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About 30+ years ago I saw a documentary of how veal was raised. They put baby calves in a tight pen so they couldn't walk and stuck a feeding tube down their throat that trickled skim milk into their bellies to fatten them up and keep their muscles from developing to keep the flesh tender, then slaughtered them when they achieved a certain weight. I never ate veal again.
It is kind of ironic. I spent several summers helping on a family veal farm and I never saw anything like that movie you are referring to.
Veal is pretty delicious. Makes regular beef feel downright lame in comparison. I rarely eat it (because it's not easily available in this country), but I'd love to eat more of it. I mean people eat lamb right? That's a juvenile sheep, and I doubt the farmers raising that are any more concerned about animal welfare than any other farmers.
With regard to the question in this - not really in the realm of food. I've given up entertainment outlets and media sources due to things I found intolerable about them, but most food producers aren't really likely to offend me in a significant way.
So you are outraged by certain entertainment and media outlets and will give them up, but you're not offended at all by people who torture animals so you can have a delicious meal?
Because I think changing their log was ridiculous. Their original logos have been that way forever and now all of a sudden it's racist? Give me a break. Don't even get me started on the name change for the Cleveland Indians.
Averages and statistics don't mean much to the calves. Think about a half million calves squeezed in a box pen, never walking, living in their own waste with a tube stuck down their throats dripping skim milk their whole lives. I think any veal is too much if that's the way it's raised. Now if there were free range veal, that would be a different story.
Suspecting that a second-hand report of a film made over 30 years ago might not be the best representation of actual veal raising, I looked up some websites. I recommend anyone interested do the same. It appears to be true that most veal calves are raised indoors in pens, but not true that they are isolated, unable to move, standing in their own waste, and fed by tube.
It is a short life for the calf; they are slaughtered at about 5 months old, which sounds sad. On the other hand, we have a large dairy industry in the US and there is no need for a half million more male dairy calves per year. They aren't going to grow up to give milk, they aren't beef cattle, and we only need a few bulls. If we let all those calves live out their lives they would be needlessly taking up space and resources, so the alternative to raising them for veal would be killing them at birth.
People have the right to their own opinions. I personally have no problem with animals being raised for food as long as they are treated reasonably humanely while alive. It does seem to me that it is pointless to shun veal unless you are also shunning dairy products; those two go hand in hand.
Here's a more recent video of the same information. Watch it. Now how do you know which type of treatment your veal dinner came from? To see it on youtube click on the link at the bottom of the picture.
Suspecting that a second-hand report of a film made over 30 years ago might not be the best representation of actual veal raising, I looked up some websites. I recommend anyone interested do the same. It appears to be true that most veal calves are raised indoors in pens, but not true that they are isolated, unable to move, standing in their own waste, and fed by tube.
It is a short life for the calf; they are slaughtered at about 5 months old, which sounds sad. On the other hand, we have a large dairy industry in the US and there is no need for a half million more male dairy calves per year. They aren't going to grow up to give milk, they aren't beef cattle, and we only need a few bulls. If we let all those calves live out their lives they would be needlessly taking up space and resources, so the alternative to raising them for veal would be killing them at birth.
People have the right to their own opinions. I personally have no problem with animals being raised for food as long as they are treated reasonably humanely while alive. It does seem to me that it is pointless to shun veal production unless you are also shunning dairy products; those two go hand in hand.
I already mentioned that I have never had veal, but thanks very much for your concern.
Just addressing your skepticism about my second hand report of a 30 year old film. Thought you might want to see a more up to date one for yourself, to judge for yourself if the animals are being treated reasonably humanely, as you said. But maybe not.
Family veal farm vs. corporate farm. Different operation.
Or it could be a staged film like the Food Lion/ABC video where the ABC employees repackaged meat while their fellow ABC employee filmed.
Or the PETA video where their people filmed other PETA members as farm employees abusing pigs on a farm.
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