PETA Just Might Be Pushing It A Bit (1 Viewer)

[Chu Gai]

A simple, yet elegantly minimalistic presentation for your palate. Hopefully, the roach will be a featured ingredient on a future Iron Chef competition. With some butter, EVO, a little garlic, and a light salad, who could ask for more.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The funniest PeTA stories I've heard are the one where they let the minks out of the fur farm and found out afterwards that minks are some of the most vicious predators around. They consumed so much of the local forest's "food supply" that they screwed up the balance for years to come. This ended up in the deaths of not only the innocent prey, but the death of many natural predators (and eventually mink) due to starvation.

The other time, I lived in Pennsylvania (near the Poconos) in 1993, the year winter was affectionately known as "It is Wednesday, so expect a foot of snow". The massive local deer population (PA has the most deer per sq mile of any state) was reduced to eating tree bark and pine nettles to survive. The brilliant local PeTA chapter took it upon themselves to go down to the local feed store and buy 100's of pounds of a rich corn, molasses and oats feed mixture normally used for horses. They then distributed it to the "poor dying deer." None of them knew enough about animals or starvation to realize that rich food in a starving deer used to digesting pine nettles and bark results in a bloated stomach, bowel probelms, digestive failure and eventually death. The county actually had to have the Game Warden make a television PSA to warn them not to feed the deer and they still claimed it was a "hunter's plot."

More proof that most bleeding hearts are not interested in results, they are interested in soothing their own feelings and bragging about how much they "care" (by lording it over everyone who "doesn't care").

 

[RobertR]

Interesting story about "good intentions" being out of touch with reality, Jeff. Another thing PETA doesn't seem to bother to consider is the mass starvation, suffering, and death that would occur if the "poor innocent cattle" used in the beef industry were suddenly no longer domesticated, and left "free" to fend for themselves.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

As I recall, it was in England that they (or some kindred organisation) released a mink farm into a bird sanctuary, where, of course, the little monsters devastated the bird population. Local farmers reported a tidal wave of the things ; apparently their dogs were just picking them up and worrying them until they fell apart.

My point of view on meat-eating has been this, for a long time : most of these animals are the kind which are going to get eaten, one way or the other. Maybe by me, maybe by a panther. I don't see why I shouldn't eat them. The exception would be pork : a hog will kill and eat a human being if it gets a chance, so it only seems fair to eat it first.

 

[RobertR]

All animals (of which we are one) live off the death of other living things. This is of no more concern to me than the fact that I need oxygen. It's simply a biological fact.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

"The mink is the biggest prick in the animal kingdom. Every time you turn on a Marlin Perkins program, the mink's always got some helpless marsupial pinned down, and he's gnawing away at its carotid artery. Yeah, the mink's a delight. Let's seat him next to Grandma. And let me tell you something else, if the situation had been reversed, you'd better believe that the mink would be wearing your pelt around his neck. So when you hit your knees tonight, you can thank your walking-upright God that things worked out the way they did." - Dennis Miller

 

[Andy Sheets]

Strictly speaking, the real problem isn't so much meat-eating. The main issue right now is factory farms. I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan but I do think that factory farming is pretty messed up and I think it's telling that executives in the agriculture industry seem to agree but prefer to not rock the boat because they don't want to risk diminishing profits for the sake of safer standards.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Tell that to all those people who ate the nice, healthy, "organic" spinach that contained E Coli due to the "organic" fertilizer used. They too thought they were buying a product that was not from "factory farms" (right up until Dole spinach was found to contain the same E Coli ).Tell me what's healthier, a head of lettuce grown in a rich, clean soil containing bug and bacteria killing nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides or a head of lettuce grown in cow shit? I'll take the time tested chemicals over the nasty biological waste any day.

 

[Chu Gai]

If you look at say the factory farming of chickens which is done in enclosed spaces, the simple fact that the environment is more structured and regulated makes the chickens less prone to something like that nasty old bird flu since they don't come into contact with infected birds.

 

[Chu Gai]

Throughout all of this, it's really tough for me to muster sympathy for bugs.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I'll stop eating meat and poultry when cows and chickens tell me not to.

 

[Bryan X]

Just wanted to pop in and say that I'm going out back to fire up the grill. Here kitty kitty.....

 

[MarkHastings]

Hmmm, we got the "People Eating Tasty Animals" and "For every animal you don't eat, I'm eating 3" comments out of the way, but we're now on page 2 and I'm surprised no one has mentioned this one yet...

"If God didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them so tasty!"

 

[Buzz Foster]

Or...

"I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat celery."

 

[Bryan X]

 

[Jason Seaver]

I've always heard that one as "if God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?"

 

[Bob McLaughlin]

I'm not consistent about which animals I kill. I eat meat and have no qualms about that sort of thing. But I think those contests where they swallow live goldfish are kind of cruel to the fish. Maybe it's the frivolousness of it, or the exhibition factor. But let's face it, animals' lives are cheap in our society. I don't think for a minute about the animals that were raised so I could wear leather or eat beef.

I don't usually kill spiders, because they eat other bugs. But I have no problems killing those awful million-legged things that move really fast. My cats rounded up a mouse and I saved its life. But a rat tried getting in through our drainage pipe, and I wouldn't rest until it was dead.

 

[Holadem]

There is something about the practice of boiling live lobsters that is deeply disturbing to me (though obviously not enough to keep me away from the result...).

--
H

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I don't boil them alive. I stab them through the head with a chef's knife and then boil them. Or I put them down flat in a pot with with a little water and then bring the heat up until they steam. Of course this is to keep the tail from curling so it is easier to retrieve the meat and has nothing to do with the "feelings" of what is essentially a big aquatic bug.

 

[Paul McElligott]

"I love animals... They're delicious."