Happy Meat

Unless you live in the peripheries and like that sort of thing.

I digress.

I eat meat, and justify my particular meat eating stance by the fact that in general I buy and eat 'happy meat' (the oxymoron for former free range dead stuff).

What are your thoughts on this? Is eating meat more morally justifiable if it's free range or should all meat eaters just accept that they breed and kill (by proxy) animals?

Oh and do humans taste more like chicken or pork?

I choose happy meat because I am completely against the meat industry and how the animals are treated. I also don't want to eat stressed out meat and feed my own body with it.

We don't need that much meat anyway. 250g per week is enough. Why they mass produce it the way they do and take farming industry to extremes with the expense of innocent animals is beyond me.

I often eat vegetarian diet but I do eat meat and when I do, I'm willing to pay that little bit extra to get free range local produce as not only I support local farmers, but I prefer to eat quality meat.

You pay for what you get.  Cheap meat is not only more intensively reared, but it also is more likely to be pumped with water and other chemicals.  My body seems to be happier when I eat better quality produce, although I am restricted by budget and practicalities.

I have no problems with the concept of animals dying for me as long as I don't waste the food that they provide for me.  Death when the food gets thrown out is just wrong.

I too like to support local farmers where I can, but local does not always mean better.

I'm a recently lapsed mid-week vegetarian. 

I've not fully resolved my moral stance on eating meat; if I'm being honest, the fact that I'm not 100% vegan is a sign that I'm a little bit selfish, because I don't think we need to breed and kill animals to live, but I like the taste of meat, have been brought up on it, it makes healthy, varied diet options easier, and it's a hard habit to break - although I eat far less than I used to. 

I do think eating happy meat is morally preferable to eating intensely reared meat, and I even decide on diet choices between different protein sources, e.g. assuming that sardines swimming in the oceans have suffered less harm at the hands of humans than a very cheap cut of pig.

There's also the environmental aspect; eating x amount of plant matter is less wasteful than eating y amount of beef which required several times x amount of plant matter to be reared.

I (almost) always buy free range 'happy meat'. I'm a student on a budget but still manage to pay that little bit extra. The free range studd tastes better, which as far as I am aware is because its not pumped with water and other rubbish after its killed. 

What about meat products?  Its relatively easy to find happy meat in the supermarket (or at least happier meat) but much harder to find happy sausages or pate?

Elli of the North wrote (see)

I choose happy meat because I am completely against the meat industry and how the animals are treated. I also don't want to eat stressed out meat and feed my own body with it.

We don't need that much meat anyway. 250g per week is enough. Why they mass produce it the way they do and take farming industry to extremes with the expense of innocent animals is beyond me.

I often eat vegetarian diet but I do eat meat and when I do, I'm willing to pay that little bit extra to get free range local produce as not only I support local farmers, but I prefer to eat quality meat.

 

As someone who has worked in abbatoirs and seen the full process from start to finish, I'm happy to be a meat eater. Have you seen the whole process Ellie of the North? I'm not on about watching videos of it of tv, but actually seen the process for yourself?

It's not just how it's killed though is it - it's how the animal lives its life - unless you are claiming intensive farming is actually not that bad in reality - in which case I'd have to disagree.

PhilPub wrote (see)

I'm a recently lapsed mid-week vegetarian. 

I've not fully resolved my moral stance on eating meat; if I'm being honest, the fact that I'm not 100% vegan is a sign that I'm a little bit selfish, because I don't think we need to breed and kill animals to live, but I like the taste of meat, have been brought up on it, it makes healthy, varied diet options easier, and it's a hard habit to break - although I eat far less than I used to. 

I do think eating happy meat is morally preferable to eating intensely reared meat, and I even decide on diet choices between different protein sources, e.g. assuming that sardines swimming in the oceans have suffered less harm at the hands of humans than a very cheap cut of pig.

There's also the environmental aspect; eating x amount of plant matter is less wasteful than eating y amount of beef which required several times x amount of plant matter to be reared.

Pretty much what Phil said.

I'm a recently lapsed vegetarian. I've recently started eating small amounts of "happy meat", morally I don't claim to have entirely squared this with myself but other things (selfishness, taste) are currently trumping that.

I'm finding it hard to go public with this though. I think it's difficult to say I'll eat some meat but only if it meets x, y, and z standard. I don't want to be in the situation where someone serves me intensively reared chicken and I look like an arsehole for turning it down, so it's easier to still describe myself as veggie.

I don't think anybody needs to justify why they do or don't choose to eat meat but if any justification was needed I'd say that as humans, we are omnivores, we are designed to eat meat (that's why we have incisors and canine teeth).

Personally I try to eat only eat good quality meat from animals that have been reared to a high standard and wouldn't compromise on it. If I was in a position where I could't afford it I would have a much more veggie/fish based diet.

Good thread.

I only buy free range meat and where possible, from a reputable source.

This is a particular bugbear of mine.  It's said that some people cannot afford to eat FR meat so the £3 chickens are for them.  I disagree.  The correct moral stance is to buy the amount of FR meat that your budget will allow.  The supermarkets have driven the cheap meat agenda and now people think that it's perfectly normal to have whole roasting joints of beef for £5.  It isn't, intensive farming is a relatively modern phenomenon and one that we should never have allowed to foster.  If they hadn't provided that choice, folk would adjust their perspectives accordingly.  it's only because it's there that they buy it.

If you really cannot or will not afford to buy FR meat, eat vegitarian food.  I'd rather do that than eat the tasteless, chewy, sinuey shite that squirts out of the arse end of the intensive farming industry.

I had this argument with a couple of friends once after a few too many gins.  They informed me that they couldn't afford to buy FR meat which is why they buy the dross.  A fortnight ago, the male half of the couple spent £800 on a flying craft.  People bullshit to themselves to justify their part in the horror.  That £800 over the year is £15 a week onto their meat budget, easily enough to change their buying patterns. 

I see no justification for eating intensively farmed meat unless you really just don't care about how the animal is treated in it's short life and if that's the case, I have nothing but pity for your selfish mind.

Weeble: About 10 or 12 years ago I was at the 'only free range meat' stage.  I'll be honest, eating out became a pain in the proverbial, especially going round to friends' houses because I wasn't comfortable refusing to eat the meat they had prepared for me (when I'd eaten what they viewed as the same meat which I had prepared for them previously) or asking them to prepare vegetarian meals for me if it wasn't going to be free range meat.  As a result I sort of ended up veggie*.  I don't have an issue with the idea that humans evolved to eat meat and it is part of our natural diet, I have an issue with how we raise and slaughter animals.  I know that vegetarianism is a bit of a fudge of the issue (especially given how milk cows/their mothers are treated) and so every now and then I grapple with the conscience and try and work out if eating free range meat again would be closer to my principles...

*Edit: as in I am a veggie (no meat, no fish) but drifted into it over a period of time.

Joolska - I genuinely admire your adherence to your principals and sometimes wish I could be so stoical.

I will be perfectly honest here, as much as I share all the same attitudes and sensibilities about this as you, I will - I confess -  still eat the intensively reared meat in mitigating circumstances.  These do include eating out, takeaways and being cooked for by friends.  I half justify this by concluding that I can never be sure where the meat came from (even if I asked a waiter/proprietor, I can't be 100% the answer given is right or true) and that it is their choice to use that meat and not mine.  I know, it's pretty lame stuff.

The older I get the more I do find myself thinking about this and thinking about the hypocrisy involved and we do now tend to eat most of our meals out at places where I know they will use "proper meat".  Eating at friends, though, is more of a challenge.  They know i'm a huge meat eater so refusing to eat the meat they are providing me with on moral grounds seems like taking my stance a little too far.  I can't say i'm entirely happy about my hypocrisy but i'm yet to fathom an easy solution that doesn't make me seem like an absolute twat.

Kudos for you for holding your principals so dearly that you actually follow them through with true conviction and not some half-arsed stab it at like my attempt.

im a recovering vegetarian but I d try to buy meat that agreed to be in my sandwich.

Venison is sometimes described as the ultimate free range 'happy' food. I think they have a good point; there is no way that deer are around despite human activity, they are still around because people manage their numbers and enjoy hunting them. I love seeing deer out and about but I also see people with high powered rifles, I return their friendly smiles but am unsure of the safety and morality of what they do. I enjoy a bit of properly cooked venison but is it really the ultimate free range food?

Sideburn - I would say the ultimate free range food would be roadkill.

You aren't going to be able to take people off the roads, you aren't going to be able to stop animals leaping out in front of them to end it all.  They very least we can do to give their life - and untidy end - purpose is to make a casarole out of them.

I'm a hypocrite here too, i've never eaten rabbit au van.

I'm a bit with Strangely on this, in that I question more now than when I was younger, perhaps because I can influence my own choice a bit more.  I like meat and fish so will always eat it, but like them with flavour which is so often missing when you buy from a supermarket rather than a butcher. The difference is tangible and how many of us really know how well any animals are treated, but in your mind you have a better picture to locally reared farm animals to those pumped into the system for Tesco et al.

A few people on here say they will go for fish if they aren't willing to risk the source of meat - I'd be interested in some views on the quality of fish and the safety in eating it. Much is farm reared and will have been given various drugs similar to farmed meat (of course there is organic fish but not a lot of choice). Also our rivers are polluted so wild freshwater fish is not of a guaranteed quality and saltwater fish is full of heavy metals and I'm sure plenty of other toxins (think about the tons of plastics in the oceans - it goes somewhere!).

I've read that the least toxic fish are the smallest ocean species such as anchovies. I like anchovies but wouldn't want to eat them every day!

Our butchers (and the other butchers in the town) do not sell any intensively reared meat. If you ask, you can find the name of the farmer, the breed of beast and when it was slaughtered. And the meat is still actually cheaper than the "quality" meat in the supermarkets. I will not buy supermarket meat, full stop. I don't refuse to eat meat that other people have cooked, though. One problem with only eating "ethical" meat is the profound disappointment when ordering a full english and finding that it tastes of salt and fat and very little else.

Fresh roadkill can make good eating, although preparation can be a bit messy.