Free Range Vegetarian

[Astrocat]

Then, why do you feel that way ?

The topic which i linked to explains a considerable amount of information which is behind my approach, and for further reading please check out my topic about Gary Francione it has a radio show with him, and everything !


If animal products or flesh are free-range in origin, it's rare for the person who 's selling it not to say so.

And if the seller claims not to know, or makes no claim at all that those things are free-range, then people would do well to consider whether they really want to get those things from that source.

I would say it was only very slightly less horrible, for an animal to be raised in a warehouse filled with perhaps around 10,000 birds crammed together - than for the birds to be in the same space, but with cages around them in batches of 6 or 12. Many free range birds are raised in almost identical conditions to broiler-shed birds.... the warehouses have an occasional door, but most of the birds will never get to it, and there's hardly anything outside anyway, often just a stip of concrete or mud for them to walk on slightly.

It seems illogical then, for anyone to make a strong distinction between broiler shed birds and free-range birds who have been kept in the same condition.

I would agree, that the step down to battery hens is considerably larger than the one from free-range to broiler-shed..... but even so, as i said before it doesn;t seem like such a big difference to push for.

Have you seen anything to show that battery farming is being ended to any extent, by welfarist reforms ?

They may be rough around the edges, but a lot less animals will suffer.

It would be more accurate to say that many animals will continue to suffer horribly, but perhaps a bit less than they would otherwise.

I think there is benefit in advocating that people who will not stop consuming flesh or animal products would at least try to buy free range organic flesh.... but because it isn't so meaningful ethically, I would do that more so because then they would have to at least pay a lot more for what they buy, and so are likely to buy a lot less of it, and it would also be much less convenient so they would eat less of it for that reason also I reckon.

[Anthony Butcher]

I think that the first step is to get it commonly accepted that battery farming is immoral, and therefore should be illegal. Once the premise is there, reform will be a lot easier.

Getting people around to the concept is going to be trickier. Most people exist in blissful ignorance of what they are eating, but I also believe that most of them would be horrified if they saw the conditions that they were supporting.

So the challenge is to make people more aware of what they are eating, which is a nice side-effect of a food labelling campaign such as this.

[Astrocat]

I think that the first step is to get it commonly accepted that battery farming is immoral, and therefore should be illegal.

I think focussing on morality is a red herring.
I reckon we'd get on better if we focus instead on ethics.

Nobody can honestly claim that they view it as ethical to keep an animal in squallor in a little cage, causing it deformity and great suffering.

But they can view it as a moral endeavour simply by saying they they themselves don;t care, because unlike ethics - morality is personally definable, and subject to individual interpretation.

Getting people around to the concept is going to be trickier. Most people exist in blissful ignorance of what they are eating, but I also believe that most of them would be horrified if they saw the conditions that they were supporting.

I have found that the vast majority of people who eat battery-farmed products are not 'innocently ignorant' , but rather are 'willfully ignorant' - fully aware of reality but trying hard to convince themselves that it's okay to buy those things, through rationalising their choices and being very dissociative (paying other people to do their dirty work, rather than applying to work on a battery farm in order to see what it;s like and take a bit of a hand in the production)

I have found that surprisingly few people express horror when they 'find out' what they are eating.

It will probably come as no surprise that among children, lots of people have such a reaction - whereas among adults, much fewer people do.

A lot of people say "I try not to think about it, if i thought about i wouldn;t be able to do it" - openly admitting that they are doing something which they not only know to be unethical, but even personally believe to be immoral also.

So the challenge is to make people more aware of what they are eating, which is a nice side-effect of a food labelling campaign such as this.

What i thought, when i read about your website initially, is this :

People will often go to ridiculous feats of self-delusion in order to try and feel good enough about supporting animal abuse and exploitation, to be able to keep doing it. For example, they will tell themselves that if something does not specifically say it comes from caged factory-animals, that it will be free-range...... even though many of them do know, if they are being honest, that free-range stuff is labelled as such, or if at the very least they know truly deep down, that the super-cheap pork pies which they buy often.... are not going to be from organic or free-range animals.

If it were simply a matter of educating honest people (^-^); then it would be a lot easier to convey messages and have people take them on board !

It often is a case of that, as many people are honest and truly strive to know the truth about the situation - but they are very much in the minority, it seems to me... at least in the UK, at any rate.

But, when i saw your website, i thought - hey people would be less able to do that, telling themselves big lies to try and stifle a guilty conscience, if the letters 'this contains battery farmed products' are there in front of them.

[Astrocat]

I don't disagree with what you are saying at all

- Anthony, 17th of September

To put it bluntly, most people don't believe that free range farming is unethical, myself included.

- Anthony, 21st of September


Clearly - both phrases can't logically be right, so one must be wrong.

Or , have you completely changed your opinion about this over the last few days ?
And if so, then why ?

I am aware that the official 'free range' and 'organic' labels aren't what they should be

So, if you think that free range animal agriculture is already okay from an ethical perspective.... then what's your problem with the present status of free-range labelling in the UK ?

I think that the first step is to get it commonly accepted that battery farming is immoral, and therefore should be illegal. Once the premise is there, reform will be a lot easier.

With all due respect.... why bother ?

It seems to me that where reform is concerned it entirely doesn't matter what most Brits think regarding the legal status of battery farming.... the EU has said that they're going to be ruling it out by 2012 anyway, so any Brits who are against such a reform will just have to put up with it whether they like it or not.

If you want to hurry it up a bit, then I reckon that you'd get on far better lobbying the EU to bring the date forward, than you would by messing around speaking to members of the British public about it and trying to convince people that ethics and animal welfare matter when lots of them will stubbornly disagree, especially since you've said that you would intend to do that rather slowly.

Lots of people say that they find battery farming to be immoral.... but , as demonstrated by their typically active and mindful support of battery farming through buying eggs , flesh etc.... they certainly do not think that it is such an atrocity that it ought to be illegal.... instead, they commonly will say 'well, i think that it's immoral - but i want do do it, and that's my top priority here'

[Anthony Butcher]

I have already spent an large amount of time discussing the various issues with you, and don't regret that; it is always useful and interesting to debate them. However, it has now descended into nit-picking, arguments over semantics and straw-man arguments that I no longer find helpful or interesting. I apologise if this sounds rude, but I am sure that you would rather I was honest about it. I would rather spend my time promoting the campaign, designing leaflets and so on.

You clearly have a wealth of energy and time available which could very much assist the campaign, but trying to bludgeon me with endless questions (which is what it feels like) really doesn't help.

I tell you what would be really useful - a vegan guide to writing menus. Assuming that we would encourage a restaurant to offer a vegan meal, what would you like to see? what are the common pitfalls of vegan labelling? I have already agreed with the Vegan society that we will pass them anything we produce in this aspect for comments and approval, so it would be best coming from a vegan such as yourself.

[Astrocat]

You clearly have a wealth of energy and time available which could very much assist the campaign

I have M.E.

That being the case, I will not spend my energy on a campaign if it is inconsistent, misleading, promotes the idea that it's ethical to exploit and abuse animals and that this is acceptable, and if the person leading the campaign opts out of showing why the campaign is a worthwhile thing to support, citing personal boredom and time restraint reasons.

If you throw out inconsistencies, talk in metaphors, campaign for meaningless terms to be viewed as meaningful even when they aren't, say one thing then a few days later say the exact opposite, then really ... why should I help you at all ?

If your views are logical, then surely you can explain them to me in a logical and consistent manner, and my questions surely seem easy to answer.

If you would rather go back to your leaflets and keep right on spreading industry-generated propaganda and enthusiastically encouraging people to feel comfortable about paying for animals to be exploited and abused, then be my guest..... but I won't be there to help you to do it.

trying to bludgeon me with endless questions (which is what it feels like) really doesn't help.

If you would make the effort to answer at least most of them, then i might join your campaign. But, if you don't think that would be helpful then so be it.

You seem to think i ought to not ask many questions, not mind obvious inconsistencies or inappropriate bias in your approach, and despite being uninformed just go along with your campaign anyway, even though i find much of it to be counter-productive and in direct conflict with ethical activism.... which simply isn't going to happen, however much more interesting and helpful you might find it to just skip straight to that stage.

If you feel that convincing someone to join the campaign, or answering questions about the campaign, is too much like effort, and takes too much time, and is a bit boring because people don't just agree with you or believe that your opinions are fact, and it's frustrating..... then well, I guess this is where we shall part ways.

o(^-^)o so long

[Anthony Butcher]

I am sorry that we can't see eye to eye on this. I wish you well in your activism.

[Astrocat]

Catch ya' later, alligator.

[Calum]

hello all, hope it's not too late to comment, there having been no activity in the thread for a week. Right. I'd like to comment on some posts by Anthony. Helo Anthony, this is my first post here, so you won't know me. I'm a (male) ovo lacto vegetarian living in scotland. Here we go...

I think that the first step is to get it commonly accepted that battery farming is immoral, and therefore should be illegal. Once the premise is there, reform will be a lot easier.

up till here i didn't really see anybody say anything that made me disagree to any degree, but i felt i had something to add here. I disagree that reforming people's diets, on a general scale, is something that should always be attempted only on a step by step basis. What you are essentially saying is that the entire eating population (which is most of them) should complete one step before another is attempted, and that's not workable. I agree that if, for example, a person stops having steaks the whole time and ends up being a vegetarian, that's, on the whole "better". I also think that it's even better if that person ends up cutting out dairy produce both for ideological and health reasons (well, they can have their own reasons for doing it! that's just the reasons for my opinion). What i mean is that there's no point giving up a dietary improvement as a lost cause simply because battery farms still exist. Nuclear power stations still exist and yet much is being spent on research into hydro, solar and wind powered electricity. Where would those projects (and the technology and industry involved with them) be if they had taken this attitude?

Getting people around to the concept is going to be trickier. Most people exist in blissful ignorance of what they are eating, but I also believe that most of them would be horrified if they saw the conditions that they were supporting.

this is the reasonable assumption, and yet many vegetarians and vegans aren't really aware of the suffering that animals are generally put through routinely as part of modern meat and animal produce production. They just think "well, i don't eat animals/consume animal produce, so it doesn't affect me". If people who have made the ideological choice to stop consuming animal produce don't even want to hear about animal cruelty, and many don't, then how can we expect that meat consuming people will be any more moved?

I suspect that these people would be more likely to care about the suffering of, say, foreign children, starving in some equatorial ex-colony than any animals, and we all know how apathetic many people can be to those sorts of situations. People are very good at brushing things under the metaphorical carpet of their mind.

Many people believe that animals are so unintelligent that they deserve any treatment they get, some people think fish are incapable of feeling pain, and that animals (except humans of course) don't even have emotions, or aren't even aware of the events that happen to them. A large number of people seem to believe one way or the other that humans are somehow more important than any other animal species, this may stem from the traditional christian belief that animals have no soul. Many religions teach that animals are in fact put here by God for us to eat (although even they are notably silent on how we treat them before we eat them). Don't sneer, many people are devoutly religious, and those that aren't probably don't realise how much of their attitudes they have internalised from religious influences in their society's development.

So the challenge is to make people more aware of what they are eating, which is a nice side-effect of a food labelling campaign such as this.

true, but i think it is easy to give onesself a big pat on the back and say "i relabelled some food! that's made the world a better place". Sure, it has made the world a place where people can see whether the soil association vouches for their food or whether it has over 5% genetically modified content or whatever, but does it change the way the food industry operates? is it a case of straining gnats while passing camels? (so to speak) All i'm saying is, a good thing, okay, but a better thing, that's better.

I have already spent an large amount of time discussing the various issues with you, and don't regret that; it is always useful and interesting to debate them. However, it has now descended into nit-picking, arguments over semantics and straw-man arguments that I no longer find helpful or interesting.

i actually disagree. While i find Astro Cat's posts quite hard work in terms of assimilating all the information (over on her own forums, that is) i can't actually see anything in this thread that's been a waste of space. Again, i agree her discursive style can be uncomfortably brutal and direct, which is not a good way to make others see your point of view (since it gives them a good excuse to back out) but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, as you say this thread is a wealth of valuable information. Maybe one of Astro's posts could be attached to every food label!

I apologise if this sounds rude, but I am sure that you would rather I was honest about it. I would rather spend my time promoting the campaign, designing leaflets and so on.

here, and i hope you don't find this rude, i think you actually show the tendency i just mentioned. Rather than continue discussing in the raw atmosphere that Astro's discussion has created, you say "i'd rather bow out of this uncomfortable atmosphere and do something i am familiar with", because after all leaflets are about disseminating the information you already know, whereas discussing involves (if you're doing it right) assimilating new information and checking the facts independently as well. I'm not trying to criticise you too much, but i am trying to illustrate that this *is* what most people tend to do. They think "well, i haven't got time, i've 'done my bit', someone else will fix it up in time".

In my opinion, why not give people the reasons as well as the facts. Keep telling the buggers until they listen to reason. Market forces drive the food industry you know. The more people buying one way, the cheaper and more available a product or product niche will become. This means that the more people are vegan, or vegetarian or whatever, the fewer battery farms there will be (although there is that point about eggs and milk bolstering the backbone of the meat industry but that's not too on topic).

You clearly have a wealth of energy and time available which could very much assist the campaign, but trying to bludgeon me with endless questions (which is what it feels like) really doesn't help.

on one hand, i agree that abuse is in the perception of the recipient, but i also think it behooves any activist to try and have as thick a skin as possible! I don't think Astro was trying to badger you, i think generally this has been a deliberate attempt to get you to commit to an answer about these questions, endless or not. I notice you don't question the content of the questions, only their number.

I tell you what would be really useful - a vegan guide to writing menus. Assuming that we would encourage a restaurant to offer a vegan meal, what would you like to see? what are the common pitfalls of vegan labelling? I have already agreed with the Vegan society that we will pass them anything we produce in this aspect for comments and approval, so it would be best coming from a vegan such as yourself.

i agree, that would be useful. Interesting that you mention the vegan society's approval however. Does Label My Food consider the vegan society to be the authority on veganism? Just wondering as there seems to be some confusion on whether this is the case following the vegan society's reinterpretation of the definition of veganism following the death of its founder Donald Watson. Also, the phrase "a vegan meal" worries me. Do you consider it the case that there'd be one meal on the menu that's ok for vegans and the rest all have meat and so on? Why not encourage restaurants to have a decent number of non-meat/non-animal meals? Many products are now available that are indistinguishable from meaty products, and restaurants could easily offer many existing dishes as vegan/veggie "options" without altering their menu at all, just their recipes and ingredients. In my opinion some markets, like airline food and burger vans, could replace their existing food with soya based alternatives at a stroke and the meat eaters wouldn't even be able to tell the difference!

In any case, just wanted to point out that your suggestion is a good idea (i think) which is nice since many people fleeing from a discussion might not bother trying to think of a positive.

[Anthony Butcher]

Originally Posted by Calum

hello all, hope it's not too late to comment, there having been no activity in the thread for a week.

Welcome on to the forum. Please do keep any discussions going - the campaign is incredibly new, so as members join they are bound to want to discuss the issues

Originally Posted by Calum

What i mean is that there's no point giving up a dietary improvement as a lost cause simply because battery farms still exist. Nuclear power stations still exist and yet much is being spent on research into hydro, solar and wind powered electricity. Where would those projects (and the technology and industry involved with them) be if they had taken this attitude?

I take your point, although I think that we are really just saying the same thing! It is slightly outside the realm of a labelling campaign to campaign against battery farmed eggs, but that doesn't mean that we can't campaign for mandatory labelling for all battery farmed eggs.

Originally Posted by Calum

is it a case of straining gnats while passing camels? (so to speak) All i'm saying is, a good thing, okay, but a better thing, that's better.

It is, as you say, just a step in the right direction. However, the driving force for me is that it is a potentially achievable step. I really would like the campaign to remain a consumer information campaign, rather than an animal welfare campaign, because it includes people who have a much wider range of food issues (religion and allergies) and also because it is far easier for companies to ignore and dismiss animal welfare groups.

Originally Posted by Calum

i actually disagree. While i find Astro Cat's posts quite hard work in terms of assimilating all the information (over on her own forums, that is) i can't actually see anything in this thread that's been a waste of space.

It wasn't a waste of space, and I hope that I made that clear. There was no offence intended.

Originally Posted by Calum

Rather than continue discussing in the raw atmosphere that Astro's discussion has created, you say "i'd rather bow out of this uncomfortable atmosphere and do something i am familiar with", because after all leaflets are about disseminating the information you already know, whereas discussing involves (if you're doing it right) assimilating new information and checking the facts independently as well.

Fair enough. She had many good and valid points, but I simply couldn't keep up with her constant demands for questions to be answered!

I did try to suggest an alternative route for her to perhaps offer something more constructive by providing a vegan labelling guide for restaurants, but she declined.

Obviously I don't want to upset anyone, and regret that she felt unable to stay, but a campaign like this is always going to be unacceptable to some people if it doesn't specifically follow their own ethical code.

Originally Posted by Calum

Does Label My Food consider the vegan society to be the authority on veganism?

I wasn't aware of any issues on this. In the absence of a respectable alternative then I would say "yes". Of course if there is some pressing reason why that shouldn't be the case nothing is set in stone.

Originally Posted by Calum