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from the swine-version-of-the-universe-championships dept.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claims that Cambodian farmers are breeding "double-muscled" pigs. "Double-muscled" refers to a mutation in the myostatin gene (MSTN) which normally keeps muscle growth in check. Disruption of MSTN can lead to the abnormal proliferation of muscle cells in an organism:
Mutant pigs bred to grow to an enormous size just to be slaughtered and eaten? No, we aren't talking about the plot of the eye-opening Netflix sensation Okja—rather, this is the very real horror that seems to be unfolding on a Cambodian farm, where genetically altered pigs are being bred to develop heaping knots of muscle mass. Disturbing video footage and images captured on the farm have exploded around the web, sparking discussions about the many ways that animals suffer and are abused when they're treated as nothing more than "food."
[...] When South Korean and Chinese scientists created 32 double-muscled piglets in 2015, according to reports, only one was considered even marginally healthy. But pigs suffer even without this "Frankenscience"—on typical pig farms, their tails are cut off, their sensitive teeth are ground down, and the males are castrated, all without so much as an aspirin. Then, even though we have a wealth of nutritious plant-based foods to eat, these intelligent, playful, sociable animals' throats are slit and their bodies are turned into pork chops or sausages.
Breeders have exploited natural double-muscling, which occurs in Belgian Blue cattle, to create behemoth animals who suffer from a slew of health problems—just to yield slightly larger profits.
[Note: On Google News, only corroborating sources seem to be British tabloids right now]
Previously: "Double-Muscled" Pigs Created Using Simple Gene Modification
Scientists Create Extra-Muscular Beagles
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday October 02 2017, @09:15AM (19 children)
Humans (at least for now) are the top predator on this planet.
In fact, if it weren't for sliced/cooked meat [sciencemag.org] and smaller jaws/chewing muscles [nytimes.com], we wouldn't have the big brains that make us top predators.
While it's true that, given our current knowledge of nutrition, a vegetarian diet can provide all the nutrients needed to be healthy, meat has been an integral part of human diets for more than two million years.
So, to the PETA morons I say, "Fuck you! Go eat some pork chops assholes!"
To everyone else I say, "Go eat some pork chops! You are welcome on my lawn."
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday October 02 2017, @02:21PM (5 children)
Meat-eater here, so I'm not particularly trying to shoot you down , but I have to say that "it's what nature intended" and "that's how it's always been" are really crappy arguments for anything.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday October 02 2017, @08:30PM (4 children)
I never said anything about what "nature intended." Nature doesn't intend anything. I was pointing out that without meat (or some other concentrated source of nutrients) we almost certainly wouldn't have evolved into the intelligent, technological, apex predator we are.
I specifically did *not* say "that's how it's always been." Because it hasn't. Before 1.5-2.1 million years ago, our ancestors were *not* meat eaters. The argument is that eating meat allowed us to use more time and energy developing technology *and* allowed those with a certain mutation [nytimes.com] to make room for a larger brain, moving us along an evolutionary path which, by happenstance and good fortune, allowed us to become apex predators.
I don't speak for anyone else, but I'm glad I have heat in the winter, artificial lighting, roasted coffee beans, and the ability to have this discussion with you.
If our distant forbears hadn't started (and continued) eating meat, assuming our ancestors didn't die out completely, I would, most likely, be freezing in the dark and spending 8-10 hours a day struggling to find enough calories to keep myself alive.
Again, I don't speak for anyone else, but I'm glad I don't have to do that.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:36AM (3 children)
Right. So meat was needed THEN to get us to where we are NOW. But there is a powerful argument that it is NO LONGER needed.
Let's take fire for example. Not fire in general, which is obviously still used in all sorts of ways, but specifically fire as in "big blazing pile of logs with people sat around it and dinner cooking on top of it". There's no doubt that we, as a species, would never have gotten to where we are now without countless generations of our ancestors chopping down trees and setting them on fire. Does that mean that every human on 21st Century Earth must have a woodpile and fire pit in the centre of their home? No. I don't have one. I don't know anyone who does. A roaring real fire in your hearth is nice, but it is no longer a necessity. We have more advanced technologies to keep us warm and cook our foods. More efficient technologies, cleaner ones. We've moved on.
So going back to meat, there's no doubt that by now technology, agriculture and nutrition have developed to a point where a person can a long, healthy and happy life without meat. This is not in dispute, the data is there, veggies and vegans have been doing it for centuries. Could we scale that up to the entire world's population? Theoretically, it ought to be possible. After all, carrot-huggers have been telling us for years that it takes way more farmland, water & energy to raise a meat-animal than its equivalent nutritional value in greenery. [1] Therefore if we handwave away all the social, political and traditional objections that would have to be overcome and look purely at the technicalities, a meat-free world is almost certainly possible, and it would probably healthier too. So we don't NEED meat any longer. We only WANT it.
I've met more than a few meat-eaters who insist that in order to justify their diet, they should at least have the manliness to kill and prepare an animal themselves, at least once, to "really understand what it means to eat meat". I'm sure you know the type I'm talking about. Invariably these people are either outdoorsy-types who regularly kill stuff anyway, or self-conscious city-dwellers who make occasional pilgrimage to some rural locale in order to ritually slaughter, clean, cook and eat a chicken / bunny / pig / whatever. Well, I don't personally subscribe to that philosophy, but I'm not going to disrespect it. I only bring it up because I do have my own take on it: I'm personally of the opinion that in this day and age, all meat-eaters should at least recognise that their choice of diet is just that - a choice, rather than a necessity.
[1] What's more, economically-viable, cruelty-free, vat-grown meat / meat substitutes are probably only just round the corner, but that kind of muddies my argument, so let's leave it aside for now.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:21PM (2 children)
I said in my initial post:
So yes, I already understood your point. In fact, I brought it up before you did.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:20PM (1 child)
Well yes, I saw that, but then you went immediately on to "Fuck you PETA guy, go eat some pork" or words to that effect, which gives the impression that you were offering your history lesson as an imperative for modern humans to eschew wimpy vegetarian diets and eat moar flesh. Looking at other peoples' posts, it looks like I'm not the only one who interpreted it that way.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:12PM
I understand how you might see it that way. So I'll clarify. PETA are a bunch of dishonest, unprincipled scumbags who ignore real science in favor of their own brand of unsupportable bullshit. I'm not sure how you made the jump from "Fuck you, PETA" to "I hate everyone who doesn't eat meat," especially since I welcomed everyone else onto my lawn.
I have no axe to grind with anyone who chooses to be vegetarian, vegan or has other dietary peccadilloes.
I do take umbrage with the corporate scum who pollute our ecosystems with industrial agriculture (both plant and animal). As you (and others) pointed out, it's not meat (although from an input volume to output volume standpoint, meat production is inefficient) that's the root of the problems with agricultural pollution (that's industrial agriculture) or health (that has much more to do with sedentary lifestyles and a lack of variety in one's diet) in developed economies.
I'll say it again and use exactly the same words:
Fuck you PETA!
Everyone else is welcome on my lawn.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Interesting) by CoolHand on Monday October 02 2017, @03:42PM (12 children)
But we're not natural predators at all (or omnivores)... Can we hunt down our own food naturally? Can we eat meat without processing it? Your own first link says we can't.. We had to use stones to slice meat into small pieces to be able to eat it. Does the thought of biting into an animal really make you hungry? Studies are increasingly showing that meat is really really bad for us.. (although logically we already new it was from the cholesterol that clogs our blood vessels). Societies desire to continue with the madness of consuming animal products is ruining our planet besides the health of individuals, due to the pollution it causes as well as the land required to feed all those animals that you must eat.. https://www.livekindly.co/largest-study-proves-link-between-meat-major-diseases/ [livekindly.co] http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1957 [bmj.com] so, "Fuck you! eat your pork chops asshole! die a quick death so our planet is saved.." Just because PETA uses some outlandish tactics to try to grab attention does not mean they're incorrect...
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 4, Informative) by Aiwendil on Monday October 02 2017, @05:21PM
Heck, we can even eat some meat alive - worms for instance and lots of bugs and some seafoods (like oysters and squid).
Then we have some food which we basically just gut and clean (most fish if it was healthy) (and killing+gutting+cleaning can be done with your bare hands and the water it was caught in, I have done it with baltic herring, easier if you nails are a bit longer).
The question rather is just where you draw the limit for processing? Burying food for a while and then digging it up and eating it raw was discovered as a sideeffect of just trying to store food (just like letting things ferment in brine (hello surströmming and gravlax)).
If you allow for lightly salted and dried meat that is eaten by ripping it apart with your teeth I eat about 0.4kg (400g) of that each year as a snack (dried reindeer, tastes better when you tear it apart rather than cutting it).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Monday October 02 2017, @05:52PM (10 children)
Humans can hunt food naturally; there are still tribes in Africa who hunt gazelle by simply following them at a run until the gazelle dies of exhaustion. Since neither rice, wheat, nor pinto beans can be eaten without processing (i.e. grind/bake or boil) I don't see why needing to process meat (i.e. slice + cook) disqualifies it and doesn't disqualify the vegetables.
Those points aside, however, be careful about blaming meat intake for heart disease; in 2009 the American Heart Association shifted the blame for that onto sugar. [webmd.com] This has subsequently been backed up by further research; [jamanetwork.com] sugar is what we're damaging our arteries with, not meat. Our bodies manufacture cholesterol naturally, we don't need to get it as a nutrient from meat, and one of its roles is to repair damage in inflamed blood vessels. Blaming cholesterol in your diet for heart disease is like blaming the fire department for arson [progressivehealth.com] because there are always fire trucks when a building is on fire. [1]
Lastly, I'd recommend that you vet your sources a bit better; the "Live Kindly" website gives a different conclusion than the authors of the British Medical Journal article reached. BMJ concluded that red meat increased mortality, and that white meat reduced it; Live Kindly reads that red meat is bad, and concludes, "the case for eating meat is dwindling." Not surprising that a vegan-living magazine would focus on the points that support their ideological position, I guess. That doesn't change the fact that they're essentially lying by omission because the truth isn't convenient.
[1] The analogy gets a bit strained, though, since we're not just blaming the cholesterol, we're blaming a diet that we think is responsible for increased cholesterol. So perhaps, it's like blaming the city's taxpayers for funding the purchase of the fire trucks? Or the raw material suppliers that feed sheet metal and parts to the fire truck manufacturers? The water district for providing water to fill the trucks? Whatever, stretched analogy is stretched.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday October 02 2017, @06:18PM (9 children)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday October 02 2017, @08:15PM (8 children)
I'm going to ignore your earlier screed and reply to this, more reasonable, post.
Firstly, I'm no fan of a variety of industrial agriculture (both meat *and* plant-based [npr.org]) practices. By your logic, eating soybeans and corn and wheat are also destroying the planet. You better stop eating plants or you'll kill us all!
Industrial agriculture absolutely does cause environmental issues. But that's not limited to meat. Not by a long shot.
Secondly, in my original post I said, "given our current knowledge of nutrition, a vegetarian diet can provide all the nutrients needed to be healthy," did you miss that? Or were you just so outraged that someone believes differently than you do that you missed or ignored that?
My primary point WRT to eating meat is that without it, we most likely would not be intelligent beings. We would likely have been one more evolutionary dead end, and wouldn't be around (and even if we were, we wouldn't have the technology) to have this pleasant conversation.
Meat, in and of itself, isn't the issue. Industrial agriculture and sedentary lifestyles are the issue. Blaming meat is (as Zinho [soylentnews.org] pointed out) is misguided at best, and disingenuous at worst.
As for the argument that sentience is a reason not to consume animal products, I can certainly see your point. However, as I pointed out in my initial post, we are the apex predator on this planet. If we weren't (as we've seen in the paleontological record), we would be dinner and leftovers for breakfast too [wustl.edu]. If that were the case, I suppose we could write our congressperson to complain.
All that said, I have no issue with you (or anyone else) shunning meat as a source of nutrition. I do have a problem with PETA, as their tactics and rhetoric are dishonest, unprincipled, and most of all, not rooted in well understood science.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday October 02 2017, @11:57PM (7 children)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:19PM (6 children)
Who built the cage? Not the cat.
Ahh, but we are. It's irrelevant *how* we became that way, but we became the apex predator because we had an evolutionary advantage (in this case, intelligence and the ability to communicate and cooperate with each other).
Nature doesn't care what those advantages might be, only results matter. And the proof is, as they say, in the pudding.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:52PM (5 children)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday October 04 2017, @03:59AM (1 child)
From the page you linked:
I'd say we were at the top of a food chain, wouldn't you? Who exactly is it that hunts humans for food except for some *human* groups that practice cannibalism?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:45AM
I think if you put yourself out in the true wild (what's left of it), you'll find the answer. Especially alone at night, that primordial fear will come to you with every little noise..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-eater [wikipedia.org]
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:04AM (2 children)
My apologies. I meant to include the following in my previous reply, but got antsy with the submit button:
Sure. We can agree to disagree. I have no axe to grind with you. What's more, I respect your opinion and appreciate the opportunity to discuss this topic with you, regardless of any difference of opinion.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:49AM (1 child)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:56PM
I appreciate the pointer, but no time for that. There's steak to be eaten!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr