Halal being served secretly throughout Britain

[spwan-of-the-devil]

Law of the Jungle kill or be killed!

[dakyras]

Law of the Jungle kill or be killed!

[spwan-of-the-devil]

Or have the man at the abattoir do it for you.

[bunique]

Vitamin B-12

[rabid]

That's what marmite was invented for!

[5co77ie]

Did anyone see this the other day?

click here

Eat meat and save the planet, says eco-warrior and former vegetarian

An eco-warrior who lives on a ‘sustainable living’ commune and spent six years as a vegetarian has written a book that says Britons should continue to eat some meat.

Simon Fairlie, a farmer and writer, is now shattering the consensus that we should avoid eating any meat or raising any animals in order to save the planet.

In a new book that questions the impact of meat-eating on greenhouse gases, he says the vegan diet espoused by many environmentalists is “neither sensible nor attainable for society as a whole”.

Mr Fairlie, a smallholder and a former co-editor of The Ecologist magazine, believes vegetarianism is not the answer to the problem of livestock emissions and that Britons should continue to eat meat.

His views contradict the received wisdom of experts including Lord Stern, author of the government’s 2006 review on climate change, who said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better…”

It also deals a blow to the philosophy of celebrity vegetarians including Sir Paul McCartney and actress Natalie Portman.

In his new book, Meat: a Benign Extravagance, Mr Fairlie argues there is some surplus and waste in every agricultural system and that animals which eat this surplus have little additional environmental impact.

Although he supports a drastic reduction in meat consumption, he questions the validity of some of the most commonly-repeated environmental claims, such as the notion that producing a kilogram of beef requires 100,000 litres of water – a figure he dismisses because it implies a daily water intake of about 25,000 litres per cow.

The 59-year-old, who lives on the Monkton Wyld Court ‘centre for sustainable living’ near Bridport, Dorset, said: “700 million tonnes of human edible food are poured down the gullets of livestock every year to provide a luxury commodity for the wealthy, while around a billion people in the world do not have enough to eat.

"The Gandhian response, of rejecting such a tainted product, is understandable; yet the net result – importing protein and fat from third world countries – has perverse repercussions.”

In a recent contribution to Permaculture magazine, he wrote: “Livestock provide the biodiversity that trees on their own cannot provide. They are the best means we have of keeping wide areas clear and open to solar energy and wind energy.

“They harness biomass that would otherwise be inaccessible, and recycle waste that would otherwise be a disposal problem. And they are the main means we have of ensuring that the phosphate which leaks out from our arable land into the wider environment, and that is crucial for agricultural yields, is brought back into the food chain.”

He also challenges the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report Livestock’s Long Shadow, which suggested that farm animals generate 18 per cent of human-generated global warming gases, through their flatulence and other types of emissions.

He said the figure attributes all deforestation in the Amazon region to cattle, rather than logging or development, and confused the gross and net production of nitrous oxide and methane.

Mr Fairline said his earlier experiences living on a different commune, dominated by vegans, convinced him it was sensible to eat some meat.

He said many of he key ingredients in their diet, including olive oil, soya milk, chickpeas, lentils and rice, had to be imported, often from developing countries, at huge cost despite the existence of grass-eating dairy livestock on the site.

“We were producing, from grass, a substantial proportion of the protein and fat that we required for our nutrition, but this was shunned," he said. "Instead we imported it from countries where people go hungry.”

Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, endorsed Mr Fairlie's findings which he said were a "brilliant and eloquent" argument for more sustainable meat-eating.

He said: "He is pointing out that, in countries such as Britain where there are upland areas that cannot be used to grow anything else, we may as well have some livestock and that meat can be eaten if it is there.

"The book is still quite radical. He is not giving the green light to go out and eat meat because we still consume far, far more than we should - not just on environmental grounds but as a public health issue.

"We should ask ourselves, in restaurants or supermarkets, whether the meat on offer has lived a sustainable life, but it is a question often impossible to answer. Almost all the meat we currently consume is intensively farmed."

[spwan-of-the-devil]

Edited September 22, 2010 by spwan-of-the-devil

[rexclark]

Personally I don't care how animals are killed. I know I should but as long as they've not been f**ked to death by a farmer I'm not too fussed.

[brighteyes]

Respect to the band for that one

[The_Spoon]

I take it you are just as sickened when you see Kosher meat for sale as well?

Daily Mail xenophobia as usual, nothing to see here people.

[Budweiser]

if you were really that bothered about the way animals are treated before they are killed, the way they are killed, or the way they are treated for products like eggs and milk, you would be vegan.

[sifi]

I take it you are just as sickened when you see Kosher meat for sale as well?

Daily Mail xenophobia as usual, nothing to see here people.

[worm]

I eat only fish now. I've always despised the idea that it's okay to not care for animal welfare, but to feel it inhumane to treat another human with disrespect. Being inhumane is about what you do as a human, not what you do it to.

It's going to be interesting in ten years time when in vitro produce is consumed instead of farm produce. It won't be long thereafter until halal meat and kosher meat is banned. Cultural divisions will become rife.

Edited September 23, 2010 by worm

[rfs]

1) (Really important) It always worries me that some people seem to care more about animal rights than they do about human rights.

2) I think it was the comedian Stewart Lee who pointed out in an article I read somewhere (tongue in cheek I think it was, he is a comedian after all), that protesting about live exports, slaughter methods and the like, is an insult to our ancestors.

[eFestivals]

I eat only fish now.| I've always despised the idea that it's okay to not care for animal welfare, but to be feel it inhumane to treat another human with disrespect. Being inhumane is about what you do as a human, not what you do it to.

Yet ironically, fish get the least humane death of any animal that dies for human consumption.

(they do however get to have a free life, providing they're not farmed of course - which an awful lot of fish is).

As for the rest, I'd say you're off-target, given the UK's attitudes towards animals in preference to the treatment of humans. Far more is given each year to animal charities than is for the welfare of humans.

And just yesterday some guy got 9 weeks in clink for microwaving a hamster, yet another guy got just a suspended sentence for beating another guy unconscious.

Edited September 23, 2010 by eFestivals

[rachbon]

i find it odd when people are "vegetarian" but still eat fish and animal products.

i eat meat but if i decided to stop for ethical reasons, i would be vegan.

[ampersand]

mon the fish!

[llcoolphil]

2) How can you offend dead people?

[eFestivals]

i find it odd when people are "vegetarian" but still eat fish and animal products.

It depends on their reasoning for why they wish to avoid eating fish or animals.

If it's because they simply think killing animals to eat is wrong, they'd avoid them all.

Lots of people tho have their issues with the farming processes - which of course doesn't apply to a lot of fish that's eaten, and in some cases animals.

[worm]

Yet ironically, fish get the least humane death of any animal that does for human consumption.

Edited September 23, 2010 by worm

[worm]

If it's because they simply think killing animals to eat is wrong, they'd avoid them all.

[rachbon]

It depends on their reasoning for why they wish to avoid eating fish or animals.

If it's because they simply think killing animals to eat is wrong, they'd avoid them all.

Lots of people tho have their issues with the farming processes - which of course doesn't apply to a lot of fish that's eaten, and in some cases animals.

[worm]

Far more is given each year to animal charities than is for the welfare of humans.

Edited September 23, 2010 by worm

[jump]

i know people who claim it's for ethical reasons as they don't like animals being killed for food, but still eat fish that's what i find weird.

[eFestivals]

Because the government take a lot for human welfare and very little for animal welfare.

Yet dealing with animal welfare is possible thru legislation, while it's not (to the same extent, anyhow) for human welfare. Hence the difference.

The amounts this country (it's something unique to the UK) gives for animals is truly astounding when put alongside the unfulfilled needs of humans.

The attitudes of people in this country to both was perfectly displayed by those court sentences yesterday.