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meat

jdb123jdb123 Member Posts: 471 ✭✭✭
edited April 2002 in General Discussion
i aint saying i am, but does anyone feel a little uneasy about slaughterhouses.i know its the only way to mass produce meat but are those folks just immune to the killing or what? i am a devout meat eater and not hypocritical about liking meat but pretending the process doesnt exist, but i could never imagine killing{regardless of the way i did it} over and over again. also i hate PETA and my dog hates them too.just wondering while i watch another texas ranger meltdown on tv.

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    nunnnunn Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 36,028 ******
    edited November -1
    Ever been to a brewery and watched beer being made? Not pretty nor nice-smelling.

    Slaughter houses may be unpleasant, but how else can we process meat animals on a wholesale level in order to keep costs as low as possible? In spite of what PETA says, animals are killed quickly if not humanely.

    I wouldn't care to work in either a slaughterhouse or a brewery, but I still enjoy a good steak and a bottle of beer once in a while.


    Certified SIG pistol armorer/FFL Dealer/Full time Peace Officer, Moderator of the General Discussion Board on Gunbroker. Visit www.gunbroker.com, the premier gun auction site on the Net! Email davidn
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    niklasalniklasal Member Posts: 776 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I see what your saying Nunn but I think it's the mass killing part is the tough part to stomach. I'm opposite of vegetarian, but I'd think constantly seeing the bloody death of large animals to be rather desensitizing.

    NIKLASAL@hotmail.com
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    MercuryMercury Member Posts: 7,812 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I'm not a butcher, but we butchered our own hogs when I was growing up. Chickens, too. We'd do 8-10 hogs at once, and the neighbors would all pitch in and help. We'd butcher 200-300 chickens at once, too.

    Really didn't bother me much. You just don't think about it. Just another job on the farm that needs to be done.

    Cracks me up when vegetarians say "If people had to butcher their own meat, they'd be vegetarians."

    Funny part is.......I've never met a single vegetarian farmer!

    I do respect people who don't eat meat for their HEALTH though. But as far as "I don't want to kill anything" that is just goofy.

    Merc

    NO! You may not have my guns! Now go crawl back into your hole!

    ****************************************

    "Tolerating things you may not necessarily like is part of being free" - Larry Flynt
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    RembrandtRembrandt Member Posts: 4,486 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Unfortunately most people today think meat comes shrink wrapped and bar coded from a "meat machine".....it's sad how many homemakers (men & women) don't know how to dress a chicken, cut up meat or even prepare a Turkey for Thanksgiving. 50 years ago this was part of food preparation in most of America's households....today, it is a rareity. Much of this has to do with marketing products to a "convienence oriented culture"....nearly all meat products in the stores are boneless and ready to pop in the oven. It's what our culture has evolved to in the last 50-75 years. This may be why we are desensitized and uneasy about killing animals for meat, a whole generation has been removed from that side of it by the comercial meat industry.

    On my last trip to Argentina, went to a local grocery store...the meat counter looked as modern as any in the US....but all the meat was quartered and the purchaser had to do the trimming and cutting at home. Hardly saw any ground meat available.

    Edited by - Rembrandt on 04/17/2002 22:46:28
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    idsman75idsman75 Member Posts: 13,398 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    To put it bluntly, YES you do become immune or desensitized to the dagger that you are putting into the animal's throat. I worked in a pig operation for six months before joining the Army. I worked in the kill pit but didn't do any "sticking". The guy doing the "sticking" had been doing it for 20 years. No big deal to him. I worked next to him and it didn't bother me a bit.

    Here's another interesting tidbit. You get used to the smell of the animal's excretion very quickly. After six months I still became nauseous from the smell of the massive vat that captured the blood. Large quantities of blood (hundreds of gallons) are the worst smell I've ever encountered.

    Observing my first full-blown autopsy was a walk in the park and I must credit my work in the hog operation for that.

    SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY
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    Big Sky RedneckBig Sky Redneck Member Posts: 19,752 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    It all depends on you also. Killing animals has never bothered me at all, neither in sadness or queasiness did it bother me. But some people see roadkill and get goofy. Some can get used to it, others cant. My first job with trucks was with Empire Kosher Poultry as a yard jockey and unloading live chickens in the "live room". I look at it like a vegetable farmer looks at picking lettuce and some employees lasted less than a week. My wife say's I'm cold hearted but it just never bothered me at all, no matter what kind of animal. Even pet's that need to be put down don't bother me. I can be at the farm on kill day and have a ham and cheese sandwich in one hand while helping skin the cow/steer with the other, maybe I need professional help huh?!
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    bartobarto Member Posts: 4,734 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    there is just something about dressing chickens that gags me.
    i would rather dress 3 deer than one chicken.
    smelly little buggers.
    barto

    the hard stuff we do right away - the impossible takes a little longer
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    jonkjonk Member Posts: 10,121
    edited November -1
    You can get used to just about anything. I used to cry when I was little when we kept fish, watching them gasp and die in the cooler, or worse still, when they were still moving as we started to fillet them. I read a book about a German reserve police squad detailed to kill Jews in Poland; they were all horrified the first time they did it, but after doing it a few times they got used to it, many even enjoyed it. If you worked in a slaughterhouse, you would quickly become desensitized. NOt a pretty thought but true.

    "...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conf
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    RedlegRedleg Member Posts: 417 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Nunn,

    I can appreciate your comments on the slaughterhouses being smelly and all, but...

    Don't you EVER bad-mouth beer again.

    Brian

    Artillery lends dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl. --Napoleon
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    wipalawipala Member Posts: 11,068
    edited November -1
    Worked in a small slaughter house when a teenager. For the 1st month I could not eat beef because I saw how it was handled. I still won't eat anything that goes through that place. The most unsanitary operation Iv'e ever seen. (And all the Nicer places in town use their beef.)
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    He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 51,004 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I have long thought that every one who eats meat should, at least once in their lives, have to kill an animal and prepare it for the table, so they know where it really comes from. Native American hunters understood the hunters conundrum and had rituals to deal with the fact that for me to live, something else must die. I do not like killing. I do like meat, and I do like hunting, so I observe the rituals of my partner who is Dinee. I worked for a week in a University slaugher house as loaned labor. It was facinating to see how the animals were handled, but I hated the screaming of the pigs.
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    LightningLightning Member Posts: 945 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Interesting point someone made,,,,,,,,What do slaughter houses do with all that blood ?
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    travelortravelor Member Posts: 442 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The real problem with all of the slaughter house killing, is that individual consumers have lost the sence of responsibility in the killing. People need to have a sence of gratitude for the lives that are given up for their sustainance. Buying a hamburger at the local drive-thru makes you a party to the slaughter. but rarely do people consider the life lost for the quick fix...I have butchered many small animals (any thing smaller than a cow, for the most part) and would rather butcher one that I have raised myself, than buy a fastfood hamburger. This week, I bought a hind quarter of beef, and the act of processing all of it myself, is the next best thing. My 2 cents...

    keep lots of extra uppers for your ar..you can change often enough to keep the thing from over heating...what ever caliber fits the moment..~Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~
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    travelortravelor Member Posts: 442 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Two more cents....

    I Make my own beer, and there is nothing that smells so good as malted barly mash, or cooking wort...M M M M M goooood...remember Robin Hood, Prince of Theives? where Frier Tuck say's: Any fool can eat grain...But the good Lord had a far more devine purpose in mind when he created it....

    keep lots of extra uppers for your ar..you can change often enough to keep the thing from over heating...what ever caliber fits the moment..~Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~
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    the loveable rat...the loveable rat... Member Posts: 969 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    not for the first time i agree 100% w/ he dog. everyone should hold the knife once. meat is death and yes, it hurts to fill my belly w/ that steak. better me than the next one down in line, though...i've thought a lot about this over the years, being the sensitive guy that i am, and i've had a million vegetarian friends- i hafta admit a certain worrisome "moral" problem i have also w/ slaughter en masse. the burger machine bleeds a lot, and i have a feeling it will only get worse. that less will know the connectivity of death(or life), as we grow away from agricultural traditions/hunting/individual marketplace towards mass market/monoculture- taking a cue from european practise(feeding cows sheep, and vise-versa, box pens, hormone growth, etc.)we can expect the same. another reason, and maybe more important one, to hold dearly to "gun culture", as the dips in the media say. how else to call it but moral? at least, here at gunbroker, you guys know the score...things died for my well-being and i defend the honesty and intimacy of that statement and the tools that bring it about...we'll, i just reread this and feel a little sheepish, but what the hell, a little rant is better than a big fart, but only just...

    "let not your work smack of the trowel, nor your words cause a blow from one either..."
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