Then, when you try to legislate any kind of standard for humane livestock treatment, the farmers throw a hissy fit and block all the roads with their tractors.
Was that due to animal welfare regulations? Thought it had to do with regulations favoring mega farms and forcing small farms to stop.
It’s because of all kinds of things in different places
It wasn’t. Hes being deliberately deliberately disingenuous
It’s not possible to produce the amount of meat needed to feed our massive population while treating animals humanely.
There are really two options to deal with this:
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Most humans in the world become vegan – sounds great but it’s not gonna happen
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Reduce our population to sustainable numbers (by eliminating the driver of the population explosion, i.e. fossil energy) – maybe also not gonna happen
Edit: What (do I think) will happen? We’ll continue as we are now as hundreds of billions of animals are tortured until our civilization collapses. This will happen because we were all brought up under a state and told that defending ourselves, our communities, our animals, is wrong and illegal.
False dichotomy here. Americans could certainly reduce their intake of meat without going full vegan. Regulations could be created to treat livestock more humanely without completely eliminating factory farming, which yes would increase prices, which would probably also reduce meat consumption somewhat. Also population growth within the US has dropped off quite a bit and is projected to further decline.
You’re right, to some insufficient degree, but that’s like reducing your meth habit.
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As a meat eater, it’s shit like this which is why I’ve been buying more vegetarian shit. Every week there’s a new food recall. People are getting real sick and dying.
Same here. I tried out blackbean burgers, plant-based hot dogs, tofu and almond milk in my last couple of grocery runs, just to see what’s up. Turns out I really like tofu as a substitute for ground beef, and the veggie dogs tasted just like all beef franks to me. And none of these things were any more expensive than meat, so that’s also a big plus.
If you can find some TVP in the shape of a steak, that stuff is also insane to me.
Like, I’m kind of not qualified to actually compare it to a steak, but my body instantly gave me that vegetarian gag reflex when I first had it, because it has that same chewiness.And yeah, it’s really cheap. You can just have it in your cupboard for an eternity. And to prepare it, you just boil it in salt water / stock for a few minutes, press out the water and throw it into a hot pan to sear it like a steak.
The Maillard reaction does its thing and somehow this chunk of goddamn defatted soy beans does not taste healthy anymore.Also making seitan from flour is super easy. If I could get my hands on pure gluten it would be insanely easy. Maybe not as rich in taste as soy meat, but so much cheaper than store bought meat analogues.
Which veggie dog worked for you? I can’t find one that grills correctly.
They’re from “Morning Star Farms,” though I was careful to only say that they taste right, haha – They don’t plump up when cooked, and are prone to scorching in spots on the grill. But the flavor is spot on!
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True, but meat-based hot dogs are typically fully cooked and so only need to be warmed, too… Grilling is just kind of a fun activity for me, and it adds a little snap and smoky flavor that you can’t get by boiling them. That said, grilled veggie dogs were a little different, but still pretty good!
Yeah, okay buddy. I suppose next you’re gonna tell me climate change is real, huh?
This should read as:
Regulators: allows the meat industry to put creatures in the filthiest conditions possible
disease starts spreading and affecting the industry
Regulators: 😧
More like:
Meat industry: lobbies regulators and focuses on profits above all else despite every warning against it
disease starts spreading and affecting the industry
Meat industry: 😮
This is spot on. The meat industry for years has been trusted because of regulation. The moment you take away regulation you take away trust and start a race to the bottom. Ask any of these other deregulated industries:
-News and Television -Deregulated in the 90s
-Boeing and commercial aircraft - Merged unchallenged in the 90s and the FAA allowed “self reporting”
-Banks - Deregulated in the 90s.
This really should read as:
Republicans defund regulation budgets to appease meat producers’ donations.
Regulators: “there’s three of us”
Meat producers: “we have no incentive to follow existing laws and standards which were lax as hell to begin with.”
It is in part a consumer issue. Consumers want things as cheaply as possible, and companies that produce as cheaply as possible sell more product. We’ve seen the same issue with apparel; America wants cheap clothing, and so the mills in the US have largely closed, and most production has been moved overseas in order to make the final products cheap enough.
And while it’s partly a consumer issue, the fact that wages haven’t kept up with productivity–that is, more and more money is being skimmed out of the system by investors and executives rather than going to the workers–has been the driver towards making consumer goods more and more cheaply, simply because people have less purchasing power.
Consumers have limited visibility into the conditions under which their products are made, and consumer behavior does not always result in the most desirable outcome for the public. Which makes it a regulation problem. That’s why regulation exists.
Consumers have limited visibility into the conditions under which their products are made
This is by design.
Limited visibility, limited comprehension, limited attention, and limited risk aversion.
Just because something is expensive doesn’t always mean that the standard of living of those making the product is any better. Nike sweat shops for example.
Consumers dont have a lot of transparent choices here. Governments have roles in regulating and making the true cost of products more transparent. I’d say businesses have that responsibility, but clearly that doesn’t work, otherwise we wouldn’t be here etc. Businesses dont want people feeling guilty when they buy their product, so why would they tell people.
For a business to be competitive in a harm free supply chain, then the playing field needs to be levelled. Transparent supply chains everywhere, make everyone feel guilty all the time, maybe something would change.
These problems are not all the fault of either the producers or consumers, we’re both part of a fucked up cycle within an exploitative economic system and influence each other.
It doesn’t make any more sense for the consumer to wash their hands of all blame and consume without concern and push all the blame on the producer than it does to say it’s all about our “carbon footprint”.
I thoroughly agree. Which is why we need governments and regulation IMO. Consumers are working in a vacuum of knowledge, businesses are not incentivised to give said knowledge.
I wouldn’t let consumers off the hook so easily.
Every time I comment in a thread with a topic like this suggesting people simply opt out of animal agriculture by changing what they buy at the store, I’m typically downvoted more than I’m upvoted.
Even the people who know we’re at higher risk of zoonotic diseases due to animal ag don’t care - they like the taste of meat, milk, and cheese and another pandemic just isn’t enough to get them to stop buying it.
Just because something is expensive doesn’t always mean that the standard of living of those making the product is any better.
Oh, absolutely. But when mills, etc. are in the US, there’s more direct control over the living conditions of the workers.
make everyone feel guilty all the time,
Then people just tune it all out, and learn to accept the inherent violence of the system. Sadly.
Yet the prices remain relatively the same. You’re blaming the final purchasers for profit motivations of the producers
In other words its not because of the consumers, but because of the greedy skimming off the top.
Look, no one decides that they want to work in the mines because it’s good for society as a whole to have consumer goods made from what they mine. Everyone expects to be paid in some way.
If I’m making jeans as an independent designer–which I tried doing, briefly–and I decide that my time is worth $20/hr, then I’m going to have to charge around $500 for a single pair of jeans after you figure in all the time needed to make a single pair that’s been customized to fit a single, specific person. (Maybe more; I haven’t done the math in a decade or so.) Almost no one is going to want to, or be able to afford to pay that. Am I skimming off the top? No, I’m charging a fair–and actually very low–rate for custom work. But just like when I tried to do that a decade ago, no one can or will pay for that.
Even if we capped profits of investors, and capped salaries of executives, and had most of the profits going to the workers, people would tend to prefer less expensive goods over more expensive goods. That’s how competition in the market works. In a sufficiently competitive environment, without legal constraints, prices have to drop. (Monopolies raise prices by reducing competition; a sufficiently competitive environment assumes that there is no single company dominating the market.)
i agree with everything you’ve said including your links between causation etc
except the final link you make that its the consumer, i note you said ‘partly’ a consumer issue, so its not a full attribution - perhaps i’m misinterpreting what % you’re attributing.
tbh my take is alot of people would like an option between paying $2 for a garment they know involved exploitation/slavery vs an accessible1 independent option that doesn’t cost $500/garment.
i don’t think people are still choosing the $2 option because they’re ok with slavery. but (tragically?) they’re more ok with someone else being the slave vs them being the slave - which is what they’d basically be if every piece of clothing cost them $500.
and i think we know the reason there’s very little accessible options in between is because the game is rigged, you (HelixDab2) can’t realistically enter the game without serious capital behind you (ie. wealth/connections) to reach the volume prices which might give us an option in between - the market isn’t fair, its been stitched up long ago, by the same people who don’t produce anything and greedily skim off the top.
the venn diagram of independent designers fairly charging $500 for their labor and the greedy skimmers getting fat without producing anything themselves is two separate circles - they’re worlds apart
1 Quick note on accessibility, there are ofc some scant options between $2-500, but what isn’t clear (ie. readily accessible) to the consumer is which of those options isn’t just some greedy bastard buying a $2 option and selling it on for $15.
tbh my take is alot of people would like an option between paying $2 for a garment they know involved exploitation/slavery vs an accessible1 independent option that doesn’t cost $500/garment.
I would have wanted to believe that too, but then you see things like Temu that promise clothing and consumer goods at impossibly low prices, prices that simply aren’t possibly without forced labor somewhere, and people eat that shit up. I think that most people have an out of sight, out of mind approach to it, and as long as they can’t directly see the exploitation, they’ll accept it.
1 Quick note on accessibility, there are ofc some scant options between $2-500, but what isn’t clear (ie. readily accessible) to the consumer is which of those options isn’t just some greedy bastard buying a $2 option and selling it on for $15.
I strongly suspect that this obscurity is by intent.
And, taking this whole thing a bit farther, as a designer that was paying myself $20/hr, I still can’t guarantee anything about being free of forced labor, because I have no way of realistically tracking everything in my supply chain. This is why there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, so the best you can do is pick your battles.
You mean to tell me that industries sacrifice long term consequences for short term profit?!
shockes Pikachu face
Consumers: only buy the cheapest regardless of how it’s produced, ensuring a race to the bottom
Producers: lower standards to increase production so they can sell meat for the lowest cost
Consumers when they find out what that entails: shocked pikachu face
I highly doubt that chain of causation to be true. Had people paid more, the producers would still lower their cost base as much as possible, in order to maximize profits.
Yup. The meat industry, like all food gets completely away from climate pollution tax. The government’s climate solution is forcing you to sell your gas car and buy a freakin’ Tesla.
Don‘t forget that this makes their asses wet AF
As always, nobody could have seen this coming. Of course.
Is mad cow coming back?
Bird flu (specifically H5N1) has notably been spreading quite quickly in cows rights now. It’s been crossing between species much more than it has in the past
1 in 5 samples of pasteurized milk had bird flu virus fragments
It’s one of a few reasons why I only eat halal / kosher. Animal treatment from birth to slaughter is far more humane than that of how the heathens treat and slaughter animals.
Yeah yeah downvote me, heathens.
There’s nothing wrong with eating halal/kosher, but labelling the exploitation and slaughter of a living creature as ‘more humane’ is a delusion.
If you care about the humane treatment of animals, climate change, food supply safety, or even just want to decrease your monthly grocery bill you would commit to a plant based diet.
I’m not criticizing your diet, I am just asking that you own it and quit deluding yourself. ‘muh local farm is more humane’ propaganda is total bullshit. You support the exploitation and slaughter of these animals, quit trying to tell people you don’t.
So with halal, animals are not stuffed into big metal buildings where the temperature can reach 130-140 degrees fahrenheit (if not higher). They are not beaten. They are not tortured. They do not have any part of them removed for any reason (for example chicken beaks). These animals are treated humanely. They are fed what they are meant to be fed, most times left to graze on their own. Generally they are not slaughtered at an early stage but there’s no age restriction as well. Lastly animals are not to be slaughtered in front of other animals / witnessed by other animals.
I’ve seen how Intensive farms operate… it’s fkin disgusting and just awful. The only other option I have besides halal/kosher is going to an actual local farm buying a cow and having it slaughtered in a halal manner, then butchered and packed. The farm I’ve gone to is very humane in their animal husbandry. You can actually visit these farms and see for yourself the treatment of their animals, then decide if that’s where you’d like to purchase your animal from. It is true, there’s local farmers that do treat their animals humanely. I’ve seen it in NE Oregon, Northern California, and Michigan. And of course deer/elk hunting.
Damn. As an atheist vegan I’m treating animals even better than religious people.
Pat yourself on the back.
