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Most of us here on hacker news can afford to buy real food such as grass feed beef/lamb, forage egg/chicken, etc Seems like a more natural evolutionary correct

by np422 9y ago

Most of us here on hacker news can afford to buy real food such as grass feed beef/lamb, forage egg/chicken, etc Seems like a more natural evolutionary correct way to get our food rather than some kind of franken-meat grown i lab. Every autumn I buy a lamb from the farmer living next to my father, I kind of like it when I can watch my food being happy before I eat it.

rickycook 9y ago
most of us in hacker news aren't most of the world. also, "natural" is a kind of ridiculous term. plenty of food additives are natural, but that doesn't make them good. also plenty that are unnatural aren't all bad. medicines are highly "unnatural", but they save lives. why is food any different? given how quickly we're heading toward a world in which we don't have the land area to be able to feed our population (and by "heading toward" i mean we already don't and it's getting worse), grass fed anything is totally unsustainable. lab grown meat, or lab vegetables might be our best option, and i'd go with that over a tortured chicken any day
- ericdykstra 9y ago
  > medicines are highly "unnatural", but they save lives. why is food any different? Many medicines also cause more harm than they provide help. Just look at the history of drugs that have had to be taken off the market due to crippling or deadly side effects just to treat some mild cold symptoms or something equally minor. "Natural" is not at all a ridiculous term. It can be made ridiculous when things like "natural flavoring" aren't any different from "artificial flavoring," but I will take natural (or at least human incrementally improved over generations and generations) over artificial (top down diet science-ing) any day.
  - Aaron1011 9y ago
    > Many medicines also cause more harm than they provide help How many is 'many'? 50%? 25%? Or simply 'more than zero'? > but I will take natural (or at least human incrementally improved over generations and generations) over artificial (top down diet science-ing) any day. I assume that you would prefer an 'unnatural' vaccination to the 'natural' disease it prevents. If so, which categories of 'natural' do you prefer?
- ArtDev 9y ago
  Open-ocean fish farming will have a dramatic impact on food production, once we get some technical challenges out of the way (storms mostly). The biggest problem is that its inefficient to feed meat animals grain. Instead we should be farming lots of insects for human and animal food! Lab grown meat is a nice idea, but I don't see how it can scale.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
stinos 9y ago
grass feed beef/lamb, forage egg/chicken ... I buy a lamb from the farmer living next to my father As far is 'happy cow' goes, there still can be a huge difference between both cases in how they live and die. Firstly, a 'grass fed' or 'forage chicken' label can cover a whole lot of different things. I don't know which country you're from, whether those are the official definitions nor what they mean. But I do know countries where something like 'forage chicken' depending on exact translation and law doesn't even mean they ever saw any daylight or living plants in their life. Just that they got like 1 square meter to live on instead of 1/4. But it doesn't end there. Take the grassfeeding: even if it actually means they could range free on nice green fields, from the moment production starts being all about the money and goes into the direction of industrial-scale it is unfortunately not unlikely their last hours on the way to and in the slaughterhouse were stress, torture and immense pain. Refer to e.g. the recent (very graphic) movie which popped up in Belgium where you could see what goes on in a slaughterhouses processing thousand of pigs a day and how far it deviated from what the laws for it prescribe.
bananicorn 9y ago
I'd really like to understand these statements - You seem to care about the well-being of the animal while it is alive, but then decide to kill it (or let it be killed) for its meat. What's the point? You understand that this animal is happy and thus does not want to be killed, but you value it being happy. Don't these two sentiments exclude each other?
- Swizec 9y ago
  It does not want to suffer. Not wanting to die has more to do with avoiding suffering/pain than it does with the dying itself. Ideally I could eat animals that are happy and content then instantly dead without ever knowing what's happening. If we could breed them with little switches in their brain stems that can be turned to Off via a wireless signal ... I'd want that. That would be great. Press button, chicken drops dead. Takes 1 microsecond to die. The more important question is how self-aware is the chicken? Does this self-awareness give it rights? Do rights stem from self-awareness, or from humanness, or is it arbitrary based on a wishy washy feeling of "Hm, that looks too severe. Oh but that other thing, that's okay". Or is how we treat them based purely on how much they can take before the taste becomes too poor for us to bear? Ultimately the point is that meat is tasty.
  - bananicorn 9y ago
    Personally, I follow the "rule" of: What you don't want done to yourself, don't do to others. Would you mind dying right now? Or would you prefer to stay alive? Sure, one might argue that once you're dead you don't mind anymore, but while being alive, you usually strongly prefer staying that way. It's that simple. It certainly is difficult to determine wheter or not something wants to live, but in the case of chickens we can be fairly sure, as they display somewhat intelligent behaviour, and actively avoid harm.
    - Swizec 9y ago
      > Would you mind dying right now? Or would you prefer to stay alive? Sure I'd prefer to stay alive because I'm curious what happens next. But realistically speaking my death is other people's problem not mine. Dying is easy. It's other people that suffer the consequences. Although the process of dying, if drawn out, sounds hella unpleasant. I wouldn't want that part. If we're talking step into the street and get splattered by a runaway 18-wheeler, instant brain death ... fuck it, not my problem. If we're talking 8 months of ineffectual chemo followed by 10 hours of drawing my last breath ... I'd rather just shoot myself. If we're talking normal life vs "eat this pill and aging becomes so slow you will be physically and mentally young well into your 90s followed by death of old age at 140" ... yeah I will definitely take that pill. I'm not sure that really answers your question but there you go. My views on life and death.
Luc 9y ago
> I kind of like it when I can watch my food being happy before I eat it. There's an inkling of empathy there, I suppose. It's a start.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Happy food is healthier. Bad vibes have physical correlates. That's part of kosher/halal standards.
  - vetinari 9y ago
    Really? Many consider kosher/halal to be a torture.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Yes, I know. But consider that bleeding to death is also considered to be relatively painless, as a suicide method.
      - vukk 9y ago
        Warning: descriptions of suicide. I feel like this argument collapses when given any serious thought. Mainly because even without experiencing either, I'd consider drawing a warm bath and cutting your own wrists a very different experience compared to hanging upside down and somebody else cutting your throat.
        mirimir 9y ago
        Point taken. I've never cut my wrists, but I have experienced substantial rapid blood loss. The injury itself wasn't at all painful, in the moment. Not until much later, waiting to heal. And the experience was actually rather peaceful, rather like methaqualone or diazepam. Except for the freakout about stopping the bleeding, anyway. It's my understanding that proper kosher/halal slaughter is supposed to be non-traumatic. Because trauma makes the meat taste bad.
- 9y ago

by np422 9y ago

rickycook 9y ago

most of us in hacker news aren't most of the world. also, "natural" is a kind of ridiculous term. plenty of food additives are natural, but that doesn't make them good. also plenty that are unnatural aren't all bad. medicines are highly "unnatural", but they save lives. why is food any different? given how quickly we're heading toward a world in which we don't have the land area to be able to feed our population (and by "heading toward" i mean we already don't and it's getting worse), grass fed anything is totally unsustainable. lab grown meat, or lab vegetables might be our best option, and i'd go with that over a tortured chicken any day

ericdykstra 9y ago
> medicines are highly "unnatural", but they save lives. why is food any different? Many medicines also cause more harm than they provide help. Just look at the history of drugs that have had to be taken off the market due to crippling or deadly side effects just to treat some mild cold symptoms or something equally minor. "Natural" is not at all a ridiculous term. It can be made ridiculous when things like "natural flavoring" aren't any different from "artificial flavoring," but I will take natural (or at least human incrementally improved over generations and generations) over artificial (top down diet science-ing) any day.
- Aaron1011 9y ago
  > Many medicines also cause more harm than they provide help How many is 'many'? 50%? 25%? Or simply 'more than zero'? > but I will take natural (or at least human incrementally improved over generations and generations) over artificial (top down diet science-ing) any day. I assume that you would prefer an 'unnatural' vaccination to the 'natural' disease it prevents. If so, which categories of 'natural' do you prefer?
ArtDev 9y ago
Open-ocean fish farming will have a dramatic impact on food production, once we get some technical challenges out of the way (storms mostly). The biggest problem is that its inefficient to feed meat animals grain. Instead we should be farming lots of insects for human and animal food! Lab grown meat is a nice idea, but I don't see how it can scale.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

stinos 9y ago

grass feed beef/lamb, forage egg/chicken ... I buy a lamb from the farmer living next to my father As far is 'happy cow' goes, there still can be a huge difference between both cases in how they live and die. Firstly, a 'grass fed' or 'forage chicken' label can cover a whole lot of different things. I don't know which country you're from, whether those are the official definitions nor what they mean. But I do know countries where something like 'forage chicken' depending on exact translation and law doesn't even mean they ever saw any daylight or living plants in their life. Just that they got like 1 square meter to live on instead of 1/4. But it doesn't end there. Take the grassfeeding: even if it actually means they could range free on nice green fields, from the moment production starts being all about the money and goes into the direction of industrial-scale it is unfortunately not unlikely their last hours on the way to and in the slaughterhouse were stress, torture and immense pain. Refer to e.g. the recent (very graphic) movie which popped up in Belgium where you could see what goes on in a slaughterhouses processing thousand of pigs a day and how far it deviated from what the laws for it prescribe.

bananicorn 9y ago

I'd really like to understand these statements - You seem to care about the well-being of the animal while it is alive, but then decide to kill it (or let it be killed) for its meat. What's the point? You understand that this animal is happy and thus does not want to be killed, but you value it being happy. Don't these two sentiments exclude each other?

Swizec 9y ago
It does not want to suffer. Not wanting to die has more to do with avoiding suffering/pain than it does with the dying itself. Ideally I could eat animals that are happy and content then instantly dead without ever knowing what's happening. If we could breed them with little switches in their brain stems that can be turned to Off via a wireless signal ... I'd want that. That would be great. Press button, chicken drops dead. Takes 1 microsecond to die. The more important question is how self-aware is the chicken? Does this self-awareness give it rights? Do rights stem from self-awareness, or from humanness, or is it arbitrary based on a wishy washy feeling of "Hm, that looks too severe. Oh but that other thing, that's okay". Or is how we treat them based purely on how much they can take before the taste becomes too poor for us to bear? Ultimately the point is that meat is tasty.
- bananicorn 9y ago
  Personally, I follow the "rule" of: What you don't want done to yourself, don't do to others. Would you mind dying right now? Or would you prefer to stay alive? Sure, one might argue that once you're dead you don't mind anymore, but while being alive, you usually strongly prefer staying that way. It's that simple. It certainly is difficult to determine wheter or not something wants to live, but in the case of chickens we can be fairly sure, as they display somewhat intelligent behaviour, and actively avoid harm.
  - Swizec 9y ago
    > Would you mind dying right now? Or would you prefer to stay alive? Sure I'd prefer to stay alive because I'm curious what happens next. But realistically speaking my death is other people's problem not mine. Dying is easy. It's other people that suffer the consequences. Although the process of dying, if drawn out, sounds hella unpleasant. I wouldn't want that part. If we're talking step into the street and get splattered by a runaway 18-wheeler, instant brain death ... fuck it, not my problem. If we're talking 8 months of ineffectual chemo followed by 10 hours of drawing my last breath ... I'd rather just shoot myself. If we're talking normal life vs "eat this pill and aging becomes so slow you will be physically and mentally young well into your 90s followed by death of old age at 140" ... yeah I will definitely take that pill. I'm not sure that really answers your question but there you go. My views on life and death.

Luc 9y ago

> I kind of like it when I can watch my food being happy before I eat it. There's an inkling of empathy there, I suppose. It's a start.

mirimir 9y ago
Happy food is healthier. Bad vibes have physical correlates. That's part of kosher/halal standards.
- vetinari 9y ago
  Really? Many consider kosher/halal to be a torture.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, I know. But consider that bleeding to death is also considered to be relatively painless, as a suicide method.
    - vukk 9y ago
      Warning: descriptions of suicide. I feel like this argument collapses when given any serious thought. Mainly because even without experiencing either, I'd consider drawing a warm bath and cutting your own wrists a very different experience compared to hanging upside down and somebody else cutting your throat.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Point taken. I've never cut my wrists, but I have experienced substantial rapid blood loss. The injury itself wasn't at all painful, in the moment. Not until much later, waiting to heal. And the experience was actually rather peaceful, rather like methaqualone or diazepam. Except for the freakout about stopping the bleeding, anyway. It's my understanding that proper kosher/halal slaughter is supposed to be non-traumatic. Because trauma makes the meat taste bad.
9y ago