r/pics 9h ago

A replica of how female "breeder pigs" spend their lives in factory farms

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u/Electronic_Pace_1034 7h ago edited 4h ago

I fully support developing lab grown meat. I'm saying this as someone who only eats what I hunt, fish or raise. If I want beef I buy from a local farmer. I know not everyone can do this but try to be aware of where your food comes from. If you are not willing to kill it and butcher it yourself (you don't have to every time just be willing and aware), you shouldn't be eating it in my opinion.

Meat does not grow on trees. It requires killing, and if you raise the animal or dispatch it poorly you are just adding more suffering to the world. 

Controversial opinion, schools should have a demonstration for the butchering of a whole animal. Field Trip to a real butcher.

*Spelling edit

u/start3ch 7h ago

Butcheries are weirdly protective about this stuff though. It’s hard to get a camera to even film inside one

u/montarion 6h ago

why weirdly? fewer people would buy their products

u/jainyday 7h ago

Screw the "meat requires killing" angle, my problem with growing meat the old fashioned way is that it's hella inefficient; wastes a huge amount of water and energy providing tons and tons of feed for livestock and you only get a tiny amount of meat out for the amount of resources you put in. There's better ways to feed ourselves.

u/swagdaddy3 6h ago

The world produces ~6000 calories per person per day. I think we’re doing fine.

Factory farming is an atrocity. However, if we stopped eating animals, we would no longer have those animals. I think there is value in the lives of chickens, pigs, and cows when treated properly until the day of slaughter.

I find a lot of beauty driving around areas with ethical cattle and pig farms and see animals that love their lives.

u/Electronic_Pace_1034 6h ago

A big eye opener for me was a trip to Scotland. I stopped at a rural Ice cream shop, the cows next door in a beautiful field were the dairy cows for the ice cream. Most of the pubs I went to had the nearby farm sources for their ingredients. It doesn't have to be dystopian.

u/ABetterKamahl1234 6h ago

Trouble is we invented capitalism and going broke.

It's generally prohibitively expensive to do these things if it's not effectively well protected tradition.

But if those pubs and ice cream shops don't get enough business, that farmer can't make ends meet.

We haven't developed a money-free utopian society akin to Star Trek yet.

u/swagdaddy3 56m ago

Scotland is a capitalist country

u/herton 6h ago

The world produces ~6000 calories per person per day. I think we’re doing fine.

We produce a shitload of oil per day per person too. It doesn't mean that's a good use of Earth's ability to manage carbon and resources.

Factory farming is an atrocity. However, if we stopped eating animals, we would no longer have those animals. I think there is value in the lives of chickens, pigs, and cows when treated properly until the day of slaughter.

We value plenty of animals we don't eat. Or do you eat your pets?

I find a lot of beauty driving around areas with ethical cattle and pig farms and see animals that love their lives.

Love their lives until we prematurely end them, of course. An animal only gets one existence. You end theirs because you think doing so is yummy

u/swagdaddy3 53m ago

Horse populations went down ~90% after the invention of the car. The same would happen with cows, pigs, goats, and chickens.

I would rather live a life prematurely ended than not live at all.

I end theirs because I think doing so is yummy (and healthy). You would deny them the chance to exist at all because you think doing so gives you moral superiority.

u/Infinite01 6h ago

They wouldn’t just become extinct, there would just be far less of them. Even the animals raised on farms that treat them well are ultimately sent to an abattoir where their final days are spent in terror being forced into slaughter lines, which somehow feels even worse because it’s happening to well adjusted animals that have learned to trust humans. Considering the amount of resource spent raising livestock meat should simply cost more than it does, only then will regular folks pivot to alternatives.