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Nov 21 12 4:38 AM
luckyshot wrote:Cobsize wrote:LadyVet2012 wrote:Cobsize wrote:I've got a friend who moved her family to the USA from the UK a year ago and they have gone almost completely veggie as she can't source any ethical meat where she lives, in the UK we have strict animal welfare and drug/hormone laws regarding meat and milk animals plus you can get slightly more expensive free range/organic options and sustainably sourced fish in every supermarket. Just FYI- we have strict drug/hormone laws here in the US as well. People act like we are serving terrible meat products filled with chemicals. This is just not true. As far as vegan/veg goes, I have no opinion.I've not looked into it in depth but I thought in the USA beef cows are given hormones to increase muscle growth and cows are given hormones to increase milk production? Do you still have battery/caged egg farms or are commercial egg laying hens barn kept or free range? Maybe I'm running off old news.While I can't speak for anyone else, I'm from a large commercial cow/calf farm, and none of our cattle get hormone implants. We raise cattle that are mostly Charolais, and they are better at converting feed to muscle, and they also get to slaughter weight faster than the British breeds (Angus, Hereford, etc), so they generally don't need implants. That being said, all beef has hormones in it, whether the cattle had hormone implants or not. Beef from bulls with no implant has 10 times more testosterone than beef from a steer who has a hormone implant. A steak from a steer that had a hormone implant has slightly more estrogen in it than a steak from an untreated steer, but the amount of estrogen is negligible to begin with. There is 77 times more estrogen in eggs, and 200 times more estrogen in cabbage, and yet people don't seem to be too concerned about that. And I'm not even from a farm that uses hormone implants. I just think people should know the facts before they make their decisions. Milk cows can't be given hormones at all in Canada.And I also think people who equate organic with humane. In my experience organic farms treat their animals pretty much the same as any other farm. With the exception being that the animals don't get antibiotics right away when they're sick. Beef cattle in feedlots are not given antibiotics in their feed. They only get them if they have some sort of infection, pink eye, pneumonia, etc. And all the antibiotics have withdrawl times, to make sure they're out of the animals system before they're slaughtered. Sometimes when they first go into the feedlot they all get antibiotics, but it has nothing to do with growth. It's to prevent them from getting shipping fever. When organic cattle get infections, the farmers will generally do what they can to avoid giving them antibiotics. Treating an animal with antibiotics means that it can no longer be sold as organic, which really screws with a farmers profit margin. So the animal has to suffer through a bunch of "natural" treatments, instead of just being given the antibiotic that will cure it right away. With that being said, I'm all for people sourcing local meat! It's great for us, profit wise, it's healthier for the environment (less trucks driving around hauling cattle), and if you want to come to the farm and see our cows for your peace of mind, we are all about that. Happy cows are productive cows, so we do our best to keep our cows happy. We finish a few steers every year for local customers, and for ourselves. We will also sell grassfed, although they take a lot longer to finish. If I were no longer able to get beef from our farm, I would still be comfortable buying it from a grocery store.Chickens are a different story to me, as well as hogs. I will not buy chicken, eggs, or pork from the grocery store, because I don't like the way they're raised commercially. Luckily I have one farmer friend who raises free range hogs, and many farmer friends who have backyard chickens, so it's easy for me to get what I need locally. And now that I'm done with that tangent, I completely understand the vegan point of view. I don't agree with it, but it does make sense to me. The vegans that I have met are very solid in their belief that no animal should be kept in captivity, pet or otherwise. It's not so much about the treatment of the animals, but about the idea of keeping animals in captivity as a whole. I find it very interesting talking to them and getting to know their views. You just have to go into it knowing that you're not going to agree with each other. I don't try to convince them that they should eat meat, most of them don't try to convince me to stop raising/eating meat, we just discuss our different opinions and experiences.
Cobsize wrote:LadyVet2012 wrote:Cobsize wrote:I've got a friend who moved her family to the USA from the UK a year ago and they have gone almost completely veggie as she can't source any ethical meat where she lives, in the UK we have strict animal welfare and drug/hormone laws regarding meat and milk animals plus you can get slightly more expensive free range/organic options and sustainably sourced fish in every supermarket. Just FYI- we have strict drug/hormone laws here in the US as well. People act like we are serving terrible meat products filled with chemicals. This is just not true. As far as vegan/veg goes, I have no opinion.I've not looked into it in depth but I thought in the USA beef cows are given hormones to increase muscle growth and cows are given hormones to increase milk production? Do you still have battery/caged egg farms or are commercial egg laying hens barn kept or free range? Maybe I'm running off old news.
LadyVet2012 wrote:Cobsize wrote:I've got a friend who moved her family to the USA from the UK a year ago and they have gone almost completely veggie as she can't source any ethical meat where she lives, in the UK we have strict animal welfare and drug/hormone laws regarding meat and milk animals plus you can get slightly more expensive free range/organic options and sustainably sourced fish in every supermarket. Just FYI- we have strict drug/hormone laws here in the US as well. People act like we are serving terrible meat products filled with chemicals. This is just not true. As far as vegan/veg goes, I have no opinion.
Cobsize wrote:I've got a friend who moved her family to the USA from the UK a year ago and they have gone almost completely veggie as she can't source any ethical meat where she lives, in the UK we have strict animal welfare and drug/hormone laws regarding meat and milk animals plus you can get slightly more expensive free range/organic options and sustainably sourced fish in every supermarket.
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