On one hand, it looks like a hit piece for Brazil meat industry.
On the other hand, it’s been a long time without eating a cut from Brazil.
On the third hand (freaky meat addict) , I sometimes do the job of the alleged slave workers. Cutting from big chunk to something edible is so satisfying.
Back to the thread title. I probably take part on it. It’s simply delicious.
Borrowed from Peach Weber: I only eat meat from happy butchers!
I’ve not eaten meat for 8 years…
Yes. Heavy meat-eating family here. Easily 5kg a week.
I spent some time looking at the impact, and decided if I was not willing to eat avocados due to the massive environmental damage, not eat strawberries grown in a greenhouse in CH, etc etc etc… then I would live a very sad life.
So I eat everything.
I think that’s key. We just holidayed with some friends who over-portioned everything then were on the brink of chucking away what we didn’t eat (“because it will be bad tomorrow”) until I talked them into having a second night of bolognese or whatever was heading for the bin. Holy moly!
Imho the whole idea of animal suffering and making animals feel as good as you can before you kill them is a very human coping mechanism. The only consistent ideology I see here is veganism - at least they don’t eat meat at all… But having to hear from some rando that he’s a superior human being, because he eats Swiss meat or organic meat or whatever doesn’t make sense - but hey - I own stocks and am very glad for every “useful idiot” paying more for their daily life than necesarry.
I personally only buy meat when it’s off -25% - -50% (which is quite often) or in Germany and whether the animals have had a peacful life on a grass fed diet or were strangled with bare hands is none of my concerns. I don’t care and I also don’t beleive the guilt tripping marketing around all of this makes a real difference, outside our own self imposed human moral standards. All other intelligent carnivores toy around with their prey / food all the time (Orcas, for example).
I do however think that many people live in a fantasy rainbow lala-land and they should at least see and experience slaughtering an animal, because no, the meat doesn’t just grow in a plastic bag at Coop/Aldi, etc.
If lab grown meat ever becomes viable, I personally do think that that’d be an acceptable alternative to mass animal farming, but were not there for at least 50-100y imho.
Apparently it affects the taste and quality of the meat. Acute stress before slaughter makes your meat tough, a bit more acidic and dry.
@ShirleyNot, that’s not my only concern with traumatised meat. There is a gigantic hormonal (e.g., cortisol) dump that occurs when an animal is stressed, and I don’t want to eat that. We always made sure our animals didn’t know what was coming, and the meat was tender and tasty.
Sure, I was also hyperbolically making a point… we shouldn’t torture animals for no reason, but it can’t be so dry to make me pay Swiss full price for it… I personally don’t think Swiss meat tastes better than German meat or whatever and self testing here is not very effective, as you have a cognitive bias towards valuing more expensive items higher (in order to not feel stupid to have spent more)
True, but then again, you would hope that all dispatching and meat processing facilities in Europe are a tad better than those in the article at the top of the thread.
That’s fine, but the taste is probably your concern. Eating a proper freerange village chicken is superior to farmed organic, which is massively superior to caged, and either are light years better than that people get in the US, which is some white amorphous, tasteless mass. Or a heritage breed pig grown for at least 16 months, foraging beech nuts and acorns. On top of that, as noted already, animals which stress/are in pain before death have markedly worse-tasting, and worse-textured meat. Any competent butcher will confirm that.
On topic, I have become guilt tripped to paying more and avoiding anything not labelled at least free range, and limiting our meat consumption, trading quantity for quality. Don’t have misconceptions that we’re eating Heidi’s cows, but at least we’re also (hopefully) not eating animals who can barely breathe and are forced to sit in their own shit until their feet rot.
Agree with you, the militant “meat is murder” brigade are annoying.
Yeah… and I myself just eat less meat anyway, no matter the cost. Chicken is fine I guess, but red meat isn’t particularly healthy the last time I checked (although it’s questionable what risks it really has when eating it in reasonable portions).
My Grandparents used to have chickens and they did in fact taste better in my memories, but the question is: Is this just my childhood nostalgia or objective truth? Since they don’t have chickens anymroe and I can’t hold them in my condo, I’ll probably never know…
My grandma too, it could well be part nostalgia, however you can still get a proper freerange animal and taste the difference yourself. You don’t even need to taste, the meat is dark, firm, leaner, less watery and also doesn’t produce much liquid when you cook it. My wife has a theory that most meats we eat have water injected to them to sell for more. I tell her I disagree on the principle that it’d be cheating consumers to sell water for the price of meat, but can’t disagree with roasting a chicken at home and having 1cm of liquid in the tray. Then again you can add potatoes to the tray, and you get chicken roast potatoes in one go 