Holy Cow!

[Ridgerunner]

Honey is not vegan. I have found several products–like baked goods–that would be vegan except for that one ingredient honey. I personally must learn more about how honey is procured. It would seem that taking honey from a bee is less horrific/invasive/abusive than taking milk from a cow–but I do not know all the particulars in the process. I have heard that the bees are not injured–I have also heard that they are–and that many are killed in the process. Again, it is one area that I am not familiar with, and do need to learn about.

But why would we even want to take honey from a bee??? There is no real necessity for it. There are so many alternatives. So many ***plant ***alternatives. Even if we were to agree that bees have a lesser capacity for suffering than cows, why would we take their honey when we just don’t need to??? Because we like how it tastes???

I used to have bee hives, but I eventually gave them to another apiarist because it got to where I didn’t have time to take care of them.

But I knew how to do it, and I can tell you that a beekeeper tries hard to avoid killing bees, and of all the things a beekeeper does inside a hive, extracting honey is probably the least deadly, if you do it right. I am reasonably sure I have extracted honey at times without killing any at all. (At least that I knew about.) Very briefly, what you do is puff a little smoke (a smoldering cotton rag is the best) into the hive. The bees think the world is on fire and load up with honey to make a getaway if it comes to it, and get slow and sluggish. You then take off the top and put in a special top with a few drops of an almond-derived liquid, the smell of which they don’t like. They leave the honey combs and go down deeper into the hive. You then take out the “supers” (frames containing the combs), shake and/or brush off any bees (they makes special soft brushes for that) and put them in a container they can’t enter. You take them to your extracting shed (screened) melt off the tops of the combs with a special “knife” designed to do that, and spin the honey out with an “extractor”. Then you put the combs back into the hive. The bees will clean the remaining honey out and start over. Pretty benign, but you might kill a bee here and there with a “honey spill” or putting the tops on or putting the “supers” back in. You try to avoid it, of course.

But other things can be deadlier. You need to clean the hive sometimes and replace or change brood combs (or at least foundation) for the good of the hive, and it’s even harder to avoid killing some bees when you do that. But you need to do it, because if you don’t, the brood combs sometimes sag, warping the combs, or the bees might cross-comb, both of which result in production of too many drone, thus too few workers, and the hive dies out. Sometimes you have to go in and kill the queen if she’s not laying enough eggs but is diligent in killing off other potential queens that might be good layers.

As a beekeeper, you never deliberately kill bees in order to extract honey. Indeed, a good beekeeper will “rescue” swarms; a natural occurrence in thriving hives, and provide decent quarters for them, foundation, sometimes some nutrition. If you ever get a swarm in your attic, call a beekeeper, not an exterminator.

But I question whether any other form of sweetener other than a purely chemical one, arrives at one’s table without some mortality involved. Lots of insects die when, e.g., sugar cane is harvested, pressed, cooked and processed. No way to avoid it. There is probably less mortality involved in beekeeping than in that. There is almost nothing, maybe nothing at all, on anybody’s table that does not involve some kind of mortality of some kind of creature, particularly when you consider that, at minimum, some other creature is competing with you for every last thing you put in your mouth, no matter what it is. There is not a single bit of vegetable matter you eat that doesn’t have at least some insect parts in it or on it. Usually, you just can’t see them, but they’re there. There are a lot of vegans in intent, and that’s okay with me if that’s what they want. But there are none in fact.

 

[severus68]

I used to have bee hives, but I eventually gave them to another apiarist because it got to where I didn’t have time to take care of them.

But I knew how to do it, and I can tell you that a beekeeper tries hard to avoid killing bees, and of all the things a beekeeper does inside a hive, extracting honey is probably the least deadly, if you do it right. I am reasonably sure I have extracted honey at times without killing any at all. (At least that I knew about.) Very briefly, what you do is puff a little smoke (a smoldering cotton rag is the best) into the hive. The bees think the world is on fire and load up with honey to make a getaway if it comes to it, and get slow and sluggish. You then take off the top and put in a special top with a few drops of an almond-derived liquid, the smell of which they don’t like. They leave the honey combs and go down deeper into the hive. You then take out the “supers” (frames containing the combs), shake and/or brush off any bees (they makes special soft brushes for that) and put them in a container they can’t enter. You take them to your extracting shed (screened) melt off the tops of the combs with a special “knife” designed to do that, and spin the honey out with an “extractor”. Then you put the combs back into the hive. The bees will clean the remaining honey out and start over. Pretty benign, but you might kill a bee here and there with a “honey spill” or putting the tops on or putting the “supers” back in. You try to avoid it, of course.

But other things can be deadlier. You need to clean the hive sometimes and replace or change brood combs (or at least foundation) for the good of the hive, and it’s even harder to avoid killing some bees when you do that. But you need to do it, because if you don’t, the brood combs sometimes sag, warping the combs, or the bees might cross-comb, both of which result in production of too many drone, thus too few workers, and the hive dies out. Sometimes you have to go in and kill the queen if she’s not laying enough eggs but is diligent in killing off other potential queens that might be good layers.

As a beekeeper, you never deliberately kill bees in order to extract honey. Indeed, a good beekeeper will “rescue” swarms; a natural occurrence in thriving hives, and provide decent quarters for them, foundation, sometimes some nutrition. If you ever get a swarm in your attic, call a beekeeper, not an exterminator.

But I question whether any other form of sweetener other than a purely chemical one, arrives at one’s table without some mortality involved. Lots of insects die when, e.g., sugar cane is harvested, pressed, cooked and processed. No way to avoid it. There is probably less mortality involved in beekeeping than in that. There is almost nothing, maybe nothing at all, on anybody’s table that does not involve some kind of mortality of some kind of creature, particularly when you consider that, at minimum, some other creature is competing with you for every last thing you put in your mouth, no matter what it is. There is not a single bit of vegetable matter you eat that doesn’t have at least some insect parts in it or on it. Usually, you just can’t see them, but they’re there. There are a lot of vegans in intent, and that’s okay with me if that’s what they want. But there are none in fact.

Thank you for the information about beekeeping. Its good to know that beekeepers avoid killing bees.

 

[pnewton]

I meant what’s for dinner the night that you are having ***me ***over, silly!!!

BTW: I still make shrimp for my husband, don’t tell the vegan police. But he does like my meatless meals, and any meal made with hamburger can easily be made with faux hamburger–and you pretty much can’t tell the difference. And with faux hamburger you don’t have to worry about E-coli.

Well, tomorrow night it will be meatless. I am cooking a huge pot of pinto beans, onions, garlic, jalepenos, along with some cornbread. All animals are safe.

 

[Marfran]

Thank you for the information about beekeeping. Its good to know that beekeepers avoid killing bees.

Yes, thank you Ridgerunner for the info on bees. I have never particularly cared for honey, but I’m noticing that it is an ingredient in a lot of products. I don’t eat meat/dairy/or eggs, and I like the vegan code of ethics–but I had no familiarity with bees, or beekeeping. I will go out of my way NOT to buy a product that has any meat/dairy/ or egg in it–but honey–I’m not sure how I feel about it. I need to learn more. Ridgerunner gave us a great look inside the world of beekeeping.

But I’m wondering are there larger scale beekeeping operations that maybe do things differently? How do the big conglomerates get all their honey to put into products? I have to say I probably don’t feel the same way about bees as I do about pigs or chickens–I think that mammals and birds have more propensity to suffer–but why do we go through all this trouble to get honey? Doesn’t sound easy to me.

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

Is it worse to butcher a dog than it is to butcher a cow, or to kill a bee or take it’s honey?

Well, I’ve never heard of a cow as being called “man’s best friend.”

They’re also notoriously uncooperative at playing fetch.

And they’re ugly.

We’re doing them a favor by eating them.

As for the bees, if we kill them, no more honey.

Though, John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey. No mention of burgers.

:takeoff::takeoff::takeoff:

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

I just started reading the book ***Why Animal Suffering Matters: Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics ***by Andrew Linzey. bit.ly/2lqFZg So going back to the OP, should we consider differences in which animals we choose to make suffer for our food??? Is there a hierarchy of species??? What about insects, like bees??? We don’t ***need ***their honey–should we take it???

Actually, God gave commands about how to slaughter animals, so as not to cause pain. He also gave us animals for food, commanding which we could eat and not eat. A philosophy, theology or ethics that ignores this reality and second-guesses God’s wise design is automatically suspect. Jesus ate meat. :bigyikes: What does that make Him?:hypno:

 

[Ridgerunner]

But I’m wondering are there larger scale beekeeping operations that maybe do things differently? How do the big conglomerates get all their honey to put into products? I have to say I probably don’t feel the same way about bees as I do about pigs or chickens–I think that mammals and birds have more propensity to suffer–but why do we go through all this trouble to get honey? Doesn’t sound easy to me.

I’m not aware of large commercial beekeeping in an industrial sense. It would be awfully hard to to, because a given hive needs a certain amount of territory; the productiveness of which varies a lot depending on what kinds of nectar-producing plants grow in that area. Some “large” beekeepers have deals with farmers to move the hives around from place to place. There is nothing easy about it. You can get an individual hive up to a certain size, but then you can’t go any further. About 20,000 bees is a “superhive” (to my understanding). I pretty much achieved that once, just to do it, but what you’re really doing is combining two hives in a way that the bees all put honey in a single set of supers and frames, and it’s tough to maintain. If you go much beyond 10,000 bees in a hive, they will swarm and something less than half of them will go form another hive elsewhere.

So there are limitations as to how big a beekeeping operation can really get. When you add the fact that hives do require a significant amount of care if you want to protect the bees and do it right, it’s tough to go beyond a certain number. Also, the people who take care of the hives would all have to have a significant amount of skill, knowledge and that sort of “bee sense” that’s really intuitive. You have to always know what’s going on INSIDE the hive; deep inside, and it isn’t always easy to know.

You also have to keep a sharp eye on the weather. Hives are most active right after a rain, when the nectar is flowing. The bees are so busy then you can stand right in the middle of their flyway with bees all around you, even bumping into you, and never get stung. They get mean when it’s hot and dry, and the bees are all in the hive because there’s nothing to do outside. Mess with them then, and they’ll be all over you. You change the size of the opening with the seasons. You increase the early spring brood size (thus the workers) by introducing a little sugar water into the hive in late winter. You have to be sure they have a clean water source where there are not a lot of predators (e.g., frogs, spiders, dragonflies). You have to ensure that the hive stays level and well-balanced. You have to be sure the sunlight/shade combination is right so they can warm up quickly in the morning, but not get beaten up too much by the afternoon sun in the summer.

I have heard of beekeepers who had upwards of 100 hives, and moved them around from farm to farm seasonally. Having maintained hives myself, I can testify that keeping 100 hives would be a tremendous amount of work, and exceptionally difficult. There may be beekeepers who have more (probably are somewhere) but I have never seen one.

It has been a long time since I had bees. Back then, all commercial enterprises that sold honey in stores bought it from individual beekeepers.

As a perhaps interesting aside, the honey you buy in stores is a blend. Natural honey ranges from water-clear in the springtime (depending on the nectar available) to molasses-dark in the fall. The flavor and color depend on the kinds of flowers they are getting the nectar from. The flavor varies almost as much as the color. It varies from region to region as well. When I had bees, I preferred the dark fall honey to all others, because I thought it had more flavor and didn’t have that “sharpness” that a lot of honey has. You could eat it by the spoonful and your stomach wouldn’t rebel the way it sometimes can with spring honey or store honey (which has all seasons’ honey in it). I thought it was also better as a “sugar substitute” in things like apple pie. With some cooking, honey is vastly superior as a sweetener to sugar. Apple pie is perhaps the most dramatic example.

Oh yes, honey also has antiseptic properties. Check it out. I’m not making it up.

 

[Marfran]

Actually, God gave commands about how to slaughter animals, so as not to cause pain. He also gave us animals for food, commanding which we could eat and not eat. A philosophy, theology or ethics that ignores this reality and second-guesses God’s wise design is automatically suspect. Jesus ate meat. :bigyikes: What does that make Him?:hypno:

God’s wise design, as described in Genesis, is that we are to eat a plant-based diet. And I’m sure that you know the rest of the story. He did not originally give us animals for food.

The philosophy, theology, and ethics of Rev. Andrew Linzey’s work (Christian) and others Deborah Jones (Catholic), Matthew Scully (Catholic), Fr. John Dear (Jesuit priest), considers all Christian/Catholic teaching/tenets and how our stewardship of the animals and of the planet shoulder factor into our choices TODAY, in this day and age.

The ***Jesus ate meat ***argument is suspect and quickly falls apart for several reasons.

1. We do not know for absolute certainty what Jesus did in fact eat, though we can make some likely presumptions. He probably followed the Mediterranean diet of his day, which was heavily plant-based, but would have included occassional fish if obtainable, meat from mammals would have been a less occurrent component. Meat was often reserved for special occassions. There was no refrigeration available at the time, so when an animal was slaughtered it was immediately eaten and often shared among families. The wealthy were more likely to eat meat more frequently, and the poor often rarely received the opportunity. It is likely that Jesus observed the customs of his time and ate lamb for Passover once a year.
2. In all liklihood if Jesus ate meat, it was not with relative frequency. In his entire life, if he did eat meat, the total amount was probably equivalent to what the average American eats in a week or two. (So by the Jesus standards–Westerners and other heavy meat eaters must be at least guilty of gluttony.)
3. If Jesus ate meat, the animals were raised and slaughtered under very different conditions. Modern factory-farming practices and the ethics to be considered were NOT present in the days of Christ.

**The philosophy, theology & ethics **of choosing NOT to eat meat TODAY, or the consideration of how we treat animals, is relative to our ***current ***times, not to Biblical times, or to that period of history. As times change, as we evolve technologically, new considerations and issues of ethics arise, that may have not been present in previous generations.

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

God’s wise design, as described in Genesis, is that we are to eat a plant-based diet. And I’m sure that you know the rest of the story. He did not originally give us animals for food.

The philosophy, theology, and ethics of Rev. Andrew Linzey’s work (Christian) and others Deborah Jones (Catholic), Matthew Scully (Catholic), Fr. John Dear (Jesuit priest), considers all Christian/Catholic teaching/tenets and how our stewardship of the animals and of the planet shoulder factor into our choices TODAY, in this day and age.

The ***Jesus ate meat ***argument is suspect and quickly falls apart for several reasons.

1. We do not know for absolute certainty what Jesus did in fact eat, though we can make some likely presumptions. He probably followed the Mediterranean diet of his day, which was heavily plant-based, but would have included occassional fish if obtainable, meat from mammals would have been a less occurrent component. Meat was often reserved for special occassions. There was no refrigeration available at the time, so when an animal was slaughtered it was immediately eaten and often shared among families. The wealthy were more likely to eat meat more frequently, and the poor often rarely received the opportunity. It is likely that Jesus observed the customs of his time and ate lamb for Passover once a year.
2. In all liklihood if Jesus ate meat, it was not with relative frequency. In his entire life, if he did eat meat, the total amount was probably equivalent to what the average American eats in a week or two. (So by the Jesus standards–Westerners and other heavy meat eaters must be at least guilty of gluttony.)
3. If Jesus ate meat, the animals were raised and slaughtered under very different conditions. Modern factory-farming practices and the ethics to be considered were NOT present in the days of Christ.

**The philosophy, theology & ethics **of choosing NOT to eat meat TODAY, or the consideration of how we treat animals, is relative to our ***current ***times, not to Biblical times, or to that period of history. As times change, as we evolve technologically, new considerations and issues of ethics arise, that may have not been present in previous generations.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Ph.D. Molecular Biologist who did animal research on spinal cord physiology during his master degree. I am also a committed omnivore.

I find it interesting that you focus on the way things were before the fall, and ignore God’s instructions for the rest of the Bible after the first few chapters of Genesis. St. Paul says no problem in eating MEATS offered to idols, as Jesus’ blood has washed all things clean, just not to do it if the nature of the sacrifice would scandalize weaker members of the community.

Jesus ate fish, ate the Passover supper (lamb), and who knows how much more.

I have no problem with people being vegan. I do have a problem with the missionary activity of the vegan and animal rights community that flies in the face of scriptural instruction. Your concerns are nice, even laudable, but in no way can you say that you have evolved beyond the revelation that God gave in the fullness of His time. If vegetarianism were to become such a moral imperative, God would have built that in to the corpus of revelation.

As to your concerns about how animals are raised and slaughtered, the scriptures address that. However, in my dealings with PETA and crew, those scriptural injunctions are intolerable as well.

I’m familiar with the authors you cite. I know their rationale. I also know that most theologians have an instinctive distrust of modern science and scientists. Consequently, they have less than fully informed positions when they quote science and lose all credibility when they open their mouths. There are some faulty suppositions in the vegan community. Bias and predilection are not the stuff of science. Passing off one’s bias and predilections as some sort of credible science that somehow carries with it the moral force to override what God gives us as sustenance becomes farcical, and is itself moral quicksand.

Eat only vegetables. Just don’t attempt to craft a moral theological imperative for the rest of us. Science and scripture are not on your side.

 

[severus68]

I’m not aware of large commercial beekeeping in an industrial sense. It would be awfully hard to to, because a given hive needs a certain amount of territory; the productiveness of which varies a lot depending on what kinds of nectar-producing plants grow in that area. Some “large” beekeepers have deals with farmers to move the hives around from place to place. There is nothing easy about it. You can get an individual hive up to a certain size, but then you can’t go any further. About 20,000 bees is a “superhive” (to my understanding). I pretty much achieved that once, just to do it, but what you’re really doing is combining two hives in a way that the bees all put honey in a single set of supers and frames, and it’s tough to maintain. If you go much beyond 10,000 bees in a hive, they will swarm and something less than half of them will go form another hive elsewhere.

So there are limitations as to how big a beekeeping operation can really get. When you add the fact that hives do require a significant amount of care if you want to protect the bees and do it right, it’s tough to go beyond a certain number. Also, the people who take care of the hives would all have to have a significant amount of skill, knowledge and that sort of “bee sense” that’s really intuitive. You have to always know what’s going on INSIDE the hive; deep inside, and it isn’t always easy to know.

You also have to keep a sharp eye on the weather. Hives are most active right after a rain, when the nectar is flowing. The bees are so busy then you can stand right in the middle of their flyway with bees all around you, even bumping into you, and never get stung. They get mean when it’s hot and dry, and the bees are all in the hive because there’s nothing to do outside. Mess with them then, and they’ll be all over you. You change the size of the opening with the seasons. You increase the early spring brood size (thus the workers) by introducing a little sugar water into the hive in late winter. You have to be sure they have a clean water source where there are not a lot of predators (e.g., frogs, spiders, dragonflies). You have to ensure that the hive stays level and well-balanced. You have to be sure the sunlight/shade combination is right so they can warm up quickly in the morning, but not get beaten up too much by the afternoon sun in the summer.

I have heard of beekeepers who had upwards of 100 hives, and moved them around from farm to farm seasonally. Having maintained hives myself, I can testify that keeping 100 hives would be a tremendous amount of work, and exceptionally difficult. There may be beekeepers who have more (probably are somewhere) but I have never seen one.

It has been a long time since I had bees. Back then, all commercial enterprises that sold honey in stores bought it from individual beekeepers.

As a perhaps interesting aside, the honey you buy in stores is a blend. Natural honey ranges from water-clear in the springtime (depending on the nectar available) to molasses-dark in the fall. The flavor and color depend on the kinds of flowers they are getting the nectar from. The flavor varies almost as much as the color. It varies from region to region as well. When I had bees, I preferred the dark fall honey to all others, because I thought it had more flavor and didn’t have that “sharpness” that a lot of honey has. You could eat it by the spoonful and your stomach wouldn’t rebel the way it sometimes can with spring honey or store honey (which has all seasons’ honey in it). I thought it was also better as a “sugar substitute” in things like apple pie. With some cooking, honey is vastly superior as a sweetener to sugar. Apple pie is perhaps the most dramatic example.

Oh yes, honey also has antiseptic properties. Check it out. I’m not making it up.

Really interesting and it appears that bees are treated much better than dairy cows.

There is a dressing for wounds, vasculities ulcers etc called a “diabetic dressing”. Honey is a key ingredient. It is effective and I actually used it.

 

[severus68]

Actually, God gave commands about how to slaughter animals, so as not to cause pain. He also gave us animals for food, commanding which we could eat and not eat. A philosophy, theology or ethics that ignores this reality and second-guesses God’s wise design is automatically suspect. Jesus ate meat. :bigyikes: What does that make Him?:hypno:

This is about animal suffering. How can such a philosophy be suspect and against the teachings of Christ?

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

This is about animal suffering. How can such a philosophy be suspect and against the teachings of Christ?

Did you bother to read the quote you cited in your reply? Reread the first sentence of that quote.

 

[Marfran]

I’m not aware of large commercial beekeeping in an industrial sense. It would be awfully hard to to, because a given hive needs a certain amount of territory; the productiveness of which varies a lot depending on what kinds of nectar-producing plants grow in that area. Some “large” beekeepers have deals with farmers to move the hives around from place to place. There is nothing easy about it. You can get an individual hive up to a certain size, but then you can’t go any further…

Doesn’t sound easy, and I have to wonder why anyone would go through all the trouble, and I can’t imagine a substantial profit margin…

I will walk a mile out of my way NOT to buy a product that contains meat/dairy/or eggs but should I extend the same thinking to honey??? I am not a particular fan of the taste of “straight” honey (and would not even consider buying it “whole”), but used as a sweetner, melded with other flavors, I would not have an objection to it as an ingredient, unless I would be made aware of abuses and cruelty, or other negative factors in the procurement of it.

The picture that you paint seems pretty benign–and not comparable to the abuses suffered by mammals and birds on CAFOs. And again, most people would agree that insects do not have the same capacity for suffering.* I would *like to hear from someone who OBJECTS to beekeeping and honey production.

Oh yes, honey also has antiseptic properties. Check it out. I’m not making it up.

I suspect that honey can be shown to have lots of health benefits. I know that it contains all kinds of vitamins and minerals, etc. It is in a completely different category than white processed sugar, that is completely devoid of anything except calories.

Maybe that’s why I’m noticing it in so many products. Not for the health benefits, but for the illusion of health benefits. Consumers are wising up to the emptiness and negativity of white processed sugar–so if a product contains honey, it must be better for you.

I am so suspect of those big corporations. They will* tilt and slant *to sell their products. Their concerns are not for our health, but for the almighty dollar. I am seeing a trend of some good upstart organic companies being bought out by the big corps. The Silk company was bought out by a dairy–Dean Foods. ***Boca ***burgers bought out by Kraft. I forget who bought the ***Kashi ***company–another one of the “big players.” I had liked Kashi cereals–some of them are vegan–but now they are sneaking other stuff into them and the ingredient labels are getting longer.

So I have a box of Kashi, *Heart to Heart *cereal here. It says that it is “honey toasted.” The only non-vegan ingredient would be “honey”–but just how much “honey” is really in it??? I’m reading the label right now. “Honey” is not one of the main ingredients, in fact the sweetner for this cereal is cane juice syrup. So “where’s the honey?”

“Honey” it turns out, is the 10th ingredient of the SEVEN WHOLE GRAINS FLOUR, which is the 6th and last ingredient of the cereal. (Did everybody follow that?) So I suspect that there is marginal “honey” in the product, and that even having a smidge of it makes the cereal *sound *healthy.

I am so suspicious when it comes to the big food manufacturers.

And back to the guy pointing out to us that Jesus ate meat. The food we eat today, unless we are growing it and raising it our own backyards, may not be as honest and healthy as the big corporations would have us believe, and may have a lot of questionable/objectionable ethics attached to the manufacture/slaughter/procurement etc.

TODAY, we should pay attention to how our food is raised, manufactured, etc., for both health reasons and ethical reasons, and for the fulfillment of our obligations of stewardship. For the record, Ridgerunner is a cattle rancher whose cattle are grass-fed, and who get to experience sunshine. This is not the case for all cattle, not the case for cattle or other animals/birds raised on CAFO’s (Confined Animal Feeding Operations).

This whole *animals used for food issue *has a lot of depth and complexity in our modern times. Thanks Ridgerunner for all of your info!!!

 

[severus68]

Did you bother to read the quote you cited in your reply? Reread the first sentence of that quote.

Did you bother to read my response to you. By the way, the so called OT methods of slaughtering aniimals are followed by most Muslims and is not pain free.

 

[Marfran]

I just started reading the book ***Why Animal Suffering Matters: Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics ***by Andrew Linzey. bit.ly/2lqFZg So going back to the OP, should we consider differences in which animals we choose to make suffer for our food??? Is there a hierarchy of species??? What about insects, like bees??? We don’t ***need ***their honey–should we take it???

Actually, God gave commands about how to slaughter animals, so as not to cause pain. He also gave us animals for food, commanding which we could eat and not eat. A philosophy, theology or ethics that ignores this reality and second-guesses God’s wise design is automatically suspect. Jesus ate meat. :bigyikes: What does that make Him?:hypno:

This is about animal suffering. How can such a philosophy be suspect and against the teachings of Christ?

Did you bother to read the quote you cited in your reply? Reread the first sentence of that quote.

??? Say what, Brother? You want severus68 to refer to your sentence “Actually, God gave commands about how to slaughter animals, so as not to cause pain.”

The philosophy, theology, & ethics about how we treat animals is relative to the treatment of TODAY, and the differences brought about by technology, “improved” production, financial gain etc. The philosophy, theology & ethics are concerned with modern industrialized abuse. Our modern agri-business practices fly in the face of a lot of Biblical teaching. And causing animals to suffer for our vanity and whims goes against the Catechism of the Church.

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

Did you bother to read my response to you. By the way, the so called OT methods of slaughtering aniimals are followed by most Muslims and is not pain free.

Then your issue is with God. Let Him know that you disapprove of His methods.

This thread has shaped up into a screed against “big corporations”, which usually translates into a host of personal baggage aimed at the very people who feed the world. If you think that you have a method of raising animals and slaughtering them that is more humane and can still keep companies profitable, still allow them to sell their products at prices where the poor are not adversely affected, then go for it. God Bless you for it. You may even get a Nobel Prize.

However, many people are employed by those ‘big corporations’ (That’s why they are BIG). Many people have no problem with the quality of the food they produce. A little study of history would tell you that the quality and quantity of the food made today is responsible in no small measure for the population explosion and increased longevity. The food made today is vastly superior to the natural swill that passed for food in the past in urban environments. We can’t all live on farms and raise our own crops and make our food from scratch. The food we have is orders of magnitude better than what was available in cities during the industrial revolution.

But then some disaffected people start yearning for a past that never was, suggest we all take a trip together down that delusional memory lane and then create a theology around it. Sorry, but I am a medical microbiologist who lives in the real world, where real trade-offs need to be made in order to feed seven billion people. It may not be perfect, and I welcome techniques that do away with growth hormones, antibiotics and pestcides if they can also keep food affordable for the poorest among us.

Humans are animals too. I subordinate all other species to the needs of human animals and the elimination of their suffering. So do the scriptures. If that means we eat them, fine. If that requires us to experiment on them for development of new medicines and therapies, fine. Yes they will suffer. That’s unavoidable. But I place a child in India over an ugly cow any day.

 

[severus68]

Then your issue is with God. Let Him know that you disapprove of His methods.

This thread has shaped up into a screed against “big corporations”, which usually translates into a host of personal baggage aimed at the very people who feed the world. If you think that you have a method of raising animals and slaughtering them that is more humane and can still keep companies profitable, still allow them to sell their products at prices where the poor are not adversely affected, then go for it. God Bless you for it. You may even get a Nobel Prize.

However, many people are employed by those ‘big corporations’ (That’s why they are BIG). Many people have no problem with the quality of the food they produce. A little study of history would tell you that the quality and quantity of the food made today is responsible in no small measure for the population explosion and increased longevity. The food made today is vastly superior to the natural swill that passed for food in the past in urban environments. We can’t all live on farms and raise our own crops and make our food from scratch. The food we have is orders of magnitude better than what was available in cities during the industrial revolution.

But then some disaffected people start yearning for a past that never was, suggest we all take a trip together down that delusional memory lane and then create a theology around it. Sorry, but I am a medical microbiologist who lives in the real world, where real trade-offs need to be made in order to feed seven billion people. It may not be perfect, and I welcome techniques that do away with growth hormones, antibiotics and pestcides if they can also keep food affordable for the poorest among us.

Humans are animals too. I subordinate all other species to the needs of human animals and the elimination of their suffering. So do the scriptures. If that means we eat them, fine. If that requires us to experiment on them for development of new medicines and therapies, fine. Yes they will suffer. That’s unavoidable. But I place a child in India over an ugly cow any day.

Well, I don’t want any method of raising animals and slaughtering them for food. I don’t believe we need to eat meat today and I am vegetarian.

That is one of the problems today, compromises, or trade offs as you call them.

If more grain and other crops were grown, there would be less people starving. You are a scientist, you should know that Many, many Indians are Hindus and vegetarian. I do not think they would be please with you sending them beef.

By the way, I do think cows are cute.

 

[Marfran]

Well, I’ve never heard of a cow as being called “man’s best friend.”

They’re also notoriously uncooperative at playing fetch.

And they’re ugly.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I wonder if God, who created the cow, thinks she’s beautiful or ugly, or if she would look better as a purse or a hamburger?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Doesn’t sound easy, and I have to wonder why anyone would go through all the trouble, and I can’t imagine a substantial profit margin… Actually, if you do it well and have enough hives, it’s very remunerative. It’s hard work too, but it’s actually fun, or I felt it was. Bees are like little robots; totally predictable if you learn their ways. Very engaging little creatures. Pretty too, in my eyes anyway.

I will walk a mile out of my way NOT to buy a product that contains meat/dairy/or eggs but should I extend the same thinking to honey??? I am not a particular fan of the taste of “straight” honey (and would not even consider buying it “whole”), but used as a sweetner, melded with other flavors, I would not have an objection to it as an ingredient, unless I would be made aware of abuses and cruelty, or other negative factors in the procurement of it. ** As I mentioned before, the flavor varies a lot. Before deciding, one should find some country source and try the different ones.**

I suspect that honey can be shown to have lots of health benefits. I know that it contains all kinds of vitamins and minerals, etc. It is in a completely different category than white processed sugar, that is completely devoid of anything except calories. **I couldn’t say about this. I do know that eating a lot of stuff with honey in it (I’m a sweet lover) doesn’t give me heartburn like eating a lot of stuff with sugar in it sometimes would. **

And back to the guy pointing out to us that Jesus ate meat. The food we eat today, unless we are growing it and raising it our own backyards, may not be as honest and healthy as the big corporations would have us believe, and may have a lot of questionable/objectionable ethics attached to the manufacture/slaughter/procurement etc.
** I will mention in passing that a local poultry processor once had a “Kosher line”. It has them in other plants now. The only difference was that a rabbi had to inspect everything that went through the Kosher line, and there were some prayers he would say. Otherwise, it was all Kosher anyway. Whether other meat processing is “Kosher in fact if not in theory”, I don’t know.**

TODAY, we should pay attention to how our food is raised, manufactured, etc., for both health reasons and ethical reasons, and for the fulfillment of our obligations of stewardship. For the record, Ridgerunner is a cattle rancher whose cattle are grass-fed, and who get to experience sunshine. This is not the case for all cattle, not the case for cattle or other animals/birds raised on CAFO’s (Confined Animal Feeding Operations).
Actually, by my observation, it’s true of most cattle. Cattle aren’t like hogs, that you can raise successfully in confinement. The benefit of cattle (and sheep and goats) is precisely that they eat grass (cheap) for most of their lives instead of grain (expensive). A rancher who raises cattle in confinement will go broke in a hurry. I realize veal production is sometimes different. Sometimes ranchers will also feed a little grain during weaning, but you don’t need to do it. Hay or grass will do just as well, or nearly so. Up north, some ranchers are also grain farmers, who feed grain to their cattle, usually in the form of silage. But Texas, Ok, and Mo are the three greatest cattle producers, and those grain/cattle operations are rare in those places. Most everything is raised on grass. Grass is out in the fields.

This whole *animals used for food issue *has a lot of depth and complexity in our modern times. Thanks Ridgerunner for all of your info!!!

I totally agree with you that we should pay attention to what we eat. Some things are, indeed, a little disconcerting. For myself, I am particularly suspicious of anything that comes from a foreign country outside the EU, and even then, some of the EU processed dairy products seem a trifle grungy to me. Unfortunately, we have a LOT of stuff, particularly produce, that comes from the Third World, and we have absolutely no idea at all under what conditions the stuff was grown, handled, treated, transported or processed.

 

[Marfran]

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Ph.D. Molecular Biologist who did animal research on spinal cord physiology during his master degree. I am also a committed omnivore.

I find it interesting that you focus on the way things were before the fall, and ignore God’s instructions for the rest of the Bible after the first few chapters of Genesis. St. Paul says no problem in eating MEATS offered to idols, as Jesus’ blood has washed all things clean, just not to do it if the nature of the sacrifice would scandalize weaker members of the community.

Jesus ate fish, ate the Passover supper (lamb), and who knows how much more.

I have no problem with people being vegan. I do have a problem with the missionary activity of the vegan and animal rights community that flies in the face of scriptural instruction. Your concerns are nice, even laudable, but in no way can you say that you have evolved beyond the revelation that God gave in the fullness of His time. If vegetarianism were to become such a moral imperative, God would have built that in to the corpus of revelation.

As to your concerns about how animals are raised and slaughtered, the scriptures address that. However, in my dealings with PETA and crew, those scriptural injunctions are intolerable as well.

I’m familiar with the authors you cite. I know their rationale. I also know that most theologians have an instinctive distrust of modern science and scientists. Consequently, they have less than fully informed positions when they quote science and lose all credibility when they open their mouths. There are some faulty suppositions in the vegan community. Bias and predilection are not the stuff of science. Passing off one’s bias and predilections as some sort of credible science that somehow carries with it the moral force to override what God gives us as sustenance becomes farcical, and is itself moral quicksand.

Eat only vegetables. Just don’t attempt to craft a moral theological imperative for the rest of us. Science and scripture are not on your side.

I don’t think we have any of the PETA crew here, I myself prefer Catholic Concern for Animals as an organization to look to for guidance, etc. You sound kind of angry and speak of bias and predilection. You know of the authors that I cite and are familiar with their rationale. Care to be more specific? The general topic here is dogs, cows, bees–any difference in what we subject them to, does their suffering matter? Are they all equal in what we can or can not do to them? Do you have some specific points, observations, etc. that can help advance our discussion? As an animal researcher do you have some information that we may have not considered?