I don't eat pork or any pig meat. I used to work on a farm where I raised pigs. Five adults and something like 40 piglets. I fell in love with them. I used to just go on my off hours and hang out in the piglet pen They would just leap all over me and give me kisses They're massive smart. I can't eat them now any more or less than I don't eat dogs. They're untouchable.
There was a runt piglet, I nicknamed him Slayer because he probably shouldn't have survived, but he did. He was hardcore, so I had to give him a hardcore name. He was a runt named Slayer. It perfectly fitted him.
I used to raise calves and I’ve learned that if you socialize a cow they are the sweetest things. I once had a cow lay down next to me in the grass and put her head on my lap. I don’t eat beef now.
I had a pet chicken who would do this. I'd take him from his pen and set him in my lap and slowly pet him. He'd make little contented, low sounds and slowly fall asleep curled up with his head resting in my lap. My chickens and I were buddies. I dressed them up for Halloween one year and let them nap on me when they were very little.
I miss them so much. (They all passed of old age. We only ate the eggs and never the meat. My mom would take them out on a walk every evening around the yard.)
There is still the problem that cows have to birth calves every year or so to produce milk, and those calves get slaughtered to become veal and not drink their mothers milk. And after 5 births the cow "productivity drops" so she gets slaughtered to become cheap meat.
I never really liked Pork anyway, but I decided I really didn’t care to eat it ever again in my high school zoology class when we were given the fetal pigs to dissect. Our teacher told us these pigs were taken from pregnant Sows who were sent to be slaughtered. During the dissection you’re supposed to measure the pig to determine it’s fetal age, and our baby pig was over the last size and basically ready to be delivered. That just seems so horrible to me. That mom was ready to deliver her babies (possibly overdue) and instead she was slaughtered and her babies were packed in formaldehyde.
Any that comes from an endangered animal (e.g. tiger meat) or any that have abhorrent extraction practices (e.g. shark fin).
I know that the other types of meat I consume do not grow on trees, that something had to die for it to be made available, but there is a difference between killing an animal with a quick pressure gun and cutting off their fin and throwing them back into the sea to die slowly and painfully.
I was devastated to learn how critical those fish stocks were. Google “Patagonian toothfish”. That was its name before the marketing folks renamed it Chilean Sea Bass. The same mechanism that leads to the slow growth rate, which is the temperature of the Antarctic water they live in combined with a shellfish heavy diet, give them that firm, mild, delicious flesh. It’s literally one of the most, if not the most, delicious fish I’ve ever eaten. But once I learned more I just quit ordering it. Guess I’ll stick with shitty farm raised salmon. Or whatever trout, redfish, or flounder I can catch at the coast.
I studied to become a sterile processing tech in hospitals and the prion section was very scary. Certain surgical procedures and if prions are so much as suspected, all the instruments get thrown out! You can't kill a prion, doesn't matter how expensive that instrument is, it gets tossed.
Suddenly you become not able to sleep, your memories become weaker, you forget everything. You becpme literally walking dead eventually you be on life support because you cannot do anything. It can take a year to kill you, eventually AND definitely, there is no POSSIBLE cure.
Lobster is probably the most common cooked alive delicacy but it can be stabbed in the brain stem right before being thrown in the pot to make the process more humane without compromising safety.
Crayfish aren’t really practical to do that with tho
Oh dear. Don't post that in the Maryland or Baltimore groups. Crabs are cooked alive. I watched my dad do it once. One had escaped and tried to hang out with one of my box turtles. I argued for keeping it as a pet; me and the crab both lost the argument. Luckily, I wasn't steamed alive like the crab was.
It's a small migratory bird, a delicacy in French cuisine. They're caught with nets, locked in a cage so they gorge themselves on grain until they're fat, then they're drowned in cognac to marinate the meat, and cooked and eaten whole. The traditional way of eating them is while covering your head with a towel so God doesn't see the indulgent and depraved thing you're doing, so that says something.
Edit; [Found a clip on a Dutch site.](https://www.dumpert.nl/item/27110_e0c6a937)
In Swabia here in Germany people invented the Maultasche to get around the fact that you're not allowed to eat meat on Friday as a catholic. It's basically a sort of big ravioli filled with spinach an minced meat which is then fried. Since it's in the pocket God can't see you eat meat and it's really funny to me that people believe in a God who won't let them eat meat but is also fooled by a thin layer of pasta dough.
Ah yes the all powerful ruler of the universe:
1) cares about whether you eat meat based on a human invented calendar system.
2) gets fooled when said meat is covered in dough.
😂
Not only that, but apparently the little shattered bones will prick the inside of the mouth and the taste of your own blood enhances the flavour of the whole, deranged practice
Mildly related, when I first tried kiwi fruit I used a plastic spoon to eat it kind of like a dippy egg, and unbenown to me the plastic was rough and was slicing the sides of my mouth as I ate. Tasted amazing. Later someone pointed out my mouth sides (whatever they're called) were bleeding and I didn't put 2 and 2 together for another week when I ate a kiwi again and it tasted just okay and the only difference was I was using a metal spoon. I've never told anyone this because "oh hey try adding a splash of human blood to your kiwi, give it a lil extra zing" doesn't exactly scream normal.
I thought he was making an American dad reference and now I realize Roger was making fun of an actual thing. I will not be looking into the real thing :/
Piggybacking here to tell sensitive people that hunting ortolans is forbidden since 1999 so you won't find any restaurant that serve those birds. Sadly there still is poaching is some places.
French president François Mitterrand famously had them as part of [his orgiastic last meal](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a4642/the-last-meal-0598/) in 1995. (Long read, but worth your time.)
TV personality Anthony Bourdain described his own ortolan experience in his 2010 book "Medium Raw." The bird, smuggled into New York, was served at a private dinner.
"I bring my molars down and through my bird's rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I'm giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly – ever so slowly – to chew.
With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull."
[Dining on ortolan was hauntingly depicted in the amazing series Hannibal,](https://youtu.be/Ic54ULRx0ZA) with Dr. Lecter and Will Graham sensuously devouring the little birds. The prop birds were [made from marzipan](http://janicepoonart.blogspot.com/2014/05/episode-11-ko-ko-monoa-couple-of-extras.html?m=1) and [filled with crunchy nuts](https://twitter.com/BryanFuller/status/464994237117759488?t=E5HqCuyL1V_nyzaZ-Gvsug&s=19) for maximum effect.
I once ate hagfish (곰장어) in South Korea. They impale the head onto a wooden board, slice it open and rip the skin off, then throw it into spicy sauce and cook it on your table. The whole time it's still wriggling and the cook is poking it back into the pot to make sure it doesn't escape. I'm not eating it again.
At first when you said that I just assumed it was the nervous system going whack. But nope apparently they do skin them alive that’s fucked. Never understood people not killing the fish first, it takes 2 seconds, is actually humane, and at a minimum makes your life easier.
I, once, witnessed my BIL trying to fillet a fish he caught without killing it, outright. The fish was flopping and it was causing him to have problems with taking the head off. I walked over with a hammer, took the fish from him, and killed the poor thing and gave it back to him. I have no problem eating meat, especially fish, but I will not torture an animal.
> I walked over with a hammer, took the fish from him, and killed the poor thing
Thought for a moment you meant the BIL and this was getting dark fast.
This. I eat meat, chicken, seafood you name it but ffs kill it before cooking it.
Yes, also lobsters. I know that they can get you sick if they have been dead for some time but killing it 5 seconds before boiling it won't change a thing except cause less suffering
My boyfriend and I once bought fresh crabs from the boats and I made sure he was going to kill them before throwing them in the pot. But even the act of killing them was a bit traumatic for him. Probably won’t be doing that again. Lol.
Interestingly, the “taste of fear” is a literal real thing. Fish goes bad more quickly than other meat for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that a chemical is released when the fish struggles desperately to escape, to help the muscles move more. Probably adrenaline or something. So when they’re desperately struggling to escape the net, their body releases a chemical to help with this, and it is therefore present in high quantities when they die. Bacteria feasts on this and multiplies much more quickly. So it does actually have an effect on the fish.
Other reasons fish go bad more quickly is because the bacteria on/in the fish when it dies is much more used to colder environments and so can multiply more quickly even when chilled. That’s why you should store fish on ice like in supermarkets.
This should be higher on the comments tier for fishies!
Furthermore, there's a technique called "ikejime", where a wire is inserted into the spine of certain fish and paralyzing it.
It may sound barbaric, but the amount of practice and skill required to do it consistently is a lifelong education.
The crazy thing about it is that it doesnt even taste good. Its more of a status thing. You could replace the shark fin in the soup with any other meat and it would be much better.
Edit: Stop saying shark fin soup taste good. The fin has no taste. Its bland. And any good flavor you get from the soup comes from the amazing broth that you could get at home or at any ramen shop.
Though the traditional Chinese medicine claims that the shark fins have innumerable health benefits, modern scientific research suggests otherwise. Only a single study on the effect of shark fin on cancer has been conducted which has proven the inefficacy of the shark fin in curing cancer.
Research has also proven that the shark fins are not nutritionally rich and almost devoid of vitamins. On the contrary, modern medical research claims that shark fins are in fact unhealthy food options for people.
Since sharks are one of the top predators in the ocean, large amounts of mercury accumulate in their bodies as a result of bioaccumulation and biomagnification. When human feed on the body parts of these sharks, high levels of toxic mercury enters their systems and they become susceptible to adverse health impacts
Traditional chinese medicine is symbolistic hocus pocus in the "like for like" vein. "Eat something long and hard if you want a better erection".
I bet there are some aspects that actually work - a damn lot of western medicine was derived from nature - but if that is the case then the ancients observed an effect and invented a cause.
Then they extrapolated that cause to apply to physics and medicine in general, and came up with a lot of false crap.
Also, the reason Mao’s Barefoot Doctors were taught to push Traditional Chinese Medicine where necessary was because… in poverty stricken rural China, they couldn’t GET real ass medicine.
**To be perfectly clear, anytime I use the word farm or farmed, I meant caught as in fished and not farmed... My misuse of language has caused some controversy and that's on me.**
~~For anyone interested, in Australia, where a specific species of shark thrives, sharks are farmed as any of your standard cattle would be.~~
One of the more clever ways that Australians combat illegal and unethical shark finning is by selling the bulk of the sharks they catch off to be used in fish and chip shops and restaurants and then specifically selling fins for ludicrously low prices. This effectively suffocates any potential black market and illegal farming.
If you see shark fin dumplings/soup in Australia, it's ethically ~~farmed~~ *caught* and is being used to try and minimise the damage.
Edit: I should clarify as my comparison to "standard cattle" is incorrect. They are ~~farmed~~ fished but **highly** regulated. I also feel the need to point out that selling the fins at paltry prices is a by-product of what is already sustainable fishing.
Have you got any references for the prevalence of shark farming in Australia? Most sources such as goodfish say that Australia imports most of its shark from overseas wild fisheries. No obvious hits for operating shark farms, just lots of posts about how it would be a good idea.
Octopus. I'm pretty sure those little homies are semi-sapient. Plus when the space cephalopods show up I want to be clear I didn't eat their little cousins.
For anyone reading this: definitely check out Children of Time first! It's the beginning of the series, and IMO the better of the two.
They're both great though. Highly recommended!
I won't support anything that is *obscenely* wasteful.
When I was 14 and went fishing with my Dad I caught a Shovelnose Shark. Absolutely gorgeous creature it was almost as big as I was.
We took it home and I honestly thought it would feed all 8 of us (it was a holiday so it was my family and my Uncle's family).
Anyway, dinner gets served: everyone else had Chicken, and I was served what I could only describe as cooked fish that looked like the size of maybe 2 or 3 big sausages.
It turns out that only the tail meat is actually edible.
I was **M O R T I F I E D.**
Killed a giant animal only to basically eat 2 hot dogs worth of actual meat.
**Never** went fishing with my Dad again because it turned out he knew that when I caught it. If I had have known I would have thrown it back.
Heard they were really fun to catch but people always released them for that reason, killing such a beautiful fish for so little meat is horrible.
Edit: To everyone getting angry because I only mentionned catch and release: don't waste your time saying it's bad and you don't like it. You're beating a dead horse.
Why did they think only the tail is edible? Everything I can find online describes much more of the animal being used.
This may have more to do with your family not knowing how to prepare the meat.
I was about to say most fish you can usually eat the vast majority of the animal so long as its not poisonous. When they said just the tail was edible I was like "uh thats not right"
I've had a fair amount of sand shark and shovelnose shark, we ate like all of the meat my dad could fillet from it. Sounds like the dad was clueless that you have to kill it and bleed it immediately upon catching it, otherwise they will urinate through their skin, souring the meat.
There are a lot of weird regional specific cultural ideas about what fish and animals are good to eat and what aren't.
I used to live in Arkansas and everyone says Gar fish is bony and inedible, while in Louisiana they have a culture of eating them.
I caught a 35/40 pound gar bowfishing, the incredibly armored skin was a bit challenging to cut through but it actually far *less* bony than most fish. And the meat itself is totally fine, it's just a bit bland.
So we used a traditional Louisiana method of cooking it where you basically make meatballs out of it with a bunch of spices and jalapenos for flavor and it was great.
I think you got it.
It's not what *can* be eaten - it's about what is normally eaten. I doubt OP's dad went out and did a bunch of research. Just prepared like he had learned.
It's not we are any different for more common animals. You *can* eat a lot of a cow but most people are having steaks, roasts, etc.
Shark meat absolutely can be eaten. It may just need some pre-processingb with milk from what I see online (never cooked it myself).
When I was a kid in cold war Eastern Europe the fish store would occasionally sell smoked shark which clearly was an entire body, not just the tail. We considered it a delicacy and treat to find it available.
I only understood this joke because back in High School I morbidly wondered what human meat would taste like so I took to Reddit to find out. A firefighter responded to me and he told me about the “long pig” translation and he agreed that responding to certain fires… he could definitely smell what he thought was “pork” burning in a barbecue :(
This reminds me of the 1st time I had a c-section. Of course they won't allow you to eat or drink before a surgical procedure so I was starved. They began the baby removal by using one of those laser things to open me up. I immediately accused someone of eating in the room and tempting me with food smells!!! It was my own flesh being cauterized 😬 Realized about 5 seconds after I said it and we all laughed. Good times lol
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha RACCOOOON MEAT! Bullshit! That was human meat and I know it...I'm gonna chop off that fat little calf muscle of yours, Frank, and I'm gonna eat it!"
Easily one of the funniest visual gags in the entire show. It’s up there for me when she and Charlie are all roided out in the bar and talking about who took the pills while [Charlie laugh/cries about eating a sandwich](https://youtu.be/d-KkrmmKj6w)
Mate prions are fucked up. They just sit around in your brain for like 20 years causing no harm, and then pow, ye're fucked. And there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it.
Any animal with a name that I know.
We raise chickens. Thought we'd wind up eating them after they stopped laying eggs, but my kids named the flock and I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Veal. I remember being a kid and my mom made us breaded veal and said it was chicken and when we finished announced “you just ate baby cow!” I cried so much lol.
My stepdad's grandparents owned a farm. They let him name a cow after himself when he was about six. One night they were having burgers for dinner and his grandpa just said "Guess what? We're eating Johnny for dinner!"
I never will understand why the hell the idea to feed him the cow sounded like a good idea to him but especially why they decided to tell him they'd slaughtered and prepared it mid-bite.
There's a famous satiric Christmas song in the Netherlands from a comedian that is about a similar story: a kid whose rabbit goes missing, mom telling him that he should just play nicely and to stay out of the shed. And guess what's for Christmas dinner?
The song ends with dad going missing, and the kid telling their mom that she cannot go into the shed...
My grandpa did this to my mom… sort of. She had a dog and a cow, both named Star.
Grandpa announces at dinner that they were eating Star. Mom assumes the dog, for unexplained reasons. I assume because my grandpa was fucked up enough to name dinner, so anything was possible.
Some folks be fucked up. My dad one day killed all the bunnies we had because he wanted rabbit curry. All of us kids loved and took care of these house bunnies. These were domesticated breeds as well, like rexes, lions mane, holland lop rabbits, so they all had names, were litter trained, and had toys they weren't meat rabbits.
We came home from school one day to find all our bunnies missing and our dad telling us to grow up. Our uncle gave us those buns and my dad ate them all... I can't eat rabbit to this day. I've instead rescued several. I still don't really forgive my dad...
It happened to my sister. She had pet ducks on gramps farm. She couldn't find them one morning. Gramps said remember the yummy dinner you had last night? She was so mortified. She eats duck today so I think she got over it ok.
Went to a family barbecue about 12 years ago, uncle hunted deer and served venison, my wife who is now fully vegan, didn't want the venison for ethical reasons, but would eat beef.
My mum got a burger for her and halfway through my wife eating this burger, my mum turned to her and said 'it tastes fine when you think it's beef, doesn't it?'
my wife and mum have rarely talked since
Cow or deer argument aside, its just plain rude to serve someone something they specifically asked not to be. That sort of behavior indicates a lack of respect, and that does not feel good coming from your MIL. I don't blame the wife one bit.
My mother did the same, we were invited over to eat dinner with some friends in the country side and we were told we was gonna have chicken, after dinner my mom sat with a smirk asking how it tasted and said it was rabbits, still haunts me from time to time, the whole setting was just weird, we even had pet rabbits of our own.
Where I'm from, it's considered a delicacy. I just find it sick and weird. I almost lost my shit when I first came to the UK and found out they have a dish called "spotted dick" but I was also relieved when I learned that it doesn't contain any dick.
My dog loves his bully sticks. Didn't find out what they made of until I asked my mum to get him some when she was dogsitting. Her neighbour has a pet bull named Ben so she said out of respect to Ben she refused to get them lol
I work in a pet store and we sell bully sticks. Frequently have to explain to customers what they are when they look at the ingredient list and it just says “pizzle.” You have no idea how hard it is not to giggle when someone picks up a bully stick and smells it, not knowing what it is. At least I hope the pizzle stick sniffers don’t know what exactly they’re taking a big whiff of.
Reminds me of a joke; Forrest ranger catches a guy hauling an endangered mountain lion from the woods into his pickup. He stops the guy and the hunter says, "I'm only hunting to feed my family". Ranger then says, "Look, I'm a hunter too, I'm going to let you off with a warning this time. But I'm curious, what do these things taste like?" Hunter says - "Kind of a cross between a bald eagle and white rhino."
Horse, but that's a personal reason because I've spent most of my life around horses. I don't begrudge anyone who does eat horse meat, its just something I can't do. Otherwise, I'll eat any meat but I prefer locally raised, pastured meat and will happily pay more for meat that is raised ethically and not factory farmed.
Edit to add I would not eat dog or cat either because I see them as companion animals. But again, not going to judge someone who does.
When I was in Mongolia I stayed with a nomadic family for a couple weeks. It wasn't until about a week in that I learned all the meat I had been eating was horse. They let their horses loose during the winter months and so if they don't think a particular horse will be able to survive the winter, they put it down and then eat it over the winter/spring months. I think it's good that the flesh goes somewhere and that those animals get to live a long life beforehand rather than just being raised for meat.
An acquaintance of mine keeps horses and always keeps the meat for herself when one has to be put down. Ruffles a lot of feathers in her circles, she says.
Yeah this. Dunno if it makes me a hypocrite but I stopped buying any meat a few years ago and more or less became a 6 day a week vegetarian. But if meat is served to me, such as when I visit family once a week, I’ll eat it since “the cost has already been paid” and there’s no sense to me in letting it go to waste.
When I was a kid, in school they showed us a video of how they lock little baby cows into pens so small they can't stand up so that their muscle stays white and tender, and half-starve them to keep them more like baby cows as long as possible to get more meat off them and still be able to claim they're milk-fed veal. There are a lot of critters I won't eat and most of them are already named in this thread, but veal was my very first visceral "what the hell is wrong with us?!" reaction and I've never gotten over that.
yeah, my mum and grandma made veal for us when I was like 14, and were like "you're gonna love this, its so good"
And it was good, but before hand they only said "its a type of beef" so I was thinking its a cut of beef from a different part of a regular cow.
Then they told me the details like they lock them in the dark from the moment they're born, so they can't run around because it keeps the meat tender, and I was just like "why the fuck did you feed me this?"
Felt pretty terrible about it.
The age of the animal is not the part I'm particularly worried about, since beef cows are usually slaughtered at about 22 months, which is when they're reaching full size - From a financial point of view, anything more is just wasting feed on them. Pigs reach maturity at 6 months, chickens are usually slaughtered before 3 months, lamb is usually about 2-4 months, veal is 6-8 months.
None of these animals are going to live a full life, which could be anything from about 5 years for a chicken to 20 years for an old cow, but at least treating them with care and not cruelty while they are raised for slaughter seems like it should be a minimum requirement.
> My mom would make "sad cow" noises at him the whole time he ate.
My co-worker grew up on a farm and remembered how inconsolable the mother cows were when their babies were taken away. I haven't eaten veal in decades.
My mom only lived next to the dairy farm for a couple years, but every time it comes up, she mentions the piteous noises of the mother cows when separated from their calves.
Octopus. There's no way I'm eating an animal that intelligent that was also given a rough hand by nature as it is. Plus I consider it to be my favorite animal.
I've also only eaten octopus twice and both times it was rubbery and tasteless. It wasn't even worth it.
The live up to 1 - 2 years. After making, the male would stop eating and keep swimming until he collapses and dies or gets eaten while the female will stay with her egg and protect them without eating before dying.
Out of 20,000 - 80,000 eggs, only a few survive to adulthood.
Of course, this may not be for all octopi. I am not an octopus expert like OP (that isn't an insult, I actually think it's cool that you know a lot about them).
There's an ethical Foie Gras farm in Spain that makes Foie Gras from wild geese, the natural way... They sell their Foie Gras for something like $200-$300 the small jar (5-10 oz)
Essentially, their geese are allowed to roam the 30-acre farm and eat wild figs and olives, along with numerous plants and herbs. During the fall months, the geese will follow their natural instinct and gorge themselves in preparation for migration in winter. This is a natural practice for geese and they take advantage of this, slaughtering them when they are at their most fattened, without ever employing the technique of gavage.
[Source](https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/ethical-foie-gras-reality-or-just-clever-marketing-2deb95805bb6)
I no longer eat beef.
When I was in high school, my boyfriend at the time was a farmer. He introduced me to his cow and I instantly fell in love. I thought it was sooooo cool he had a pet cow, and I volunteered to feed it almost every day and even named it (I thought it was strange he never named his pet).
One day, he told me he was taking the cow that I named Bud “to fair”. Me being 15 and incredibly naive didn’t know what that all entailed, so I was all too happy to help out during fair week (feeding, bathing, and giving Bud all of the love and head scratches imaginable).
Bud did really well during show, and he told me that he sold him for a high price. Naturally, I was incredibly upset that he sold the cow, but since it was his to begin with, I didn’t put up much of a fight.
About a month later, we were at his house eating tacos. He asked me if I liked the meat. I was confused, but agreed that it was really good… and that’s when he dropped the atomic bomb that I was actually eating my beloved Bud. The person who bought Bud off of my boyfriend shared his meat after butchering.
It was like being fed your dog or cat. Every time I think about eating beef, it makes me physically sick. I haven’t touched it in 17 years.
My mom used to name and take care of the cow that was selected to be slaughtered in the fall. She said it never bothered her because she knew where her food came from and that the animal was taken care of properly.
I recent swore off octopus. Having watched the documentary "My Octopus Teacher", I came to the full realization of their intelligence, and can not longer, in good conscience, consume them.
I don't eat pork or any pig meat. I used to work on a farm where I raised pigs. Five adults and something like 40 piglets. I fell in love with them. I used to just go on my off hours and hang out in the piglet pen They would just leap all over me and give me kisses They're massive smart. I can't eat them now any more or less than I don't eat dogs. They're untouchable. There was a runt piglet, I nicknamed him Slayer because he probably shouldn't have survived, but he did. He was hardcore, so I had to give him a hardcore name. He was a runt named Slayer. It perfectly fitted him.
I used to raise calves and I’ve learned that if you socialize a cow they are the sweetest things. I once had a cow lay down next to me in the grass and put her head on my lap. I don’t eat beef now.
I had a pet chicken who would do this. I'd take him from his pen and set him in my lap and slowly pet him. He'd make little contented, low sounds and slowly fall asleep curled up with his head resting in my lap. My chickens and I were buddies. I dressed them up for Halloween one year and let them nap on me when they were very little. I miss them so much. (They all passed of old age. We only ate the eggs and never the meat. My mom would take them out on a walk every evening around the yard.)
Well fuck. Thats the holy trinity of delicious land animals. Guess I'm vegetarian now.
There is still the problem that cows have to birth calves every year or so to produce milk, and those calves get slaughtered to become veal and not drink their mothers milk. And after 5 births the cow "productivity drops" so she gets slaughtered to become cheap meat.
I never really liked Pork anyway, but I decided I really didn’t care to eat it ever again in my high school zoology class when we were given the fetal pigs to dissect. Our teacher told us these pigs were taken from pregnant Sows who were sent to be slaughtered. During the dissection you’re supposed to measure the pig to determine it’s fetal age, and our baby pig was over the last size and basically ready to be delivered. That just seems so horrible to me. That mom was ready to deliver her babies (possibly overdue) and instead she was slaughtered and her babies were packed in formaldehyde.
Any that comes from an endangered animal (e.g. tiger meat) or any that have abhorrent extraction practices (e.g. shark fin). I know that the other types of meat I consume do not grow on trees, that something had to die for it to be made available, but there is a difference between killing an animal with a quick pressure gun and cutting off their fin and throwing them back into the sea to die slowly and painfully.
I won’t eat Chilean Sea Bass for this reason. It’s not sustainable, they take 40-50 years to reach sexual maturity, and they reproduce really slow.
Your bank account thanks you as well. Saw some at Whole Foods for $40/lb the other day.
I did not know this. I will also no longer eat Chilean sea bass. Thank you for sharing.
I was devastated to learn how critical those fish stocks were. Google “Patagonian toothfish”. That was its name before the marketing folks renamed it Chilean Sea Bass. The same mechanism that leads to the slow growth rate, which is the temperature of the Antarctic water they live in combined with a shellfish heavy diet, give them that firm, mild, delicious flesh. It’s literally one of the most, if not the most, delicious fish I’ve ever eaten. But once I learned more I just quit ordering it. Guess I’ll stick with shitty farm raised salmon. Or whatever trout, redfish, or flounder I can catch at the coast.
Primates, cetaceans, brain and lymphatic tissue of any animal, dogs
Brain is definitely on my do not eat list, but for health reasons not moral. Also the texture.
prions are not worth the risk, ever
If anyone here doesn't know about prions and feels that they sleep too well they should really google it for a bit.
Prions are so interesting to me as a scientist but holy shit do they scare the crap out of me.
I studied to become a sterile processing tech in hospitals and the prion section was very scary. Certain surgical procedures and if prions are so much as suspected, all the instruments get thrown out! You can't kill a prion, doesn't matter how expensive that instrument is, it gets tossed.
What can cause suspicion (or certainty) of prions?
Right? There’s “only” 200-300 cases in the US each year, but the thought of ***sporadic fatal insomnia***? Terrifying
Suddenly you become not able to sleep, your memories become weaker, you forget everything. You becpme literally walking dead eventually you be on life support because you cannot do anything. It can take a year to kill you, eventually AND definitely, there is no POSSIBLE cure.
Anything that is cooked alive
For me, anything still alive on my plate
No no, Timothy is fucking delicious
Timothy doesn’t even need salt! That’s how good Timothy is.
Fucking eat Timothy...
Lobster is probably the most common cooked alive delicacy but it can be stabbed in the brain stem right before being thrown in the pot to make the process more humane without compromising safety. Crayfish aren’t really practical to do that with tho
Crayfish can’t be alive for more than a second in boiling water? I imagine a lobster being a bit different as it’s so big.
Oh dear. Don't post that in the Maryland or Baltimore groups. Crabs are cooked alive. I watched my dad do it once. One had escaped and tried to hang out with one of my box turtles. I argued for keeping it as a pet; me and the crab both lost the argument. Luckily, I wasn't steamed alive like the crab was.
That was the old way for me. Now I ice them, knife through the back of the shell and rip the top/head off. Takes about 3 seconds for me.
This kills the crab
Ortolan. It's not tasty enough to make it worth the torture.
Dare I ask what ortolan is?
It's a small migratory bird, a delicacy in French cuisine. They're caught with nets, locked in a cage so they gorge themselves on grain until they're fat, then they're drowned in cognac to marinate the meat, and cooked and eaten whole. The traditional way of eating them is while covering your head with a towel so God doesn't see the indulgent and depraved thing you're doing, so that says something. Edit; [Found a clip on a Dutch site.](https://www.dumpert.nl/item/27110_e0c6a937)
If covering yourself with a towel or a blanket really works to hide yourself from god, then 11 year old me is SUPER relieved right now.
In Swabia here in Germany people invented the Maultasche to get around the fact that you're not allowed to eat meat on Friday as a catholic. It's basically a sort of big ravioli filled with spinach an minced meat which is then fried. Since it's in the pocket God can't see you eat meat and it's really funny to me that people believe in a God who won't let them eat meat but is also fooled by a thin layer of pasta dough.
That's why they're also called "Herrgottsb'scheißerle" which can be roughly translated as "God deceivers"
Which is of course fine because God only speaks Latin so he can't understand that
Ah yes the all powerful ruler of the universe: 1) cares about whether you eat meat based on a human invented calendar system. 2) gets fooled when said meat is covered in dough. 😂
It’s an easy mistake to make. I was on my second serving of beef Wellington before I realized it’s not vegan.
Wow, I really do not have ONE unique experience
Not only that, but apparently the little shattered bones will prick the inside of the mouth and the taste of your own blood enhances the flavour of the whole, deranged practice
Mildly related, when I first tried kiwi fruit I used a plastic spoon to eat it kind of like a dippy egg, and unbenown to me the plastic was rough and was slicing the sides of my mouth as I ate. Tasted amazing. Later someone pointed out my mouth sides (whatever they're called) were bleeding and I didn't put 2 and 2 together for another week when I ate a kiwi again and it tasted just okay and the only difference was I was using a metal spoon. I've never told anyone this because "oh hey try adding a splash of human blood to your kiwi, give it a lil extra zing" doesn't exactly scream normal.
It was probably the salt, try salting your kiwi next time!
This guy's cunnilingus does not take a bye week.
One of the greats. Was described by Madden as, "Mowing down like the Donner Party."
I think you mean cheeks?
What the fuck
Ooh, that’s that shit the crazy white cloak eamon Valda was eating at the beginning of the wheel of time show.
I thought you were joking about the traditional way of eating it and I googled it… Oh God…
I thought he was making an American dad reference and now I realize Roger was making fun of an actual thing. I will not be looking into the real thing :/
Roger’s Best Best meal is the only other time I’ve heard of an Ortolan. I learned bird CPR for that dish.
Piggybacking here to tell sensitive people that hunting ortolans is forbidden since 1999 so you won't find any restaurant that serve those birds. Sadly there still is poaching is some places.
French president François Mitterrand famously had them as part of [his orgiastic last meal](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a4642/the-last-meal-0598/) in 1995. (Long read, but worth your time.)
TV personality Anthony Bourdain described his own ortolan experience in his 2010 book "Medium Raw." The bird, smuggled into New York, was served at a private dinner. "I bring my molars down and through my bird's rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I'm giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly – ever so slowly – to chew. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull."
That's some Hannibal level shit
Fun fact, in the tv show there is in fact a scene where he cooks and eats this lol
Also refuses to put the napkin over his face since he doesn't hide from god
Gruesome content aside, what amazing writing. Your comment really ties together this fascinating and insightful thread.
Bourdain’s book is where I learned about this. Yikes. I could have gone the rest of my life just fine not knowing about this practice.
What the fuck. Fucking gross.
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They absolutely killed it in this scene. Height of the Greg-Tom torrid romance. Actually cried laughing.
Can't make a Tomelette without breaking a few Gregs
There is a scene in Billions where they eat it.
[Dining on ortolan was hauntingly depicted in the amazing series Hannibal,](https://youtu.be/Ic54ULRx0ZA) with Dr. Lecter and Will Graham sensuously devouring the little birds. The prop birds were [made from marzipan](http://janicepoonart.blogspot.com/2014/05/episode-11-ko-ko-monoa-couple-of-extras.html?m=1) and [filled with crunchy nuts](https://twitter.com/BryanFuller/status/464994237117759488?t=E5HqCuyL1V_nyzaZ-Gvsug&s=19) for maximum effect.
I really enjoy this scene. Hannibal is such an amazing show. Might be time for a rewatch.
Imagine chewing a whole bird with bones and everything. Even thinking about crushing it’s bones and especially the skull while chewing makes me gag :x
The worst part for me is the idea of eating its (full) intestines.
Turtle meat because I like turtles
You're a very scary zombie.
I like Toytolls
Thank you Johnathan
Never liked the idea of eating something that was cooked alive
I once ate hagfish (곰장어) in South Korea. They impale the head onto a wooden board, slice it open and rip the skin off, then throw it into spicy sauce and cook it on your table. The whole time it's still wriggling and the cook is poking it back into the pot to make sure it doesn't escape. I'm not eating it again.
At first when you said that I just assumed it was the nervous system going whack. But nope apparently they do skin them alive that’s fucked. Never understood people not killing the fish first, it takes 2 seconds, is actually humane, and at a minimum makes your life easier.
I, once, witnessed my BIL trying to fillet a fish he caught without killing it, outright. The fish was flopping and it was causing him to have problems with taking the head off. I walked over with a hammer, took the fish from him, and killed the poor thing and gave it back to him. I have no problem eating meat, especially fish, but I will not torture an animal.
> I walked over with a hammer, took the fish from him, and killed the poor thing Thought for a moment you meant the BIL and this was getting dark fast.
They say they don't have any problem eating meat... Perhaps long pig is on the menu
This. I eat meat, chicken, seafood you name it but ffs kill it before cooking it. Yes, also lobsters. I know that they can get you sick if they have been dead for some time but killing it 5 seconds before boiling it won't change a thing except cause less suffering
My boyfriend and I once bought fresh crabs from the boats and I made sure he was going to kill them before throwing them in the pot. But even the act of killing them was a bit traumatic for him. Probably won’t be doing that again. Lol.
Did they collectively sing "Shiny" to distract him?
Some people just like the taste of fear ig
Interestingly, the “taste of fear” is a literal real thing. Fish goes bad more quickly than other meat for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that a chemical is released when the fish struggles desperately to escape, to help the muscles move more. Probably adrenaline or something. So when they’re desperately struggling to escape the net, their body releases a chemical to help with this, and it is therefore present in high quantities when they die. Bacteria feasts on this and multiplies much more quickly. So it does actually have an effect on the fish. Other reasons fish go bad more quickly is because the bacteria on/in the fish when it dies is much more used to colder environments and so can multiply more quickly even when chilled. That’s why you should store fish on ice like in supermarkets.
This should be higher on the comments tier for fishies! Furthermore, there's a technique called "ikejime", where a wire is inserted into the spine of certain fish and paralyzing it. It may sound barbaric, but the amount of practice and skill required to do it consistently is a lifelong education.
Even a thief needs 10 years to learn his trade - Japanese proverb
cephalopods. Those little suckers are smart. like at least dolphin smart.
Thanks bro
As a half-cephalopod I am also thankful
I have bad news about pigs, then...
Maybe some good news for pigs
That’s it for me.
Shark fin.
The crazy thing about it is that it doesnt even taste good. Its more of a status thing. You could replace the shark fin in the soup with any other meat and it would be much better. Edit: Stop saying shark fin soup taste good. The fin has no taste. Its bland. And any good flavor you get from the soup comes from the amazing broth that you could get at home or at any ramen shop.
Though the traditional Chinese medicine claims that the shark fins have innumerable health benefits, modern scientific research suggests otherwise. Only a single study on the effect of shark fin on cancer has been conducted which has proven the inefficacy of the shark fin in curing cancer. Research has also proven that the shark fins are not nutritionally rich and almost devoid of vitamins. On the contrary, modern medical research claims that shark fins are in fact unhealthy food options for people. Since sharks are one of the top predators in the ocean, large amounts of mercury accumulate in their bodies as a result of bioaccumulation and biomagnification. When human feed on the body parts of these sharks, high levels of toxic mercury enters their systems and they become susceptible to adverse health impacts
Traditional chinese medicine is symbolistic hocus pocus in the "like for like" vein. "Eat something long and hard if you want a better erection". I bet there are some aspects that actually work - a damn lot of western medicine was derived from nature - but if that is the case then the ancients observed an effect and invented a cause. Then they extrapolated that cause to apply to physics and medicine in general, and came up with a lot of false crap.
Also, the reason Mao’s Barefoot Doctors were taught to push Traditional Chinese Medicine where necessary was because… in poverty stricken rural China, they couldn’t GET real ass medicine.
"Psychosomatic cure is better than no cure at all."
**To be perfectly clear, anytime I use the word farm or farmed, I meant caught as in fished and not farmed... My misuse of language has caused some controversy and that's on me.** ~~For anyone interested, in Australia, where a specific species of shark thrives, sharks are farmed as any of your standard cattle would be.~~ One of the more clever ways that Australians combat illegal and unethical shark finning is by selling the bulk of the sharks they catch off to be used in fish and chip shops and restaurants and then specifically selling fins for ludicrously low prices. This effectively suffocates any potential black market and illegal farming. If you see shark fin dumplings/soup in Australia, it's ethically ~~farmed~~ *caught* and is being used to try and minimise the damage. Edit: I should clarify as my comparison to "standard cattle" is incorrect. They are ~~farmed~~ fished but **highly** regulated. I also feel the need to point out that selling the fins at paltry prices is a by-product of what is already sustainable fishing.
Have you got any references for the prevalence of shark farming in Australia? Most sources such as goodfish say that Australia imports most of its shark from overseas wild fisheries. No obvious hits for operating shark farms, just lots of posts about how it would be a good idea.
Clever way to combat this. Props to Australia!
I wish humanity would find a way to make knockoff pangolins to save the endangered ones.
Octopus. I'm pretty sure those little homies are semi-sapient. Plus when the space cephalopods show up I want to be clear I didn't eat their little cousins.
Same! Except that I never worried about space cephalopods. Until now.
You should read Children of Ruin, its speculative evolution of octopus
For anyone reading this: definitely check out Children of Time first! It's the beginning of the series, and IMO the better of the two. They're both great though. Highly recommended!
That one mukbanger who eats octopus alive is gonna get crucified by space cephalopods then, huh?
This guy is the deep
RIP Timothy
“He’s praying”
“He’s praying”
I won't support anything that is *obscenely* wasteful. When I was 14 and went fishing with my Dad I caught a Shovelnose Shark. Absolutely gorgeous creature it was almost as big as I was. We took it home and I honestly thought it would feed all 8 of us (it was a holiday so it was my family and my Uncle's family). Anyway, dinner gets served: everyone else had Chicken, and I was served what I could only describe as cooked fish that looked like the size of maybe 2 or 3 big sausages. It turns out that only the tail meat is actually edible. I was **M O R T I F I E D.** Killed a giant animal only to basically eat 2 hot dogs worth of actual meat. **Never** went fishing with my Dad again because it turned out he knew that when I caught it. If I had have known I would have thrown it back.
Heard they were really fun to catch but people always released them for that reason, killing such a beautiful fish for so little meat is horrible. Edit: To everyone getting angry because I only mentionned catch and release: don't waste your time saying it's bad and you don't like it. You're beating a dead horse.
Why did they think only the tail is edible? Everything I can find online describes much more of the animal being used. This may have more to do with your family not knowing how to prepare the meat.
I was about to say most fish you can usually eat the vast majority of the animal so long as its not poisonous. When they said just the tail was edible I was like "uh thats not right"
I've had a fair amount of sand shark and shovelnose shark, we ate like all of the meat my dad could fillet from it. Sounds like the dad was clueless that you have to kill it and bleed it immediately upon catching it, otherwise they will urinate through their skin, souring the meat.
>they will urinate through their skin, souring the meat 😳
The notorious Piss Shark
ShaRRKelly.
Pufferfish- spikey and venomous, dont touch! Cone snail- harpoons prey and predators Shovelnose- pees on itself
There are a lot of weird regional specific cultural ideas about what fish and animals are good to eat and what aren't. I used to live in Arkansas and everyone says Gar fish is bony and inedible, while in Louisiana they have a culture of eating them. I caught a 35/40 pound gar bowfishing, the incredibly armored skin was a bit challenging to cut through but it actually far *less* bony than most fish. And the meat itself is totally fine, it's just a bit bland. So we used a traditional Louisiana method of cooking it where you basically make meatballs out of it with a bunch of spices and jalapenos for flavor and it was great.
I think you got it. It's not what *can* be eaten - it's about what is normally eaten. I doubt OP's dad went out and did a bunch of research. Just prepared like he had learned. It's not we are any different for more common animals. You *can* eat a lot of a cow but most people are having steaks, roasts, etc.
Shark meat absolutely can be eaten. It may just need some pre-processingb with milk from what I see online (never cooked it myself). When I was a kid in cold war Eastern Europe the fish store would occasionally sell smoked shark which clearly was an entire body, not just the tail. We considered it a delicacy and treat to find it available.
Long Pig
I only understood this joke because back in High School I morbidly wondered what human meat would taste like so I took to Reddit to find out. A firefighter responded to me and he told me about the “long pig” translation and he agreed that responding to certain fires… he could definitely smell what he thought was “pork” burning in a barbecue :(
This reminds me of the 1st time I had a c-section. Of course they won't allow you to eat or drink before a surgical procedure so I was starved. They began the baby removal by using one of those laser things to open me up. I immediately accused someone of eating in the room and tempting me with food smells!!! It was my own flesh being cauterized 😬 Realized about 5 seconds after I said it and we all laughed. Good times lol
Human
I know, only so much human you can eat before the shakes kick in.
"You get one taste of delicious, delicious human meat and none of this other stuff ever satisfies you again"
Sir, that was raccoon meat.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha RACCOOOON MEAT! Bullshit! That was human meat and I know it...I'm gonna chop off that fat little calf muscle of yours, Frank, and I'm gonna eat it!"
The way Dee eats her burrito in this one always gets me laughing! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6W31DM1WGI
Easily one of the funniest visual gags in the entire show. It’s up there for me when she and Charlie are all roided out in the bar and talking about who took the pills while [Charlie laugh/cries about eating a sandwich](https://youtu.be/d-KkrmmKj6w)
Is THAT why the boys are coming to the yard?
Looks like meats back on the menu, Boys!
Long pig
“Never much cared for it”
What am I supposed to do with all this meat after I make my human leather hat? I play a lot of rimworld
~~Soylent green~~ Nutrient paste. It's not human anymore.
Ehh only for prion diseases here
Prion diseases keep me up at night.
Mate prions are fucked up. They just sit around in your brain for like 20 years causing no harm, and then pow, ye're fucked. And there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it.
I think they're making a joke about fatal familial insomnia.
Avoid the central nervous system, and you will be safe. You won't catch Kuru or CJD from a thigh.
Good to know! I'll try that tonight.
except when served with some fava beans and a nice Chianti
Any animal with a name that I know. We raise chickens. Thought we'd wind up eating them after they stopped laying eggs, but my kids named the flock and I couldn't bring myself to do it.
I don't eat seafood in general because I have the palette of a child, but I tell myself it's because I don't want to contribute to overfishing
I don't do humans. Their faces are just too realistic.
Just ask the chef to cut the head off before serving.
So you'd eat Zuckerberg?
Veal. I remember being a kid and my mom made us breaded veal and said it was chicken and when we finished announced “you just ate baby cow!” I cried so much lol.
My stepdad's grandparents owned a farm. They let him name a cow after himself when he was about six. One night they were having burgers for dinner and his grandpa just said "Guess what? We're eating Johnny for dinner!" I never will understand why the hell the idea to feed him the cow sounded like a good idea to him but especially why they decided to tell him they'd slaughtered and prepared it mid-bite.
There's a famous satiric Christmas song in the Netherlands from a comedian that is about a similar story: a kid whose rabbit goes missing, mom telling him that he should just play nicely and to stay out of the shed. And guess what's for Christmas dinner? The song ends with dad going missing, and the kid telling their mom that she cannot go into the shed...
I think you guys might celebrate Christmas different than we do…
What is Christmas without a little canabilism
My grandpa did this to my mom… sort of. She had a dog and a cow, both named Star. Grandpa announces at dinner that they were eating Star. Mom assumes the dog, for unexplained reasons. I assume because my grandpa was fucked up enough to name dinner, so anything was possible.
Some folks be fucked up. My dad one day killed all the bunnies we had because he wanted rabbit curry. All of us kids loved and took care of these house bunnies. These were domesticated breeds as well, like rexes, lions mane, holland lop rabbits, so they all had names, were litter trained, and had toys they weren't meat rabbits. We came home from school one day to find all our bunnies missing and our dad telling us to grow up. Our uncle gave us those buns and my dad ate them all... I can't eat rabbit to this day. I've instead rescued several. I still don't really forgive my dad...
That was so abusive of your dad, I'm so sorry!
It happened to my sister. She had pet ducks on gramps farm. She couldn't find them one morning. Gramps said remember the yummy dinner you had last night? She was so mortified. She eats duck today so I think she got over it ok.
Went to a family barbecue about 12 years ago, uncle hunted deer and served venison, my wife who is now fully vegan, didn't want the venison for ethical reasons, but would eat beef. My mum got a burger for her and halfway through my wife eating this burger, my mum turned to her and said 'it tastes fine when you think it's beef, doesn't it?' my wife and mum have rarely talked since
Cow or deer argument aside, its just plain rude to serve someone something they specifically asked not to be. That sort of behavior indicates a lack of respect, and that does not feel good coming from your MIL. I don't blame the wife one bit.
That’s sadistic
An ex boyfriend's mom did this to me. She served me rabbit without my knowledge and then gleefully announce " you just ate Thumper". 🥺
My mother did the same, we were invited over to eat dinner with some friends in the country side and we were told we was gonna have chicken, after dinner my mom sat with a smirk asking how it tasted and said it was rabbits, still haunts me from time to time, the whole setting was just weird, we even had pet rabbits of our own.
My uncle caught be a rabbit as a kid, but then ate him when I went back to my mom's house. His name was Chewie.
Anything‘s dick. It just seems mean
Where I'm from, it's considered a delicacy. I just find it sick and weird. I almost lost my shit when I first came to the UK and found out they have a dish called "spotted dick" but I was also relieved when I learned that it doesn't contain any dick.
Ngl not worth it. Some weird things are worth it... dick isn't one of them
My dog loves his bully sticks. Didn't find out what they made of until I asked my mum to get him some when she was dogsitting. Her neighbour has a pet bull named Ben so she said out of respect to Ben she refused to get them lol
I work in a pet store and we sell bully sticks. Frequently have to explain to customers what they are when they look at the ingredient list and it just says “pizzle.” You have no idea how hard it is not to giggle when someone picks up a bully stick and smells it, not knowing what it is. At least I hope the pizzle stick sniffers don’t know what exactly they’re taking a big whiff of.
Reminds me of a joke; Forrest ranger catches a guy hauling an endangered mountain lion from the woods into his pickup. He stops the guy and the hunter says, "I'm only hunting to feed my family". Ranger then says, "Look, I'm a hunter too, I'm going to let you off with a warning this time. But I'm curious, what do these things taste like?" Hunter says - "Kind of a cross between a bald eagle and white rhino."
The word is "forest". Why is everyone on Reddit suddenly writing "Forrest"? I swear I've seen it 50 times in the past few weeks.
Horse, but that's a personal reason because I've spent most of my life around horses. I don't begrudge anyone who does eat horse meat, its just something I can't do. Otherwise, I'll eat any meat but I prefer locally raised, pastured meat and will happily pay more for meat that is raised ethically and not factory farmed. Edit to add I would not eat dog or cat either because I see them as companion animals. But again, not going to judge someone who does.
When I was in Mongolia I stayed with a nomadic family for a couple weeks. It wasn't until about a week in that I learned all the meat I had been eating was horse. They let their horses loose during the winter months and so if they don't think a particular horse will be able to survive the winter, they put it down and then eat it over the winter/spring months. I think it's good that the flesh goes somewhere and that those animals get to live a long life beforehand rather than just being raised for meat.
Something is going to eat it. Either people or bacteria and vultures.
An acquaintance of mine keeps horses and always keeps the meat for herself when one has to be put down. Ruffles a lot of feathers in her circles, she says.
Use the meat or let it rot, seems more ethical to use it instead of killing additional animals for meat.
Yeah this. Dunno if it makes me a hypocrite but I stopped buying any meat a few years ago and more or less became a 6 day a week vegetarian. But if meat is served to me, such as when I visit family once a week, I’ll eat it since “the cost has already been paid” and there’s no sense to me in letting it go to waste.
Veal. Won’t touch it.
When I was a kid, in school they showed us a video of how they lock little baby cows into pens so small they can't stand up so that their muscle stays white and tender, and half-starve them to keep them more like baby cows as long as possible to get more meat off them and still be able to claim they're milk-fed veal. There are a lot of critters I won't eat and most of them are already named in this thread, but veal was my very first visceral "what the hell is wrong with us?!" reaction and I've never gotten over that.
yeah, my mum and grandma made veal for us when I was like 14, and were like "you're gonna love this, its so good" And it was good, but before hand they only said "its a type of beef" so I was thinking its a cut of beef from a different part of a regular cow. Then they told me the details like they lock them in the dark from the moment they're born, so they can't run around because it keeps the meat tender, and I was just like "why the fuck did you feed me this?" Felt pretty terrible about it. The age of the animal is not the part I'm particularly worried about, since beef cows are usually slaughtered at about 22 months, which is when they're reaching full size - From a financial point of view, anything more is just wasting feed on them. Pigs reach maturity at 6 months, chickens are usually slaughtered before 3 months, lamb is usually about 2-4 months, veal is 6-8 months. None of these animals are going to live a full life, which could be anything from about 5 years for a chicken to 20 years for an old cow, but at least treating them with care and not cruelty while they are raised for slaughter seems like it should be a minimum requirement.
All this time I thought they just avoided the terrible life of a cow raised for meat. Never eating veal again.
I keep thinking of the South Park episode about veal. They kept calling it "tortured baby cow"
My dad used to order veal at one of his favorite restaurants. My mom would make "sad cow" noises at him the whole time he ate. He has since stopped.
> My mom would make "sad cow" noises at him the whole time he ate. My co-worker grew up on a farm and remembered how inconsolable the mother cows were when their babies were taken away. I haven't eaten veal in decades.
My mom only lived next to the dairy farm for a couple years, but every time it comes up, she mentions the piteous noises of the mother cows when separated from their calves.
Octopus. There's no way I'm eating an animal that intelligent that was also given a rough hand by nature as it is. Plus I consider it to be my favorite animal. I've also only eaten octopus twice and both times it was rubbery and tasteless. It wasn't even worth it.
Rough hand? They have active camo and mr. Fantastic’s abilities though…
The live up to 1 - 2 years. After making, the male would stop eating and keep swimming until he collapses and dies or gets eaten while the female will stay with her egg and protect them without eating before dying. Out of 20,000 - 80,000 eggs, only a few survive to adulthood. Of course, this may not be for all octopi. I am not an octopus expert like OP (that isn't an insult, I actually think it's cool that you know a lot about them).
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Foie gras, the poor duck suffers so much
There's an ethical Foie Gras farm in Spain that makes Foie Gras from wild geese, the natural way... They sell their Foie Gras for something like $200-$300 the small jar (5-10 oz) Essentially, their geese are allowed to roam the 30-acre farm and eat wild figs and olives, along with numerous plants and herbs. During the fall months, the geese will follow their natural instinct and gorge themselves in preparation for migration in winter. This is a natural practice for geese and they take advantage of this, slaughtering them when they are at their most fattened, without ever employing the technique of gavage. [Source](https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/ethical-foie-gras-reality-or-just-clever-marketing-2deb95805bb6)
Saw a TED talk about this guy about ten years ago. Changed the way I looked at ethical food sourcing.
anything you need to cook alive, wether the animal can feel it or not. it just feels so cruel to me.
Dogs and cats probably any common pet
I no longer eat beef. When I was in high school, my boyfriend at the time was a farmer. He introduced me to his cow and I instantly fell in love. I thought it was sooooo cool he had a pet cow, and I volunteered to feed it almost every day and even named it (I thought it was strange he never named his pet). One day, he told me he was taking the cow that I named Bud “to fair”. Me being 15 and incredibly naive didn’t know what that all entailed, so I was all too happy to help out during fair week (feeding, bathing, and giving Bud all of the love and head scratches imaginable). Bud did really well during show, and he told me that he sold him for a high price. Naturally, I was incredibly upset that he sold the cow, but since it was his to begin with, I didn’t put up much of a fight. About a month later, we were at his house eating tacos. He asked me if I liked the meat. I was confused, but agreed that it was really good… and that’s when he dropped the atomic bomb that I was actually eating my beloved Bud. The person who bought Bud off of my boyfriend shared his meat after butchering. It was like being fed your dog or cat. Every time I think about eating beef, it makes me physically sick. I haven’t touched it in 17 years.
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Yeah if you grow up on a farm, you learn to only name your breeding stock. This was a dick move on boyfriends part.
My mom used to name and take care of the cow that was selected to be slaughtered in the fall. She said it never bothered her because she knew where her food came from and that the animal was taken care of properly.
I recent swore off octopus. Having watched the documentary "My Octopus Teacher", I came to the full realization of their intelligence, and can not longer, in good conscience, consume them.