h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm an omnivore - I've been evolved that way so its right. Enough said!

I've been vegetarian for 13 years and could never go back to meat but I respect the rights of others to eat it.

I second that

I don't eat meat because I don't like it I also don't like beer, that doesn't mean I demand that everyone else stops drinking it!

I love meat so much that my canines grew sharp like a carnivor or vampires...enough said?

I have very pointy canines, too, and have never eaten much meat - none at all for the last three years or so, since I moved out and started cooking for myself

mine wern't until I started eating meat like I do now

(I used to not even touch the stuff)

No-one said that it was inherently wrong to eat meat. Your post completely disregards the current situation, under which the question of meat consumption was raised, namely the global food shortage and global warming.

Have to say I'd miss meat if I had to give it up. Think I only would if there was some strong valid reason for it. Not to offend out vegetarian friends, I respect your views too.

But think I wouldn't go veggie if I didn't have to. If there was a law or if meat prices rocketed beyond belief, then I'd stop.

I'm a meat eater, but a guilty one. I know that for us to eat meat people in other countries have their forests and vegetable and grain farmland taken away from them so that cattle can be grazed.

Now it may be made worse because the bit of land they had left will now be used to produce bio-fuel so we can still use cars and aeroplanes.

If you had to give up meat or travel which one would you give up?

Really? What about local produce? Know that's what lots of supermarkets are promoting and at least where I live there are loads of farms with cattle and sheep.

That's for the slabs of meat you buy at the butcher's and possibly the sausages.

But think of all the frozen dinners with meat, the and stands, the meat by-products in prepared foods...

You'd think they'd try and source everything closer.

Sadly, even with today's fuel prices, it's cheaper to fly in a load of beef from halfway 'round the world than pay farmers what it costs to raise it here...

That's a large part of the problem - not the cows producing methane, but the fuel used to ship the animals, the meat, the feed, the finished animal products, etc. all around the world - usually frozen, too - it takes a lot of energy to keep it that way.

While we're at it - time to go back to buying produce when it's in season°, not when you happen to want it.


°Ok, I can see buying frozen fruit and veg in winter, or preserving it!

I'd heard that it was the processing that took asll the flying, rather than the actual production. Like Dublin Bay prawns are caught in Dublin Bay and flown to China for shelling and then flown back to Ireland to be sold as local prawns. Which they are, it's just that they've been on holiday since being caught.

Yes, unfortunately, that's a large part of it. Now if people would shell their own prawns...

Apparently it's cheaper and gives a smaller carbon footprint, which seems bizzare!

The "cheaper" yes, but smaller carbon footprint?

I know! That's what the companies said, but I'm not convinced.

Dodgy. Very dodgy.

The thing is, we've become a "service economy", meaning everything has to be pre-cooked, pre-sliced, ready-to-use no fuss and bother.

We used to have servants for that kind of thing.

In a way, we still do - only they're far away in Sri Lanka or somewhere, and a group of them is being exploited by a group of us, so we feel less guilty about it, as it's nobody's fault

Maybe it's time for people to have housekeepers again, especially in double-income families? It would reduce the need for all this ready-to-microwave food (think of the reduction in packaging waste alone!) and provide jobs.

But of course nobody's willing to be the kind of person that employs *one* other to do the dirty work for them, they'd rather outsource it to Far Away.

Not sure how many people would be willing to employ a housekeeper. Seems a bit snobby.