[kierenj]

> Reynolds says he watched at least 10 of DxE’s clips from its investigation, and they left him disturbed for days. “I’ve actually seen a lot of horrible videos. This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” he says. “I’m not eating pork from the United States anymore until somebody fixes these problems.”

What a hopelessly optimistic statement. As if a different kind of meat, or different country of origin, would be any better?

[ohyoutravel]

The pork (and other meat) I get from my local butcher has chain of custody down to the exact farm and batch of pigs, or the actual cow in the case of beef. The animals are all treated humanely and live long lives on outdoor farms. So yeah I think different places can be better.

[upon_drumhead]

I wish we had local butchers anywhere close to us. They're all gone. Priced out by Costco, Walmart, and Safeway.

[barbazoo]

Who knows. What _is_ a "better" way to kill millions of animals a year?

[amalgamated_inc]

The best way to reduce the number of animal deaths is actually to switch to beef exclusively.

An average head of cattle yields maybe 880lbs of usable meat + fat (https://beef.unl.edu/beefwatch/2020/how-many-pounds-meat-can...)

1lb of beef has around 1,100kcal. This differs depending on the protein/fat ratio of course, but let's just do a simple calculation.

An average person would have to eat about 2lbs of beef per day as the only source of food. This is actually quite common in the carnivore and zero-carb communities, people mostly report between 1.5lbs (lil' old ladies) and 3lbs (big, tall, strong people who work out a lot).

So one head of beef cattle can feed the average person for ~440 days, or a little over a year. That means that less than 1 animal needs to be killed per year for your entire nutritional needs.

Compare this to chicken. How many chickens do you need to eat per day? Probably 2 or more, since they're so lean. So you're at <1 death per year vs. several deaths per day.

I say, let's eat more beef.

[barbazoo]

> How many chickens do you need to eat per day?

Need? 0.

[amalgamated_inc]

Suggest an alternative then that kills fewer animals. (Hint: the grain and vegetables you eat kill way more than 1 per year with the rodents and insects that are being poisoned and sliced/diced by the farm equipment.)

[barbazoo]

Are you seriously suggesting that a plant based diet is just as bad because a very small number of animals accidentally get killed in the process but in an unrelated way?

The same animals die in the production of plant based food _used_ for the production of meat.

[amalgamated_inc]

> Are you seriously suggesting that a plant based diet is just as bad because a very small number of animals accidentally get killed in the process but in an unrelated way?

Yes

[miles]

> What _is_ a "better" way to kill millions of animals a year?

Not millions. Billions.

https://animalclock.org

[Ancapistani]

Probably.

Given what I know about the process from end to end, the ideal would be an instant slaughter, away from the other animals, where they were raised.

There are pretty big roadblocks to making that happen - sanitation and refrigeration are the two that immediately come to mind, but there are others as well.

This line of thought does make me wonder if there might be a market for a mobile slaughter operation. Something on the scale of a single 52' semi trailer, where the animal goes from "farm to freezer" on-site. You'd definitely need to "field dress" them there, but you'd probably want to skin them as well for efficiency.

For game animals you can get away with removing the organs but leaving the carcass otherwise whole; for pigs, skinning is significantly more labor-intensive if not done as the first step. I won't go into detail here, because it's both potential disturbing and might be a bit of a trade secret - but there is an easy way to skin an animal that takes only one person less than a couple of minutes. I've done it for deer that have been field dressed, and it's much less effective.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Just don't

[amalgamated_inc]

Then what do we eat

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Is that a serious question? I haven't eaten meat since 2002

[amalgamated_inc]

I don't consider non-beef products real food. Everything but the beef is just seasoning. I'd say beef has been my main source of nutrition for... not 2002, but a long time. Including a couple times of carnivore, but that wasn't quite for me. I miss the seasoning :)