The meat disaster. What have they done.

Have long known about this. My family and I watched a documentary a few years ago about our food supply, they showed you first hand what a factory farm looks like and I immediately began crying. My daughters said - awww mom, see why we need to avoid meat and especially beef? These cows had virtually a circle of about 5 feet - on concrete - to move around and were kept like this in the blazing sun and rain. No relief from the sun. The poor cows. They never eat grass! It's not under their feet! And yes they are forced to eat soy and corn.

And then they slaughter this meat, we buy it and feed it to ourselves and our families.

Many people think there isn't a connection (to the rise in so many health issues). Oh I believe there is.

I also could bawl like a baby when I think of what they're doing to adult female pigs, they are housed in crates on their sides, stacked 3 and 4 tall, they are like this - their entire lives, only incubators for more pigs, to be slaughtered.

Consequently I can't bring myself to eat beef nor pork.

I haven't followed that UK horse meat story yet, but I believe you. I am nearly a vegetarian. It is expensive to purchase fresh foods and products free of hormones, and additives not healthy for us. Sometimes I wonder if we should implement a garden in our backyard. But 7 yards drain into my backyard which leads to a lower lot into a rear storm drain. All of these yards/owners use chemicals to treat their lawns. So that's one reason why I've hesitated to start a garden. It would be contaminated or somewhat tainted by these chemicals (which BTW we don't use). These chemicals have killed toads ya know.

I don't eat this meat. I will only eat meat when I know where it came from. I probably eat meat once a week or less. I'd really like to stop entirely. It's very disturbing. I don't understand why more people don't care. However, I do spend a ton when I buy meat, sometimes nearly $30 a pound. Since it's just myself and my bf, it's not a huge expenditure - especially less than once a week - but if i had a family, I wouldn't be able to afford to eat this way. I personally don't care about the chemicals and what it does to me, I am more concerned about the animals and the farming practices, and yes, at the same time, it's bad for people.

Freddyj: No I am just pointing it out again,and the implications for IBD,which started to
increase 1920 or so.
The really disturbing part is the change in human fat, fatty acid profiles.
Old Mike

Marsky, have you considered an elevated garden? You can build frames of whatever depth, fill them and plant in them. It works beautifully for small crops especially. Strawberries, for instance, can be planted in a box that sits on pedestals. They're protected from yard chemicals, slugs and no back-breaking bending to pick them. Tomatoes, peppers, most veggies other than asparagus and corn grow well this way.

An elevated garden, hey there's an idea!

Thanks, might look into that. Our backyard is nearly flat and faces south, it would receive the proper amount of sunlight per day.

oh yes. this was one of my reasons for becoming vegan years ago. obviously since I follow paleo now, I am strict in only buying grass fed and organic meat. since I eat so much of it (at least 1 lb a day), I will not risk the overdosing of omega 6 fatty acids as well as the hormones in the crappy meat. it's definitely insanely expensive. we were going to have chuck roast for dinner, and the chuck roast was $10 a lb and for 5 people plus leftovers, we were gonna do 5 lbs of it. well, now it's ground beef. who can afford these meat prices???

Does conventional meat and its production help IBD, or contribute to general human or ecosystem health? No.

I regards to grass fed/organic meats and costs it's actually a lot about location, proximity and distribution channels and so on. It's possible to get it for the same cost as regular meat, in fact at times I've paid less for field grazing or free range organic meats/eggs - i.e the animals are free to roam around and eat whatever they normally would...

I live in a city area with a population of around 1,000,000 people but we have a few farms on the outskirts that I can go buy direct from. If I go directly there it's essentially the same cost as grocery store commercial meats. A few of these farms also have little stores set up both on their property and at local markets. Its a bit more if I go there. And of course, if I go to the grocery store and buy organic chicken breasts, ground beef or a roast cause I'm in a pinch it's basically double what I would pay buying direct.

So it is entirely possible to live off of these organic free range meats at the same costs as commercial foods if there is a proper network of producers in place.

Here is an example of one of the places around me: http://www.mordensorganicfarmstore.com/?page_id=38 but there's many others as well around me with better prices if you know where to go.

So I guess I'm a little lucky in this sense...

Also the other thing that totally pisses me off is that I learned that meats can still say things like grass fed, no antibiotics and such on the package at the grocery store - but in reality due to labeling laws this can be commercially raised, grain fed animals that have ONLY been fed grass and no antibiotics just prior to slaughtering. I think it may actually explain this on the site link I posted above.

Anyway - it's frustrating cause it's like trying to go full on SCD but labeling laws allow for the fact that if it accounts for 10% or less of the total product it doesn't have to be listed. Or something within those ranges...

Food should be just that.. "food"... It's mind boggling when you really think about what food has actually become.

A former co-worker of mine had once worked for a company that provided automated equipment for slaughterhouses... Told me the stories of what goes on in those places long before the many documentaries (eg Food, inc.) and youtube exposes were plentiful- awful, sad, disgusting stuff reminding us how a once fringe primate (homo sapiens) came to be so horrible to the rest of the planet. I do best on paleo so I have to rely on plenty of meat, and while I know that labels like organic, free-range, and pasture-raised can be bent and twisted far beyond the idyllic images on the packaging, at least its a far cry from the worst of the industry- at home I never cook with obvious factory farmed meat.

Yes organic and now the other buzz words like grass fed and free range are the only sectors of the food industry that are growing, so the douche bags are consantly trying to get that on their labels.... The terms only mean what the law states and so buyer beware. There are lawyers constantly trying to lower the standards and redefine the legal definitions. Its best to know your farmers.

Again it all comes down to how many people this planet can support. Human population control is the most important conversation anyone can have, and supercedes each and every cause there is.