the debate of the century - Should Meat Be Off The Menu?

Discussion in 'General chat' started by kimbo.parker, Jun 9, 2014.

  1. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Mmmmm. Drove in 60 split posts and ran wire today just for entertainment. So sore tonight I can't sleep yet unless I hit a bottle of rum, keep babbling here or similar. All those job descriptions are anathema at the moment. Thinking here is a good displacement activity. Thanks.
     
  2. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    What sort of posts do you use up there? The timber I mean.
    Give the rum a miss mate. Never met a man that was improved by rum.
    A nice long warm bath & a shoulder rub is what you need : )
     
  3. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Tallowood E. microcorys in the Eucalypt country as Ironbark is a better timber but burns too well in a forest fire. Yellow or brown stringybark is easier to cut and is the best, but is becoming too scarce to sacrifice it and reduce population. Grey gum E. major and E propinqua are also good, but hard to get with not too much sapwood.
    I agree with the rum outcome Helen, sage advice.
    A warm bath I've had and dried off in front of the fire. Bit hard to rub one's own shoulders tho'. I tried one of those massage lounge chairs once and fell asleep in the shop. Woke up with a start when I heard the price. Ned Kelly had nothing on them.
    Thanks for your thoughts and sentiments.
    Goodnight. Steve.
     
  4. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    Geez your hands are going to be sore if you're using Tallowood. What the hell is in it that makes the splints burn like that???
    Sleep easy, wake refreshed : )
    Night.
     
  5. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    No & pass the bear tartar please.

    Everything in moderation.
     
  6. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    Hmmmm.
    I see , not unexpectedly, that You've joined in, Pako. Willie's taking a short snooze, and I thought I browse a bit (mooo) and ran into this new site. I must say that Kimbo has been more down-to-Earth here than I've become accustomed to.
    When I was much, much younger, I can't say for certain, today, if we were vegetarians because of my Dad's convictions or just being unable to afford the luxury of meat when we lived in the mountains. He taught me to be accutely accurate with the sling, which he fashioned from two boot-laces and the leather side of an old, worn out brogan (shoe). We adopted a blind cat and I slew small rodents with it to feed the cat. I later made my own longbow and made arrows from a nearby cedar tree. I could have hunted deer, rabbits and other small game to broaden our diet, but it was never suggested, and so, until I left home and tasted my first hamburger, I was vegan.

    It has, at times, puzzled me that we have "evolved" so much more brain matter than we have any idea how to use, although there are some who have, through passed-on education, learned to do things with it that seem astounding to most of the rest of us. Is possible that we are "DEvolving" and have been for the last couple thousand years?

    Willie just woke up and we have things to do, so I'll bow out now.
    Just a few thoughts on the subject.

    Love and good thoughts,
    Uncle Benny
     
  7. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Nah, just since around the 1940's we have been De-evolving. We destroyed our soils, our water, our atmosphere. We spray aluminum in the air and fluoride the masses.

    It's all about control, no more, no less.
     
  8. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    Yes, Pako. Control.
    Problem is, those with the power to control life on this spaceship have thrown away the manual and ,so, are doomed to make all the mistakes we have been warned against making.

    Uncle Benny
     
  9. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    That my friend is why I do Permaculture like the hummingbird (as best I can).

    I heal not only the planet, but myself. If I have my own food, water, create my own 'power' and dispose of what little waste there is then who do I pay for what anymore? Just pay the man in taxes for the privledge of living on the property I already own.

    My question is, why do so few understand that simple logic? Why pay the man & the establishment when you can be F R E E.
     
  10. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    It's really not difficult, Pako, It is our inherent tendency to follow an easy path. Not all humans, though, are constrained to the "easiest" way. Those who branch out and march to a different drummer are fairly rare, and cannot be constrained to the "norm". These are the legends of the past who have stepped outside the conventional. We say that they were ahead of their time, and were, quite often, so alien to those around them that they had to be silenced to protect the "norm". Some gave us new forms of math, physics, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, etc, etc, etv.
    As it was with the prophets of old, the masses at the time could not bear to have their traditions, their way of life, disrupted, and to survive in those times required great perseverence and courage. And I guess a great deal of frustration and resentment was, and still is, today, built into their psyche. Can you imagine knowing something to be, and then spending years proving it only to be laughed at or even punished by the so-called Church for heresy? The statis Quo must, at all cost, must preserved.

    The "scientists" of the day demand it."Man cannot endure the pressure of racing against the atmosphere at 40 mph. It would crush him" Poor Mr. Ford. He was doomed to failure. How many trials did Alva go through before "discovering" just the right air pressure combined with the right material to bring us the incandescent light bulb?
    But would anyone in today's society think of walking two or three miles to the store once he had an auto mobile in his garage, or toting a couple of gallons of whale oil to light his hundred-thousand dollar home when the flick of a switch will almost blind him and send the cockroaches scurrying for cover ?

    Every day our big-screens overwhelm the average person with more and more items to "make life easier". What has happened to that "special person" (not to be a sexist here) is what I call the "Get Evens" For all the abuse and shame piled upon those who came before by the general public, These "Special people" are extracting payment. You want light, heat, AC, music, etc., etc, etc. You have to pay, and pay. That land that you are talking about owning. You don't own it. You have to pay those "special people" in Washington to live on it. It REALLY doesn't belong to them, either, but those "special people" you elected to represent you have, without your consent, worked out a plan to take more and more of your hard-earned money and give it to idlers who will show up at the polls to keep them in office.

    I've gotten off track a little here, but when was the last time one of your representatives submitted a bill to CUT your taxes by ONE CENT because that toll highway has been paid off and is now making money? You,ve seen, several times where they're discussing just one more penny for one thing or another. I've actually watched, slack-jawed where they said they would cut property taxes if we passed one of those "little" penny taxes. You guessed it. The tax on my house is the same as it was back then AND when I decide I want a $5.00 burger I pay five dollars and 35 cents for it. Where does all my self-employment tax go? (Of course, I'm retired now) My tax on the purchaces I've made in the past? The tax on the two vehicles I drive (one at a time)? The fees to run my business (of course I'm retired now, but back when)? If we didn't have so many "Special People" sticking their noses into areas not designated by OUR constitution, WE could run this country with a lot less taxation, and "living off the grid" would not be a lot cheaper than on it. And, in a nutshell (coconut?)is about it.

    And that's not politics, pardner. That's how it was, and is today. WAKE UP, those of the 80% that sit on their ass on election day and then bitch and moan for the next four years. WAKE UP.

    I'm sure that last part wasn't directed to you, Pako. And the Zombies that are controled by the obomites don't need a wake-up call. Some of them are so well controlled they vote multiple times, while some of them absentee-vote for their grave-ridden friends from ACORN.

    I feel better now. Thank you

    Uncle Benny
     
  11. Russ

    Russ Junior Member

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    That's a serious question that is rarely taken seriously. As some of the posts have pointed out, the question of eating meat depends a lot on the context. Yes, Inuit people will die if they are forced to go vegetarian in the wilds of Greenland. Some Pacific Islanders would probably struggle if they had to stop eating fish. But where there is a choice, like here in Australia or in the US, the question deserves more than flippant responses.

    If we didn't eat meat, our farms would be clogged up with thousands of livestock... Really!

    What if Australia didn't export meat, 100 million souls would go hungry...

    etc, etc...

    Australia's huge meat export industries, and the degradation of the farmland that supports them, is part of the problem. Raising huge quantities of meat in Australia is not a solution for anything. It is not a solution for improved food security in the recipient countries, it will not reduce the world's population to sustainable levels, it will not feed the starving and destitute. All of these problems have political solutions beginning with building peace, basic human rights and education.

    To eat or not to eat meat may well be a personal issue that we each must decide for ourselves. But eating meat on an industrial scale has inescapable consequences for millions of creatures and for the environment itself. So in many respects eating meat is a public issue in the same way that clearfelling forests, polluting rivers or overfishing oceans are issues that effect us all. It is an important discussion that deserves more considered responses than inverted logic and straw men.
     
  12. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    You are right, Russ. It has become a problem that will not get solved on it's own, and,"you cannot solve a problem with the same mentality that created it" (or something like that) and there are too many factors working against a solution. One, seemingly small one, is making exceptions, as we would have to in the case of the peoples living in the colder arctic regions of the world. Exceptions create envy of the excepted, leading to riots, violent clashes and that dirty word, war. Two, Unemployment. All those employed in the meat-for-food industry (millions) would need another source of income. (Here's where the Black Markets are reborn) remember the WWII illegal markets? And then you have to realize that those who wish to dine on filet mignon outnumber the carrot-stick munchers by an extremely large margin. Not to mention the "Meat" Barons who will throw the full weight of their empires to sustain the statis quo.

    Then too, even comics would lose a raft of material. "Two cows walk into a bar and order a drink....Bartender says "Sorry. We don't serve food here" "Why did the chook cross the road....." etc. And then we might ask "What about eggs? Where do we draw the line. Even the disciples ate fish...and with the help of The Christ, fed a multitude fish and bread. Of course, inasmuch as we have polluted our waters, I'm a little leery about eating fish today.

    I'm not sure we are not trying to solve too many problems at one setting. We have divided our resources in so many theaters that, though we make a little headway in one area, we go behind in another. I know they are all connected in one way or another, but that old phrase comes to mind. "Divide and conquer"

    We continually come up with new points to attack, while the "beast" just shifts it's weight. I realize that meat-eating by humans is an interesting and perplexing area, but it is not as close to the heart of the monster, although connected, as the indiscriminate chemical poisoning of our planet (and it's population). If all our resourses could be brought to bear on exposing to the "sheep" of the world what it is that is at the root of their "diseases" (both mental and physical) we might have a better chance of winning some other battles. I am not advocating picket lines at the BIG M or any sort of violence. The "sheep" very rarely hear, on their favorite source of information, the MEDIA, what is dumbing them down and making them pliable. They are carefully taught from an early age (cartoons) what they are supposed to "like or dislike" (cartoon content+Ads) The battle for their allegiance must begin there. Trying to convince adults after they have been brainwashed as children is almost impossible. A perfect example of that is Hitler's brownshirts. GET THEM WHILE THEY ARE YOUNG.

    This may sound like just another conspiracy theory, but just watch with an open mind what your children are seeing and hearing on their shows.(and between them) But it doesen't stop there. they have to delete, whenever possible, anything that goes against anything you have absorbed from them. here, in the US of A, they have rewritten, in the schoolbooks, our history. I know that bad things have been done in our past, but they seem to have covered up the good to make us look all bad.

    This is where lines must be drawn. I know their entertainment resources are vast, and it will take more than "letters to our representatives" to get "false advertisement" IN ANY FORM pulled. especially when our own government is spewing out so much of it, but we will not get to the "sheep" with pamphlets and demonstrations. People on this site alreaqdy know what's going on, but we must, carefully and with discretion, speak to others, not with the passion of a reformer, but in meekness, so as not to turn off those you wish to inform, (or reform) much as the diciples were admonished to do by Christ. We can make this a religion with each of us a diciple of the truth, being able to prove every word that comes out of our mouths. (The truth shall set you free) ....................................to be continued...

    Gotta go now.

    Love to all,

    Uncle Ben and
    Auntie Willie
     
  13. Bryant RedHawk

    Bryant RedHawk Junior Member

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    Now this is always an interesting subject. The ancestors would not have developed into what we are today, according to scientist, with out the intake of meat protein feeding the brain to make it grow. However, the meats they would have eaten were far leaner than the commercially produced, fatty meats offered up in the grocery store. Even the cattle your grandparents grew up on was leaner than the beef of today because the cattle were driven to market (exercised) instead of loaded into trailers and hauled to the slaughter house. Goat, and Sheep, are far less fatty than beef and pork. Wild game; Deer, Elk, Moose, Antelope are far leaner, which makes them better alternatives to beef and pork but you also have new traditions and advertised norms to deal with. The ancestors normal diet contained far more vegetative materials in it than meat. In the USA it seems that most folks think you must have some sort of meat with nearly every meal in order to be eating healthy. In the reality, a human would only need some meat (around 6 oz. would be lots) three times a week and that meat should be lean meat. Before the Europeans invaded Turtle Island (North America) the people here did well, eating a large variety of vegetables and grains that grew wild or that they had learned to cultivate, adding meats on occasions of successful hunts and for ceremonial festivals. The meats they mostly ate were fish, fowl, deer, turkey, opossum, raccoon, Elk, Caribou, with Bear being the "greasy meat". They consumed more vegetative foods and only supplemented with these meats, unless there was a celebration of a tatanka (buffalo) hunt, at which time they would gorge on the fresh meat of the bison, another lean meat source. The Native Americans were made sickly by the forcing of the "American diet" upon them along with the fact they were only given food stuffs that were rancid or otherwise unfit for Whites to eat. The Native Americans that are turning back to their natural diet, long taken from them, are finding they have more energy, less sickness and disease and live a productive life. Sadly, the governments (not just in the USA) are promoting the same sort of culture shock to their own people these days, with the same rise in sickness and disease they once pushed on the Native Americans. The current diets of most are the reason for increasing cancer rates, as well as most other diseases, they are linked to what the people eat. The Current push by those of us that choose to go back to the right ways of living, caring for mother earth, eating what we grow ourselves, are one of the things that governments fear most since it means they can not fully control the people the way the want to.
     
  14. milner

    milner New Member

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    i feel that in no way disqualifies its validity - tech trips to mars are also a first world comfort - they exemplify our progress as a technologically evolved species.

    so we are here, we are now, and we are us - and we can engage in 'what ifs',,,it is testimony to our credibility that some of these 'what ifs' are lovely idealisms for a better, kinder world.

    i note curras references keep looking to the past.
    how are we to navigate our future if all we do is look backwards.

    we use idealism to formulate and articulate what could be, and the pros and cons associated with what could be.

    the time for dialogue on speciesism is now - the subject is ripe - we occupy the time of another great wave of extinctions - we push into space - we 'see' other planets - we reason the existence of other life, other species, and we look inwards,,,
     
  15. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    If we do not learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it. We are closely repeating what FDR did that EXTENDED the last depression with the same results. It's no where near over as is claimed. Meat will be the least of our problems. Those who grow their own food will be better off if they can "protect" their crops.

    Love is still the answer
    Uncle Ben
     
  16. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    --Paraphrased Bill Mollison


    Grow your own, and eat everything in moderation.


    OH, and btw, Duck (fowl) opossum and raccoon are also considered greasy meat, and they taste just darn wonderful when cooked properly.

    Lastly, for North America Buffalo was found in every state. From Maine to Alaska to CA & Florida. NY State has cliffs known for chasing Buffalo off of for food.
     
  17. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Homo sapiens has an omnivorous digestive tract from the design of the teeth in our mouths right through to where no more nutrition or water is absorbed and it becomes faeces.
    We have a much higher digestible protein requirement in our diets than ruminants who can digest cellulose rich grasses and manufacture protein from the digestion of the microorganisms they farm in their rumens to break down the complex carbohydrates. There are a complex amino acid requirements which we must have from the protein in our diets, whether it be supplied from vegetable, fungal, bacterial or animal sources. We too unintentionally and unconsciously harness billions of microbial animals to break down some of our foods and toxins in our intestines, digest the dead skin cells from our external integument etc.
    The debate presented here as I see it is about a) The moral debate about killing things for food; b) Grazing and domesticated ruminants and non ruminant herbivores and omnivores degrading land and driving deforestation, c) A perceived futility that second and third world countries are not benefited by Australia's livestock and farming industries and that starvation and destitution have an exclusively political solution solved by building peace, providing basic human rights and having education as not only the grist but also the opiate of the people.

    So, let us look at this brave, new world. No more taking animal lives for food, all domestic grazing animals removed from the land, in fact exterminated and made into fertilizer to grow vegetable, fungal and bacterial foods with all human nutritional needs to be met by non animal sources, change the political impetus and direction of the world's populations from physical to spiritual, just let the majority of the world population survive in peace on human rights and education.

    Now let us look to the future. How would you make this happen and what are the short and long term environmental, social and political consequences?
     
  18. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Nice summary! It's not pretty is it?
     
  19. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    If that's the case....

    [​IMG]
     
  20. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    I'm with you Paka, Statement summary definitely made with tongue in cheek, I notice there are as yet no suggestions from the folk who have presented these tumultuous propositions, unless I have interpreted them incorrectly of even erroneously. We have got to remember the discussion is about meat being off the menu.

    I do agree though that the deforestation, especially in South America driven largely by timber harvesting interests and by the expansion of livestock grazing is something I would like to see stop or change. In addition the fact that in my venerable continent with a largely arid and semi-arid climate the land currently under the land uses of grazing livestock and farming are largely degrading and are in the majority unsustainable in the long term. This is a difficult thing for me to come to grips with and attempt to change being part of 179 years and 5 generations of Australian farming family background. Sounds weird that way and definitely as that means that the generation interval is 35 years or so, I come from a long line of youngest sons of elderly fathers. The first generation ran sheep and cattle which were boiled down for their tallow for export and the meat given to the natives or discarded, He started as a convict from England died at 40 from cholera in 1845, the second felled and milled native timber for export and milked dairy cows, He lived until 87, the third ran a sawmill, grew sugar cane, corn and bananas and ran dairy cattle and helped establish local sugar mills and butter factories, He lived until 86, the fourth ran dairy and beef cattle, grew small crops and fruit, cut timber and milled it for vegetable and fruit cases and was a builder of wooden bridges before dying of cancer at 75.This land has been one of the sources of the generation of a total of 5700 Australians alive today. The culture of land clearing, cultivation, livestock and crop production is deeply engrained and part of our human evolution today, but only here for such a short while in human history terms. There is no doubt that these traditional cultural practices and the massive urbanisation and population growth locally in the past 45 years have ruined our atmosphere, our pristine waterways and reduced our biodiversity drastically even in my lifetime.
    If we regard ourselves in the light of animal population dynamics, we are overpopulated, polluting our environment and are reaching population levels where food and overcrowding and disease outbreaks will be an issue for more and more. How bad will it get before we experience not just a national, but a major trans-continental or global population crash.
    There is a guilt trip as a result by we 1st world folk with plenty of tucker and a roof over our heads and access to health care and medicine about how the rest of the World's people exist. The traditional part of me, which is a fair whack sees meat as still a luxury and a delicacy and a sure sign that we are doing OK, of affluence. I like the taste and the gastronomic satisfaction that ingesting meat gives me. We grow our own and process our own as we have always done since Adam was a boy. The connection between eating meat we grow ourselves and growing it on a broad scale for others in a mass population to eat causing large scale land degradation and climate change is different. Should we just reduce our national livestock production by 70% to domestic alone with zero exports to overpopulated second and third world countries, let them eat cake! then we don't contribute to their overpopulation and we can recentralise the nation's population in regional centres all back to the major cities and abandon the bush and it's infrastructure to the miners and feral animals?
    Lots of difficult questions with no sensible answers yet are there?
     

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