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

I am a little annoyed at the moment, because I read this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9302303/Calf-slaughter-on-television-upsets-viewers.html

At the moment there is no market for male calves in the UK, so they are being killed at a day old. Since I realised that killing male calves was a by product of the dairy industry I became vegan. It was a bit tough for the first week but I'm ok.

Anyway, recently a TV programme showed the male day-old calves being killed. Some people didn't like seeing this. Now if you don't like that you really ought to take no part in funding it and become vegan. But some people decided to complain to the TV station instead because it was upsetting. And I bet then then went back to drinking tea with milk! Like hell it's upsetting, but it happens. And if you don't like the then do something to change it. If you don't have a problem with day-old calves being killed then go on and carry on eating dairy, you might even want to eat meat whilst you're at it. (I personally think you are a murderer, but then I've performed an abortion, so lots of people think I'm a murderer, so we'll have to agree to differ.)

But don't complain about the person who put it in your living room, and then go on eating animal products.

The other thing that is annoying me at the moment is meat eaters who have never been in a lab who are opposed to animal testing. In the labs I've been in the animals suffer considerably less than mice and rats who are poisoned or killed by my cat. And as a result we save lives of humans and animals. This is far more morally justifiable than killing animals so we can have their mothers; milk to make cheese.

Isn't veal (calf meat) very expensive?
There is no way these people are not selling the veal...
there is a handsome profit to be made from it

i stopped eating veal when i found out how they artificially raise it...
ie: it is not just baby cows... it is baby cows raised hung in a sling in the dark
in order for their muscles to stay soft
duplicating a newborn's muscles...

however, i cannot eat dairy products anymore
because they cause a huge stomache ache for me
and i eat very little meat because most of it is being raised in inhumane ways...

what i have discovered through reading and talking and watching is that
a lot of our food is being poisoned
by additives as 'benign' as vitamins and minerals...
or as toxic as herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified foodstuffs, hormones, flavor 'inhancers' ad naseaum...

Not according to this TV programme. People in the UK now eat very little veal because of concerns for animal welfare, and because it's not a really traditional here. Calves were sold to the continent to be raised as veal, the method of raising veal in crates is now outlawed in Europe, so there is no money to be made selling the calves for veal.

You won't be able to watch the TV in the US, but you can see stills from it in this newspaper report. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2152402/Viewers-outrage-harrowing-scenes-day-old-calves-shot.html

The farmer in the TV programme was trying to show why people should still buy non-crate veal because it means the cows can live longer.

ah

I wonder what it would take to get laws like that passed in the USA?

i won't even eat in a restaurant that serves veal

Well there was a nationwide outrange about 15 years ago. But now people are shocked that the male calves are being killed at birth, of course they are going to be killed if they aren't going to be sold. We 'need' their milk to drink.

i have found that the biggest problem for me now is that we cannot trust our sources...

i for one do NOT trust Whole Foods because they lied by omission some years ago and banked on folks assuming produce was organic just because it was being sold in a store with the word 'whole' in the name...

knowing now what bankers will do for a buck i am skeptical also even of organically labeled foods.... its only a sticker you know...

so it seems the best way to go if possible is home grown kitchen gardens... or block gardens even... buying locally from farms you know... avoiding prepared foods...
and reading all labels if the foodstuff IS prepared...

as far as the calves being killed ...it is good that the public is being educated on how milk is made... that the cow has to be pregnant to make milk...

ohhh so all veal is outlawed where you are? or just that veal does not sell well because folks feel the way i do? i am definitely off veal no matter what... it is at this point emotional...

so why don't they just raise the calves until they are no longer veal?
or is that too easy?

Having just read this thread but not the telegraph article nor watched the television programme I would just like to contribute the following thoughts:

a) It is natural to expect complaints from viewers watching this.
b) We live in an anaethetised world and not everyone will appreciate unexpected glimpses beyond the veil.
c) Are the number of complaints significant - should the media etc be really "fussing" over it?
d) Did the programme makers prepare the audience for what was about to come?

"so why don't they just raise the calves until they are no longer veal?"

Probably because it would be uneconomical for the agrobusiness.

okay but meat is meat...
granted milk cows are bred for maximum milk production so the meat is not as profitable as with cattle... but
sell them to organic meat producers... organic ranchers..
let them raise them free range and sell them at a handsome profit for the meat

or have the calves already been so toxified that they can never be organic??

I don't know fkf - we need an expert in the agribusiness. They would probably say that their practice is based on a cost benefit analysis, and that calves are on balance wasteful by-products of the dairy industry.

Of course if I was running the world I would do thinks differently ...

I don't know fkf - we need an expert in the agribusiness. They would probably say that their practice is based on a cost benefit analysis, and that calves are on balance wasteful by-products of the dairy industry.

Of course if I was running the world I would do things differently ...

I agree with you, Z, even if I then continue to eat meat. If we are to eat it, we should at least have the respect to know where it had come from.

I can also confirm that veal is pretty expensive. When we wanted some we had to order it in especially from our farm shop (theirs is a meat, not a dairy herd, so I don't know if that makes a difference).

I had no idea that male calves are being killed because I drink milk and eat butter and cheese. That's atrocious.

I've felt for a long time that I should eat veal or be vegan. My current position is logically inconsistent.

A similar thing happened a while ago when there was a programme about battery hens, a few people stopped eating chicken for a bit and a few complained to the tv station. Then there was a small debate around cheap food vs animal welfare.

People want farming to be collecting eggs in baskets and milk maids frolicking in fields.

Nor had I, Bel. And I don't know what to do about it either, because I really drink a lot of milk and we eat only cheese - no sausage or other cold cuts which are so popular in Germany. I could reduce my milk/cheese consumption, but not stop altogether.

While veal is expensive here, there is a tradition of eating it (Wiener Schnitzel is officially made from veal. If it's pork, you're not allowed to call it Wiener Schnitzel). Beef is not quite so traditional in Germany. Well, it's more common than veal, but way less common than pork.

I had thought that milk came from cows whose young had been taken from them at an older age for raising as meat cattle, and that, as with humans, so long as you keep taking milk, milk will continue to be produced. Rather a rose-tinted view, as it turns out.

I quite like veal. If someone's going to kill the cow anyway, I might as well make a sandwich out of it.

Then again, British veal's not as bad as fkf makes out. It's all RSPCA approved rose veal...

Damn, this is making me hungry.

Ethically I have to admit I'm not sure what the difference is between killing a cow at 1 day old, and 1 year old. Obviously some people draw a distinction, but I can't logically see one.

I'm surprised more beef stock isn't male calves to be honest,perhaps it's our selective breeding of cows that is the problem cow a is for milk cow b is for meat, if cows were just cows then we could milk them and eat them and it wouldn't matter if it was type a or b, it probably makes little difference as long as you geld the calves they shouldn't become too muscle heavy and you could still keep a few bulls for breeding.

much like chickens, chicken a for laying chicken b for eating why can't we eat chicken a after it's finished laying? why cant chickens live in pastures of some sort?

perhaps it comes down to supermarkets with there cheep prices undercutting farmers and our self imposed blindness to where food comes from

Because unfortunately a laying chicken which has reached the end of its life doesn't taste as good as a young chicken. In an industry that is squeezed as you say, I'm sure that if calves could be raised for meat they would be. There must be a taste or a practical reason why this isn't done.