviously care more than any other species and more than at any other time for our own species and the meat industry tricked precisely no one into enjoying steak.

And yet, I said the opposite. I excluded the stake and talked about other meat products. Although, the stake today is not what it used to be but is 50% fat and thus full of cholesterol.

Yesterday my scale had me at a whopping 106.6 lbs.  This people in the US is not overeating and never really have.