Kill It, Cook It, Eat It.

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Griffin

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For the benefit of those who didn't watch the programme last night it consisted of a group of people who watched three cows be slaughtered, prepared, butchered then cooked. They then had the choice of eating the meat. Every single part of the process was explained in detail.

I watched it because I'm going through a phase in my life where I am questioning my own beliefs as regards meat. I was a vegetarian from the age of 12 to 22. It was because I couldn't stand the thought of eating anything with a face. Every time I was pregnant I craved red meat. I was anaemic and I figured it was my bodies way of telling me what it needed. Aged 22 and pregnant for the third time I gave in to the cravings and scoffed a bacon sandwich. I seemed to have lost all the empathy I had for farm animals and from that point on consumed meat with gusto.

So for seven years I've been a meat eater again but recently I've been eating less meat and have started contemplating vegetarianism again. Not because I can't stand the thought of eating a cute little lamb but because of the poor quality meat I've been buying and the fact that meat has become a way of life and not a luxury or something I particularly enjoy. What I would like is for me and my family to eat no meat at all during the week, or perhaps for weeks at a time, and then spend more money on a piece of good quality, locally produced, free range and organic joint of meat for a Sunday roast.

Recently I made a vegetable curry with about eight different types of vegetable and to me it was more satisfying to prepare than it was for me to chop up a packet of chicken breasts and throw in a jar of sauce. I've started to think more about the life those chickens have lead. I've deliberately prepared vegetarian meals for the family, much to their disgust in most cases.

I don't feel the need to give up meat completely but I do want to eat less of the crap stuff and chose to invest in a better piece less often. I don't want to force the children to become vegetarians but I do want them to take more of an interest in what is on their plate. I am thinking of allowing them to watch Kill It, Cook It, Eat It because I do think it's educational and every meat eater in the land should see it.

Did anyone watch it and has it changed the way you feel?
 
I never saw the programme sounds interesting though but i dont think i could live without meat i love it to much, don't get me wrong i love lentils and veg but just with a nice bit of meat (Not lamb i can't stand it), Chicken Madras for tea tonight. :clap:
 
You ought to go to a slaughter house and see the carnage that takes place daily, I had broken down outside a abatoir(in my artic and trailer) and was stuck there for 8 hrs,(the smell was attrocius) so out of boardem I decided to have a stroll around and I went into this slaughter!!House... I was shocked at the speed they deal with different animals, it put me off meat for a week or more after seeing the way they are killed hung drawn and quartered.

I have been to a few chicken slaughter houses too over the years @ Sutton Benger&Hereford delivering steel to them and again its not a pretty site to see thousands of chickens lined up in lorries awaiting slaughter and then seeing how they go in live and come out the other end packaged and ready for freezing....

I wonder if these slaughter men eat meat after killing it?????????

I one xmas had to slaughter a goose (a mate of mine reared them free range at his pig farm) for my own consumption! When I was married and had 3 children and the outlaws to feed, so I killed it, plucked I said plucked! it cleaned it out and cooked it but I could not eat it, but the family did and said it was bootifull, but no not for me I failed big time to eat it........ :suspect:
 
Griffin

for obvious reason I have not seen the programme, but did see something very simular over here, and that made even my hardened boyfriend into a semi-vegetarian. I am a vergetarian ever since I saw little calves being transferred to the butchers van at my local riding center, the drivers would have a few pints there and the little things had to wait in the van to be transported on. Was about 15 at the time and never thought that much about it until my friend said "Well, this is your breakfast meat" . Ashamed to say that it had never occured to me at that time :shy:

Been a vegetarian ever since, but my partner isn´t, and while I still do not want to think about it at all, I do prepare the odd steak for him, but after our german programme we both make sure it is high-quality, organically locally produced stuff, and as you say, he rather has one piece of meat less and shares my carrotts.
 
I've Sky +'d it - looking forward to watching with interest.

My philosophy is I'd rather eat anything that's had a life lived as near to nature as possible, and suffered as briefly as possibly at slaughter, than eat something that's been intensivly reared and 'compasionatly' slaughtered....... I'd rather eat organic Halal meat for example, than intensively reared conventionally slaughtered.
 
Well, Griffin, you have arrived at the conclusion most of the rest of the population needs to, which is

a) our food is too cheap and should represent a far higher percentage of our gross income than it currently does and
b) that it still perfectly possible to eat quality meat with a good conscience - you simply do it less often!!

Merlin - not all abattoirs are the same. Log on to Farming Today and listen to the recent sound byte on one of the smaller independently run abattoirs - think it was yesterday's. A good abattoir runs like clock work and, while you are never going to eliminate stress completely, it should be as little as possible. Not a lot more stress than if they are put into the race at home and through the crush - they never actually like it but they do accept it if you do so regularly (for worming, anti-fly treatment, foot trimming etc).

Properly raised and slaughtered meat (including poultry) tastes very different to mass-produced crap that many supermarkets try to shove down our throats but as your average Brit couldn't seem to care less and price is the only deciding factor, what can we expect?
 
I've seen many turkeys slaughtered/pheasants shot & then seen them plucked & gutted - it hasn't put me off eating them in the slightest.
 
I've just watched another horse killed chasing at Newcastle - it hasn't changed my mind about horseracing as such. I don't get this tweeness over meat: if you eat it, you know an animal, bird, fish, cute little squid or interesting mollusc has died to provide you with your meal. We hope they're all despatched humanely, as we hope our pets are despatched humanely when we see them begin the dying or deteriorating process. Beyond that, I don't get the obsessing over any of this.
 
Griff, I did not see the program but years ago I turned vegetarian because I did see a film about factory farming. I love animals and just could not belive that they died, and even perhaps more importantly, lived, in this appalling way. I had not realised it had come to this as I grew up in the country where it was done on a small scale and locally.

Like you I was a vegetarian for some years and then became iron deficient (and also wheat intolerant as I lived on it) so I began to eat meat again, and really enjoyed it. But, a few years down the road and I stopped enjoying it. I realised that the meat I was eating was still mass produced. So I went in search of organic free range. Recently I had cancer and the theory is that red meat and dairy can cause it depending upon how it is reared, as mass produced meat is full of steroid and antibiotics, to name just two chemical managment systems used. I now do not eat meat except as a treat, and never unless I know where it came from.

Because of all of the problems I have had with my diet I became a Nutritionist to better understand what we eat and how we use the nutrients.

There is a lot of controversy about the subject and the theory which I belive is that we are all individuals and provided you give some attention to your diet you can be vegetarian and healthy. But it can take up to 5 years for your body to adjust and for you to learn how to eat a balanced diet bereft of meat - meat is so easy and is a complete protein without having to combine other ingredients. When we give it up the temptation is to live on cheese and bread, pasta, pizzas.

I eat less and less meat but like Crazyhorse I cook it for my partner.

I get annoyed with people who do eat meat and refuse to take responsibility for knowing that the animal lived a decent life and died a quick death. I think it is wrong of us to put it out of our mind, and our hearts.

One of the things that is true though is that if we were all vegetarians the countryside would not be as we know it - there would be forest or something. I guess giant stocks of broccoli! No cows grazing or sheep bouncing around.

If you do go vegetarian again and want to check your diet is balanced send me a pm. Free advice to friends!
 
I don't eat vast quantities of meat but the meat I buy tends to be locally produced and from farmers' markets or farm shops where I know how it's produced (I work for Trading Standards so work alongside Animal Health officers who closely monitor local producers).

My sister is one of those people who gets really on her high horse about people eating red meat, she calls herself a "semi vegetarian" and eats chicken and fish, but woe betide you if you dare to eat a cute little lamb in front of her.

I strongly believe that if we were all vegetarian, half of the county I live in would no longer be lush green fields full of grazing animals, but would consist of yet more housing estates. I know which I would prefer.
 
It's an interesting point, Isinglass but again, if everyone turned vegetarian, I very much doubt there would be as much forest as there is now! As not all land would be suitable for the myriad of veg we'd all need to survive, I suppose vast tracts would revert to scrub? And the remainder would be intensively farmed to meet the high volume and the cheap food the average Brit would still mindlessly demand.

It's just basic commonsense that everything should be, for the majority of the time, eaten in moderation. Which is why such festivals as Christmas were so much more enjoyable decades ago - the food was special and everyone over-indulged because it was just an annual event. That's simply not the case any longer.

We don't get all sentimental about our beef cattle - apart from our pedigrees of course! For 99% of their lives, they are well-fed, well-housed, they graze in decent fields in the summer with good hedges and shelter and they stress about very little. Come the time for their lives to end, it's done as quickly as possible but I can't guarantee there's no stess - of course there is but it's for a very short time. Every now and then we'll get a loopy animal intent on damaging us and itself that will get a stick on its arse, because they can be bloody dangerous but that's the exception, not the rule.
 
Originally posted by purr@Mar 6 2007, 05:42 PM
I don't eat vast quantities of meat but the meat I buy tends to be locally produced and from farmers' markets or farm shops where I know how it's produced (I work for Trading Standards so work alongside Animal Health officers who closely monitor local producers).

My sister is one of those people who gets really on her high horse about people eating red meat, she calls herself a "semi vegetarian" and eats chicken and fish, but woe betide you if you dare to eat a cute little lamb in front of her.

I strongly believe that if we were all vegetarian, half of the county I live in would no longer be lush green fields full of grazing animals, but would consist of yet more housing estates. I know which I would prefer.
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A touch hypocritical perhaps . I choose not to eat meat and have not done so for 20 years due to the factory farming horrors of the 1980s.I don't eat unsustainably or dodgily farmed fish if I can avoid it either . I most certainly don't criticise others for eating meat - eating mass produced cruelly raised and slaughtered meat - I would criticise .
 
I tend to agree with Ardross to an extent. No offence to your sister Purr but people who get on their moral high horse over other people eating meat really gets my goat; I won't even start airing any views on someone who does that whilst chicken still forms part of their diet!!!! :laughing:
 
Sadly Songhseet you are indeed right! What I meant was that bramble and weeds would grow over everything as no one would care anymore - but of course someone would, the developers. So housing estates instead of grazing pastoral scenes.

Agree with everyone else too - it is an individual choice and we each need to do what is right for us.

Purr, From a Nutritional point of view, there is not much benefit from cutting out red meat and still eating chicken, as Shadow says. This could in fact lead to a big imbalance in your diet unless you spent a lot of time fiddling about with green leafy things, beans and rice and nuts etc. . Red meat that is correctly grown without chemical intervention unless necessary is the most complete food we can get - we just do not need much of it because it is so perfect.

God - this is making me hungry!
 
I totally agree that my sister is a hypocrite and I often have "discussions" with her about it!
 
I very rarely eat red meat, and never eat lamb any more. It's just a personal choice, but I am quite happy eating mostly chicken or fish. I went out to lunch yesterday, and it was not until my OH pointed it out but I chose (again) a vegetarian dish from a vast menu. It was absolutely delicious. I love the fact that so many restaurants now cater for vegetarians and can make a fairly plain sounding risotto taste divine with wild mushrooms, leeks and olives. Now, I'm getting hungry. :what:

I eat what I enjoy and what I feel is healthiest for me.
 
I love lamb. It's one of my favourite meats.

Broadly speaking, I've not much time for vegetarians and other people who claim to be acting for a cause. Show me someone who acts for a cause and I'll show you a hypocrite.
 
I hope they didn't eat this beef on the same day it was slaughtered. It should hang for at least a fortnight, even longer for my taste. I never buy beef until it's on the cheap (almost out of date) shelf, and even then I keep it a week or so. I wait until it's a nice dark brown colour and then my poor old teeth can handle it!
 
As a great man once said:

There's room for all of Gods creatures.........between my veg and potatoes.
 
We don't eat a lot of red meat but what we do eat is high quality, all our meat comes up from a friend of ours who lives on Exmoor, the beef is Dexter which is hung for 3/4 weeks, the pork is Berkshires which if anyone saw the last series of The F Word those are the pigs he chose to rear in his garden, they are reared to 8/9mths old instead of 16 weeks that the commercial pigs are & last but by no means least lamb! or should I say hoggett, hogget is approx 18mths old, too old to be called lamb but not old enough to be called mutton, taste is superb, the pigs & sheep roam 25acres of exmoor 365 days a year & are only fed a concentrate in a severe winter & then its only silage, we eat far more chicken than anything else & I was really finding it difficult to find a supplier that I was happy with, so needless to say thays why we now raise our own :)
 
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