Mephisto2

Will you join Moopheus and learn the truth about the food you eat?

Click the link below... if you dare...

http://www.themeatrix.com/


There is a serious message here if you have a couple of minutes to spare.


Mr Mephisto

thejoker130

Ooooooookay, thats just about the most disturbing thing i've ever seen...

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Jimbob666

I'd rather not know. I love bacon cheeseburgers

Mephisto2

It's true too.

That's why I buy "organic meat" or, at a minimum, "free range" meat as much as possible.

I'm no tree-hugging hippie, weak and lethargic veggie or completely off the rails vegan, but I don't see why we should make animals suffer. After all, if we're gonna eat the little buggers, we might as well let them live a half decent life in the first place.

Besides, it tastes nicer and is less likely to cause you harm.

Mr Mephisto

lurkette

I was a vegetarian for three years out of protest for corporate farming practices and for environmental reasons. Then I figured that my one absention was probably not doing much to change the system. I'd be better off contributing my money to humane and sustainable farming and eating meat if I want it, and working to institute more healthy and humane farming practices. Pass the roast beef, please.

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Mephisto2

Couldn't have said it better myself lurkette. I couldn't give up bacon, ham, pork, gamon...

All from that "magical mystery animal!" We just don't have to keep it in a 2' x 4' cage all its life...

Mr Mephisto

nothingx

You see, the real problem is that we're overpopulating ourselves. Cities are spreading further and futher out into the rural areas taking up the small local farmlands. Develpments full of duplexes and expensive houses are replacing cattle fields. Much in the same way the town merchant lost his business to the Wal-mart Super Center the local farmer is losing his farms to the corporate machine. Its not enough to simply refuse to purchase mass marketed animals... this problem goes way deeper than that.

Mephisto2

There's plenty of room for sustainable farming.

It's money (ie, cost/benefit). It's cheaper for a large "industrial" farming operation to create bloated animals in a caged environment than it is to along them "free range".

It's not lack of land. That's just silly.

Also, I don't suggest refusing to buy mass produced produce. Just choose free range or organic when possible. Everyone has a choice. Use it.


Mr Mephisto

lurkette

The other thing is that we eat inefficiently. The corn that is fed to a beef cow to produce 1 lb of hamburger could provide many more calories if just eaten by people in the first place. (Granted, they're fed low-grade feed corn, the stuff that's rejected for human consumption, but that feed corn still takes up land and resources to produce - land that could be used to produce more nutritious crops than corn). Buffalo and ostrich produce more protein on less feed. Soy has tons of protein and has other health benefits. The amount of land we devote to growing food for our food is truly ridiculous. And we're not overpopulating, we're over-subsidizing and overproducing. We grow/farm more food than we can eat in this country, and the government keeps prices down so we can export it, thereby ruining the chances of smaller, less industrialized nations of ever developing viable export crops. And sustainable farming doesn't really take up more land, it just uses the land differently and in a way that gives you less control over the animals. A lot of the confinement in factory farming is not for space efficiency but for procedural efficiency - easier to feed, water, medicate the animals if they're all in one place and you don't have to chase them down.

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VitaminH

Supply and demand however, is the problem. People want to eat a nice patty of beef and not one of soy. To the american society, it tastes better, so thats what they want. Farmers have to supply that, or go out of buisness.

Last I heard, pig prices for farmers selling to market are about what they were in the depression. That is a cent for cent comparison, think about that AFTER inflation, how is the small pork producer supposed to survive? They can't. Thats why my mother went back to work and my father quit pork and went all crops...these huge confinements are ruining the small farmer. However, that's the American way anymore it seems...

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Mephisto2

"Free range" produce tastes better.

Mr Mephisto

PS - I can't believe I'm sounding like a hippy... Heck, I just prefer not being unnecessarily cruel. I am going to eat them, after all.

It's just a personal choice thing. If you can afford the extra that quality organic or free-range food costs, and you like the improved taste, then buy it. If you can't afford it, or don't like the taste, then don't.

MrM

Jam

heh thats a sweet video...

also not cool

arael

well made flash video.. gaves this serious issue a humorous touch.. i like it

Jimbob666

I just read somewhere (I think in Al Franken's new book) that the only way that industrial hog farms are able to produce their meat more cheaply than family farms is because they ignore dumping laws. If they disposed of the pig shit legally, it would cost more.

Sapper

I agree with this topic. I never understood why we have to treat the animals so poorly. There is more than enough land for the animals to roam ... so why can't we use it?

We are too concerned about "maximzing" everything ... this is why we cage the animals.

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erion

We get most of our meats from local farmers who set up shop once, maybe twice a week at country/farmers markets. For one thing, you're not going to ever get a better or fresher cut unless you slaughter the animals yourself. Secondly, Three pounds worth of delmonico steaks for less than $16. Most of the time the cuts are less than 6 or 8 hours old by the time I get them into my freezer (or directly to the grill). They've never been packed in ice or dry ice to preserve them

I get great meats. I support local family farms. My money stretches farther. I contribute a much larger portion of my dollar to the local economy than buying them at Big Chain Grocery Stores. The animals have roamed the beautiful central PA farmlands before getting in my belly. Everyone wins. Except the Megafarms.

raeanna74

I've grown up in a farming community and watched my friends families get moved from the farms that had been their grandparents and great grandparents because they couldn't compete with the factory farms. My family has bought meat directly from the farmers. At times a few of us would split up a cow between us. Paying the farmer directly and butcher it ourselves. I grew up being aware of where my food came from and I was taught to appreciate the animals that kept food on my table. We very often hunted and almost none of the deer ever went to waste. We used to even get our milk and eggs directly from the farmers who were friends of ours. We helped them when haying time came in thanks for the food that we were able to get at "wholesale" prices. Ever read "The Jungle"? It's somewhat outdated but it shows where the meat packing industry was going already many years ago. I can't always afford to organic meats but hunting and freezing deer meat helps me avoid the regular stuff. We also have a buffalo farm and restaurant in our town. I've worked for the owner and know what he does with his animals. It's much more expensive but I think any meat but the "beef" off the shelves at the market has so much more and better taste.

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Miserlou

That video spoke to me more than any other half-assed Peta protest or vegetarian arguement. I still just don't really know what I can do to stop it. Organic foods arn't really an easily accessible item in my area and I lost interest once I clicked on the red pill.

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water_boy1999

Mmmmmm.....pork chops!

It's not just the "American Way" as some of you have put it. It is a worldwide epidemic if you will. This brings up a question though. What if these mega conglomerates decided to build a pig farm in countries where the food was not so readily available? Would it still be an epidemic that there is more food for the hungry? Just a thought.

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Midnight_Son

damn city folk
.......ya, ok there's room for free range faming however.... do a little research on the price of land, then do a little more research on your average farmers income. then combine the two. you want a double bacon cheese burger but you don't want to feel guilty about where it came from? huh.

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Sho Nuff

Moving toward mass marketed goods and trading quality to quantity and cost efficency is an epidemic no matter where you do it. Its not just in food production either. Our cars are made out of tin foil and fiberglass. Our tvs now break after a couple years of use. Craftmanship is a thing of the past. Corporate profit is now the bottom line. Everyone is seeking to make their product just good enough that their competitor isnt too far ahead of them and for the least amount of money per unit possible.

The result is a country and a world full of low grade food and products, an environment flooded with production waste, food full of preservatives and hormones having untold effects on our bodies, etc, etc, etc.

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Mephisto2

Nonesense.

I want to buy organic and/or free range products when possible. It costs me more in supermarkets, but I pay it.

What's your point?


Mr Mephisto

Midnight_Son

My point…well, do I really have to make one? lol……
I guess what I was trying to say is that most animals that are bread for food don’t have the lifestyle of what a “free-range” animal does. However that is a situation that was created by society and the economy. Not necessarily by the farmer / rancher that breeds the animals.

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TheFirstDuffMan

/me takes a bite from a steak

PETA needs to tone it down a notch...

wilbjammin

My parents don't buy any beef products if they don't know where it came from anymore. There's an epidemic of the hoof and mouth disease equivalent with the deer in the midwest, how long until that spreads to the cattle? And open range does taste better. And this is coming from a Cowboy... well, at least, I'm from Prineville... Nothing hippie-like about protecting yourself and supporting good ol' Bob up the road.

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Nefir

I try to buy organic and free range products when possible, but I have no qualms about killing baby animals as they are still warm from the womb of their mothers, and eating them whole. They are just so tasty!

Here's a "what if?" type of question for you all:
If we had the means to genetically grow beef, pork, etc. without it being a live animal - you know, just a big slab/roll/tank/spool of meat without a brain - would you eat that? Would the hardcore PETA(rrorists) be happy with something like that?

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Macheath

That was really well done, quite a nicely made site.

Mr Mephisto, do ya have some good Sydney sources for that organic, free range meat?

I saw that search engine for small US farmers, something like that would be fantastic for all the non-US carnivores.

Rodney

I still do eat meat from time to time, and not organic meat. But I do not buy much meat. We also buy food of good quality: fresh fruits and vegetables in season, often organic, organic or fresh fruit juices, eggs from free-range chickens from a local producer, fresh-baked local whole-grain breads, soy milk and organic yogurt. We buy at the farmer's market when possible, not the supermarket. And my wife looks at the bills from time to time and shakes her her, because we do spend a lot for food. But that is because we eat _good_ food -- fresh, not processed or sugared, high quality. But it's how we eat to stay healthy.

I would scarcely call the processed stuff and fast food that many people live on "food" anymore. But it is cheap and convenient. When two parents work and come home at the end of the day, they can either cook for themselves or the kids or buy a family dinner for $12 from the Colonel, and it is salted and fatty within an inch of its life. The problem is cheap, processed, food, and a lifestyle that now makes it difficult -- moneywise and timewise -- for some people to eat anything else. Education is a good start, but who's paying for that? Nobody with the advertising budget of Kraft Foods, that's for sure.

As for Sho Nuff's original point -- we trade quality for quantity in production of all things -- I'll point you all to a series on Walmart that's up on the latimes.com site and should stay up for a day or two. Walmart sells $250 billion of stuff a year, and mercilessly pushes producers for lower prices first, quality second. Other retailers are following suit to keep up, and buyers are responding. So you've got some poor woman in Southern China sewing on two oor three shirt-sleeves a minute for 14 hours a day -- how good is it all going to be? Meanwhile, Walmart is pushing suppliers to cut prices even more. You think that's all going to be through "increased efficiency?" Gimme a break. Quality will continue to go down, until shoppers wake up to the fact that the cheapest price isn't necessarily the best deal. We seem to have forgotten that.