Companies are still testing on animals

[Godslayer Jillian]

Yeah but those places are similar to Greece and the Jordan.
That's not where factory farming takes place. Virtually 100% of the bovine industry takes place in huge heaps of land that could be best used for agriculture or city planning.
It's the bovine industry, after all, who is clearing most of the tropical forests; whereas agriculture doesn't need any more space than we already have even for our population, unless we became exponentially much more wasting as a society.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

That's not where factory farming takes place. Virtually 100% of the bovine industry takes place in huge heaps of land that could be best used for agriculture or city planning.
It's the bovine industry, after all, who is clearing most of the tropical forests; whereas agriculture doesn't need any more space than we already have even for our population, unless we became exponentially much more wasting as a society.

So change the beef industry.

I think we could save a lot of space by avoiding urban sprawl. Take your kids to the local park so they can be social and play with other kids, instead of alone in a big backyard. Urban life CAN happen with kids.

I also think that agriculture needs to be better planned. Stop building factory farms on agriculture land, and start using, as Raptor suggested, land that isn't suitable for agriculture, and especially land that is already suitable for grazing cattle and other livestock.
It would also be nice if we could all raise our own chickens. Then we could have roosters! *dances*

And start using FUCKING TRAINS for transport. Trucks suck. They clog up the roads, threaten the cars and use lots of gas. Railroads were built across the country for a reason. More trains for passenger transport would also be nice. It would help if it was cheaper, though... >.<

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by LaBelleDameSansMerci

So change the beef industry.

Changing it how?
Minimizing its size? (i.e. minimizing our meat consumption [i.e. increasingly changing into a vegetarian diet])

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Changing it how?
Minimizing its size? (i.e. minimizing our meat consumption [i.e. increasingly changing into a vegetarian diet])

There are a lot of ways in which the meat industry can be improved (and decreasing its size would indeed be an improvement).

In vitro meat is one thing, as I said in a previous post. It'll be a meat industry minus the waste and cruelty.

Then there's an increase in the price of meat, indeed the price of all animal products. $1.00 burgers are just asking for over-consumption, and prices like that pretty much guarantee a lot of corners are cut in the welfare of the livestock. The extra profits from meat could go to better living conditions and greater enforcement to ensure certain standards are met in those areas.

Education in proper nutrition would also be a major help. A lot of people just don't realise that vegan, vegetarian and even partially vegetarian diets can be a whole lot healthier than carnivorous ones. It's been considered in some places to introduce classes in school that teach kids how to feed themselves, be it just by buying the right stuff from the supermarket, cooking or growing their own fruits and vegetables. If you want to change the way people eat you've got to get them started from an early age, and since the massive amounts of meat consumed in the Western world are literally killing people you'd think it's about time to teach the next generation a thing or two about not dying of heart disease. If people ate only HEALTHY amounts of meat the industry would probably be a quarter the size it is now.

[Saya]

Has anyone read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser? He takes a look at the fast food industry from all angles, and does research into where the meat comes from. I don't think he set out at all to expose the animal cruelty, but he did mention that he saw a cow that was still awake after supposedly being stunned, which happens quite a lot apparently. But he also talks about the bad conditions a lot of the workers have to put up with in the slaughterhouses, poor wages, dangerous work, and the company giving them trouble when they complain. There's a lot more things in that book, but the part where he talks about the workers really stuck with me.

And then I saw Earthlings....>.< I was already a vegetarian, but I couldn't even eat tofu meat for a while after seeing that.

That in vitro thing sounds very intriguing Cicero, do you have any more info about it? Sounds like mad science, and I still wouldn't eat meat, but I'd be happy with that compromise ^_^

Also thought you guys would like this:
http://abstrusegoose.com/56

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Saya

That in vitro thing sounds very intriguing Cicero, do you have any more info about it? Sounds like mad science, and I still wouldn't eat meat, but I'd be happy with that compromise ^_^

I first read about it in New Scientist, but googling 'in vitro meat' yields a lot of good results such as this one:
http://www.futurefood.org/in-vitro-meat/index_en.php
That website has a lot of interesting ideas actually.

And yeah, I doubt I'd eat lab grown flesh myself, but I'm not a huge fan of the real thing anyway.

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

Originally Posted by Cicero

I first read about it in New Scientist, but googling 'in vitro meat' yields a lot of good results such as this one:
http://www.futurefood.org/in-vitro-meat/index_en.php
That website has a lot of interesting ideas actually.

And yeah, I doubt I'd eat lab grown flesh myself, but I'm not a huge fan of the real thing anyway.

That actually sounds fucking brilliant.

What if they do that with human skin? They'd be able to use it instead of testing on animals or people! I like this.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Joker_in_the_Pack

That actually sounds fucking brilliant.

What if they do that with human skin? They'd be able to use it instead of testing on animals or people! I like this.

They do make human skin for grafting onto burns victims, but I guess it's still too expensive and unreliable to be used in testing products and all that stuff. Hopefully one day it will though, once industrial production of these sorts of things kick in. How awesome would a fieldtrip to the SKIN factory be?

[HellforgedX]

Did you know that Castrol Syntech improves wildlife viscosity and helps protect from important metabolic breakdown at high RPM? It's true!

Besides, how the hell would they be able to test Raid if not for animals? Roaches are animals! And we're meat!

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Changing it how?
Minimizing its size? (i.e. minimizing our meat consumption [i.e. increasingly changing into a vegetarian diet])

Yes, but it doesn't have to end with a completely vegetarian diet.

Originally Posted by Joker_in_the_Pack

What if they do that with human skin? They'd be able to use it instead of testing on animals or people! I like this.

Maybe for some purposes, but sometimes you need to see how the rest of the body reacts as skin lets some chemicals through.

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by LaBelleDameSansMerci

I think we could save a lot of space by avoiding urban sprawl. Take your kids to the local park so they can be social and play with other kids, instead of alone in a big backyard. Urban life CAN happen with kids.

You have no idea how badly I wish people would understand that.