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It's difficult to find humanely raised meat? I just go to the farmer's market and buy it straight from the farmer who raises grass-fed free range cows. If I would like to verify, I can head to her farm and see how she raises the cows myself.

Or I buy fish that are caught in sustainable ways, which have grown in their natural habitat and not subjected to any suffering beyond the catch (which is a necessary part of consuming them).

Yes, humanely raised meat (and milk, eggs, other animal products) is more expensive, but it's also tastier, and it feels good know the people who have grown and raised the food you eat. I balance out the extra expense, and impact of raising animals, by eating meat or fish only about 2 or 3 times per week; the rest of the time, I pick vegetarian options. That also makes it easier for me when dining with people; I leave my couple of omnivorous meals for the weekend, so I can have whatever's being served without having to cause extra trouble for my hosts.

I agree with most of what you said (although fish are never killed humanely, so I'm not up for that), but I don't own a car and I live in a city -- the difficulty involved in heading to a farm to see how their animals are raised is just large enough that I don't think the reward is worth it for me. I don't have any quarrel with someone who finds it an acceptable choice, though.

You might be surprised how easy it is to get local farm-raised meat delivered or handed off via a local restaurant or purveyor. It's totally worth it.

Your "never" makes me uneasy. As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible. Many others do the same. And while commercial standards are likely very poor, for certain species great care is taken regarding the quality of the meat with the side effect of relatively humane treatment. For example, tuna are often stunned and pithed using the "Taniguchi Method": http://wwwx.spc.int/coastfish/Fishing/Sashimi_E/Sashimi.pdf

> As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible.

Thanks! That's a good link. Yes, I should have said "Commercial fish being caught in quantities large enough that you aren't dealing with each one individually immediately (so, using nets, for example) are not killed humanely". I appreciate the correction.

The "tastier" organic myth is a myth in at least some cases. Double blind taste tests of 2 halves of the same product reveal that the half presented as "organic" is often chosen as being "tastier", despite being identical to it's other "non organic" half.

IMHO, he organic food "movement" is marketing targeted at the guilty conscience of the well-heeled consumer of organic foods.

lambda never mentions anything about Organic. Organic is not the same as humanely raised meat, nor hormone free. And, IMHO, Organic standards are so varied and in many cases silly that the green label isn't even a tell for a desirable product by my terms.

In my experience, texture is very noticeable when comparing "supermarket" meat vs locally raised, hormone-free meat.

As far as Veganism goes: I rather not take a vitamin supplement--it seems unnatural.

LOL>

Every time I buy normal, mass-market chicken or eggs that are not in some way organic/cage-free/free-range/nataural, I am so disappointed in the result that I vow never to buy it again (until I'm sucked in by some sale months later). For me, the difference is too striking to be only a placebo effect of sorts.

If you live in Australia, you can also get kangaroo in most supermarkets. They're taken from the wild and killed with a high-powered rifle shot to the head (plus they're a native animal == less enivronmental damage) so they're about as guilt-free as you can get and still be eating meat.

I was under the impression that they are farmed now, although they are much friendlier to the environment per-head than cattle are.

Kind of hard to farm them, since they can jump fences pretty easily, plus you have to compete with hunters:

http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/RJ9830035.htm

I believe that the most humane way you can get your meat is, in many places, to hunt for it. Because humans have reduced habitats and/or eliminated other predators in many places, wildlife management agencies have to use human hunting as a tool to keep populations at sustainable levels.

Example: if there is enough food in a given area for 100 deer to survive the winter, but there are 200 deer, that doesn't mean that half of the deer will starve to death before spring--it means that all of them will eat quite well for the first half of the winter, after which food will become extremely scarce and most of them will starve to death.

Wildlife management agencies constantly monitor population levels in order to determine how much of the population needs to be culled each season in order for the remainder to survive. Bag limits or tag quotas are set accordingly. I currently live in a place with so much deer overpopulation that local hunters never kill enough each fall, so professional hunters have to be hired each year to get the herds down to a sustainable size.

If you hunt with respect for your game and only take shots which are likely to be clean, you will give your kill a quick death instead of a very likely slow and painful death by starvation. Also, the life it would have lived up until that moment would have been about as humane as possible.

No matter how well a farmer treats his cattle or chickens, the fact is that they were raised for the express purpose of being slaughtered. Wild game is a natural part of the ecosystem that is only killed out of necessity to keep that system in balance. Either way, an animal is dying so that you can eat.

I certainly enjoy beef, chicken, lamb, and other farm-raised animals, and eat far more of those than of things I've killed myself. I also realize that many people simply would not want to hunt. However, for any who have never tried it, and who are looking for ways to make their meat consumption more humane and ethical, they should consider giving it a try.

If you are into hunting, I think you should make things fair for both sides. Leave the gun at home and try something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

Why should we go for "fairness" when hunting for food? Using our brains isn't fair? Animals won't show any restraint when using their strengths to kill any weaker prey.

So, according to your definition of fairness, we should for example nuke Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia et al., as terrorists show no mercy with our women and children, so why should we bother? Or maybe Microsoft was just right to use its OS/Office monopoly to kill Netscape and many others, as they were in top of the food chain...

IMHO, fairness is necessary linked to bringing balance into the world. Using our brains is of course fair, but we should agree that there is much less brain work in the average modern hunter, drinking beer in a hideout and waiting for an opportunity to shoot a power rifle from a safe distance, than in any of the hunters depicted in the video. I of course cannot do what they do, but it was very humbling and moving to see such display of respect and fairness.

I think that you and parent both played the straw man against each other. This isn't a binary issue, it's a continuum. Modern hunters have a wide range of tools to choose from, at various points on the spectrum of "fairness." I would posit that "fairness" isn't even the primary factor in choice of equipment for most hunters in modern countries. Other considerations such as "challenge level" and laws/regulations probably have much more to do with it. For example, in the U.S. most areas have two deer seasons: a longer, earlier season where only bows and/or muzzle-loaders are allowed and a shorter, later season where modern high-power rifles are allowed.

This is, of course, anecdotal, but I don't know any hunters who use high-power rifles from blinds. Typically, deer stands are used by bow hunters. High-power rifles are typically used from much greater distances where the shots are correspondingly more difficult. I'm not really into deer hunting (I prefer upland fowl), so my experience with the subject is limited. Either way, the "brain power" part of it went into the development of the tools, not so much into their use. Also, only an idiot mixes alcohol with firearms (or broadheads). Yes, there are people out there stupid enough to do so, but they are a very small minority (it tends to be self-enforcing). Hunting from a deer stand typically involves getting up before dawn and climbing up onto a rickety platform to shiver silently for hours hoping that a deer comes by close enough to shoot. That's why I'm not a big fan of deer hunting.

Let's also not conflate "fair" with "humane." As I mentioned, the area where I currently live is so overpopulated with deer that professional hunters have to be hired to kill a few hundred each year (it's truly astounding how fast the local herds grow). If they don't kill enough, even more will die by starvation and disease. If they were overly concerned about fairness, they wouldn't be able to kill enough deer in time, and that would be inhumane.

You certainly show a level of maturity that is not common among typical hunters. I understand that you enjoy the process of hunting, not only the result, and I can sympathize with that. Thanks for augmenting my perspective on the subject.

On the one hand, I appreciate the second two sentences of your post. On the other hand, the first sentence wipes out any semblance of goodwill:

"You certainly show a level of maturity that is not common among typical hunters."

This is just plain stereotyping. I don't know how you formed your perception of the average maturity level of a typical hunter, but it clearly wasn't by actually interacting with typical hunters. Furthermore, I'm not even sure what a "typical" hunter is. That's kind of like a "typical" golfer, or a "typical" swimmer. I move around a lot, but I don't like to hunt alone, which unfortunately means I don't get to hunt very much any more. It also means that I'm always looking for new people to hunt with, and I've found hunters from all walks of life, often in very heterogeneous groups where the only thing they share in common is hunting.

If anything, hunting promotes maturity: when you teach a ten year old how to utilize a deadly weapon, and all of the ways you can accidentally hurt or kill yourself or others with it, and all of the rules for avoiding such mishaps, and all of the myriad ways you can get hurt or killed outdoors even without weapons involved, the sudden load of responsibilities tends to instill maturity in a way that less hazardous activities can't. True, some kids simply aren't ready for it as young as others, but most parents/mentors see this quickly and wait another year before resuming the lessons. Much like alcohol use in conjunction with firearms, it's rather self-enforcing: would you want to hang out in the middle of nowhere with an immature kid wielding a lethal weapon? Neither would I. Does it happen? Sure. Is it common? No.

I have no problems changing my mind when proved wrong, but there are facts that cannot be ignored. It is very difficult (and definitely not advisable) to stereotype individuals, but certain qualities can be easily attributed to groups of people. For example, I can say that the "typical swimmer" is not black, which shows no prejudice, just the statement of a fact. Likewise, I can also infer that the "typical" golfer is an upper-class/rich guy. Please bear in mind that I cannot say anything about a single individual, but there are certainly some common characteristics.

I apologize if I offended you in anyway, perhaps I have been just unlucky with my prior shallow and brief interactions with hunters.

Not sure why this is getting down-voted: I had assumed the comment to be tongue-in-cheek, and that video is absolutely fascinating. I'm completely in awe of those guys.

It's very hard to find humanely slaughtered meat. To quote Foer, who in turn was citing a review of some audits of slaughterhouses (emphasis in the original):

>[Grandin's report found] deliberate acts of cruelty occuring on a regular basis at 32 percent of the plants [slaughterhouses] she surveyed during announced visits in the United States. It's such a shocking statistic I had to read it three times. Deliberate acts, occurring on a regular basis, witnessed by an auditor - witnessed during announced audits that gave the slaughterhouse time to clean up the worst problems. What about cruelties that weren't witnessed? And what about accidents, which must have been far more common?

There is a strong ethical case for not accepting instrumentality in ending another creature's life -- ask a Jain. I'm not sure I buy it, but it has a long and proud tradition. I'm on the fence w/r/t my diet(1), but the animal suffering argument is by far the most compelling, and making the ethical decision to no longer participate in an unethical system is to my mind sufficient, particularly when the ethics are conflicted.

(1) http://homonculus.net/posts/personal/2010-10-30-veganism_con...

I wouldn't really call those arguments. They assume that animals can suffer without giving an argument that animals can suffer. Whether animals can suffer is the core issue which should be addressed, and is not addressed by these statements.

I believe suffering is caused by, roughly, difference between one's preferences and reality. But animals do not have preferences (this is controversial. will you agree that if that controversy goes my way, then being a vegan is a mistake?)

You haven't even said what you think suffering is. If you just assume it's physical pain ... well that is false. We know it's false because sports players and fetishists often enjoy limited amounts of physical pain, and do not suffer from it.

> I wouldn't really call those arguments. They assume that animals can suffer without giving an argument that animals can suffer. Whether animals can suffer is the core issue which should be addressed, and is not addressed by these statements.

No, you're decades out of date. It is established fact, on all sides of the animal rights argument, that animals suffer and feel pain. I'd be shocked if you could find a single credible source arguing otherwise at this point.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. If you kick a dog, which you shouldn't, it'll exhibit all the same physiological responses that we do to being kicked; it will be in obvious pain and distress, and measurably so; it might cry, it'll hide, it'll be scared of you in the future. What else is there?

> But animals do not have preferences

No, that's patently ridiculous. Many adult animals, and most especially other primates, hold long-term preferences and have tested at the cognitive level of young human children (toddlers). Again, why would you possibly expect anything else?

> You haven't even said what you think suffering is.

There are books upon books written about animal suffering, and I was giving bullet points, so not exhaustively defining my terms is hardly a fair criticism. You could read Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights#Animal_suffering

Wait till they discover Plant and Fungus Suffering. That should make things plenty more interesting :)

Plants and fungus don't have nervous system, so there are no scientifically demonstrable ways how they will use ability to suffer. Animals can move and suffering helps them find better conditions, for example if there is to hot an animal will seek another place, if something causes suffering animals will try to avoid it, plants on the other hand can't move and can't avoid suffering so plants don't need to feel suffering.

I think if plants can't move, that puts them into even worse circumstances compared to animals.

At least animals can try to get away from the danger, plants do not even have means for that. I feel more sorry for the plants now. Way to discriminate the whole kingdom of living creatures just because they did not happen to evolve the nervous system humans can understand. How can we say they do not suffer in ways we can not grasp at our current development level?

Oh, and also - some plants can move. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_plant_movement

>Plants and fungus don't have nervous system

Who says plants don't have a different, but equivalent way of sensing their environment?

Plants respond to stressors in the same way that animals do, they fail to thrive -- they wilt, or don't produce fruit, they grow more slowly, etc. Overtime, plants evolve defensive mechanisms like bark, thorns or poisons. Everything an animal does (or at least with strong analogies to animals), except plants aren't mobile.

Plants also respond to positive stimuli in the same way animals do, they thrive. Plants turn to face the sun, they grow faster, reproduce faster, produce more flowers and fruit, they stand taller, their leaves are fuller, their stems are firmer, all have strong analogies in the animal kingdom.

Anybody who's ever taken care of a house plant can attest to the fact that plants that are well cared for, doted over, with careful attention to making sure all of the plants needs are met, thrive better (seem happier) than those that aren't.

Plants don't need the mechanism of suffering, because it's useless for them, plant's can't run away from somebody who is harming them and can't move location from a bad place to a better place.

I have read the research and it's wrong. If you think otherwise you have not given an argument, you just appealed to authority.

> I have read the research and it's wrong. If you think otherwise you have not given an argument, you just appealed to authority.

You haven't explained why it's wrong. Surely the person who thinks that the almost-unanimous scientific consensus of the last few decades is "wrong" should be the person who is, you know, posting links to their crazy theories or whatever? I can't post them for you.

If you're serious about this, pick a paper you want to know what's wrong with, and email the cite to curi@curi.us, and I will reply by email with flaws in that particular paper (or a concession statement if I find none).

I do not want to pick the paper myself b/c then you can just say (quite correctly), "OK so one paper was flawed but that doesn't mean the others are." So it's important to start with you picking a paper that, if it's wrong, you'll have to rethink your views, and if it's right I'll have to rethink mine, and then we discuss that one.

I expect you to choose a paper you have read before, not just google one up now. (You did read some papers before posting claims about what the scientific consensus is, I hope.)

* unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable.*

I'm wondering, what is the vegan's position on eating: fish; oysters/mussels; squid, octopus; crabs etc.

They don't eat those.

> I'm wondering, what is the vegan's position on eating: fish; oysters/mussels; squid, octopus; crabs etc.

It's complicated. The largest problem is that all of these animals are killed either by suffocation after they're removed from the water, or by having their organs explode from decompression sickness. Sure seems to me like the least possible humane way to kill an animal. (I guess I'd go with the organ explosion, if I had to choose.)

On the other hand, I think that we should care about animal suffering proportional to how capable of suffering the being we're considering is. Animals without nervous systems are clearly less capable of suffering than, say, mammals, so I don't think it makes sense to be as upset.

Anyway, I don't eat any fish. :)

The largest problem is that all of these animals are killed either by suffocation after they're removed from the water, or by having their organs explode from decompression sickness.

I grew up fishing, and that's not necessarily true. You generally try and either kill or stun the fish before they sufficate, largely so the fish doesn't flop around so much. In most cases (average sized salmon, for instance) this is done by bleeding, though often larger fish are clubbed in the head to stun them before bringing them into the boat.

For large fish, like bigger halibut, we actually carried a revolver on board so we could shoot them in the head before we brought them on board. This was a safety measure--100 pounds of halibut flopping around is enough force to break your legs. Unfortunately we never caught a fish that big.

If you have time, sit back and read this excellent essay by David Foster Wallace on eating lobster, which examines the issues from a humane, non-dogmatic perspective:

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...

This was the title essay in one of DFW's essay compilations.

I can see the issue with animals with brains.

However, Oysters/mussels should be separated out of this list as they don't. After watching this Ted video, http://www.ted.com/talks/stefano_mancuso_the_roots_of_plant_... , I think high level plants may be functioning at near the same level as low functioning animals.

So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat? This seems to be the most coherent ethical stance. Otherwise you enter into the "like-us conundrum" wherein the value of a living organism is directly proportional to it's similarity to our species.

> So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat?

Yes. It seems plausible to me that I'll start eating meat again within a decade or two, once industry practices improve.

So, don't buy industry. Buy local, humanely raised and killed animals.

e.g., our turkey for thursday was processed today, at a family's small farm here. Our eggs come from the back yard. We've gotten pork from another local person who raises a few pigs on the side. FWIW, poultry seems to be the hardest to source for us, and maybe that's because the margins are so damn slim for the factory birds.

Humanely killed from whose perspective, ours or the animals'? I'm guessing if we could ask, most animals would prefer to live regardless of how painless their death would be or how enjoyable their lives were up until that point. I eat meat so I don't have a problem with killing animals for consumption, I'm just trying to understand the whole "humane killing" idea.

This gets into deeply philosophical, unanswerable questions. If we didn't bring them into the world as food, would they have existed in the first place? Is is it better that they existed for a shorter period of time than not at all? Do the animals we eat for food have the capacity of preferences? Due to their brain capacities, is it more humane to eat fish and birds versus pigs and cattle?

Both, really. Ideally, the animal would be having a happy life until it suddenly wasn't, and didn't exist anymore. Practically, that can mean that they're kept in their normal surroundings until the last moment, and then they're killed as quickly and painlessly as possible.

For example, the farm around the corner has a mobile slaughterhouse come to their pasture. The cows to be killed are put in one pasture, separate from the others. They're killed with a gunshot to the head, then taken away. There's no chance for the cows to stress in transport and know that the day is any different from any other, until the very last second. I'd call that humane.

Does that scale? If everyone did it, would it work?

"finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult"

One word: hunt.

> One word: hunt.

I know you're probably expecting me to be outraged or something, but I don't have an ethical issue with someone killing an animal painlessly to eat -- it's a vast improvement from life on a factory farm!

One problem is, of course, the painlessly part; I would (and should) feel guilty when, inevitably, I miss my shot and don't manage to kill the animal straight away.

On average, dying from even an imperfect shot is more humane for the deer than how it would die naturally in the wild (most likely starvation).

> finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages in eating a predictable diet.

http://slowfood.org/