did anybody watch this week's trading spouses??

[Allecto]

i'm not a vegetarian, and still understand/agree with your opinion. Don't see how you can raise something knowing every day your planning on killing it, even if it is for life. I bet Jillian doesn't taste any different than chicken and I've seen tribes in africa that sacrifrice/regularly kill and consume dogs but imagine how furious you'd all be if I popped online and said "well we decided on something different for Thanksgiving...". I'd imagine somebody whos had cows as pets would feel the same way when it comes to somebody saying they raised then purposly killed a cow.

I'll leave it up to a professional butcher whos business is to raise cowS(plural), not just ONE which could easily bond with you even if you don't with it which is how it sounds to me from reading everyones posts.
but thats my 2 cents.

I don't know of any butchers who raise the meat they prepare. It comes from the slaughterhouse and factories.

And, to be perfectly honest, I don't get furious when I hear of people eating animals I consider pets. I mean, I eat animals people consider sacred, who am I to force my morals on another? I couldn't ever bring myself to eat a duck short of avoiding starving to death, but that doesn't mean I guilt trip and look down on people who enjoy it. I would consider eating your Jillian less cruel than eating your average slab of veal.
And I always raise my cows at least in pairs. There's still a bit of a bond, but there is a greater understanding of nature, the cycle of life, and gratitide for what you have, and the expense at which you have it. My parents raised me to be a meat-eater, but also to look upon the meat you ate with respect, gratitude, and almost a feeling of reverence for the animal. So much so that it actually depresses me a little to hear people talking about using slaughterhouse meat that lived and died miserably, unhappy, and unhealthy because it is so much more moral and just than raising your own animal. Those animals are only different in the qaulity of care they are given before giving their lives for human consumption. The feelings a human has towards them is not what should make one animals life more important than another, and is not what we should base our respect for the animal on. Looking upon store-bought meat as only a mass-produced resource to be used and wasted at your whim just because you didn't know the animal personally is one of the big reasons my parents wanted their children to raise animals for meat, to avoid that ridiculous, callous, and selfish point of view.

[.sarah]

I know where you're coming from, Flatcoatluver. I would never be able to kill anything that I raised, I would definetly become attatched.

I am a vegetarian too. If I ever went back to eating meat (which I doubt I will, I am so much healthier and feel 100% better as a veggie) it would have to be meat that I know the source of. It'd have to have been raised well or have been wild and also be killed fast with the least amount of pain. That was the reason I went vegetarian, because the animals from factories suffer while alive and suffer while dying.

I think people like Alletco who want to know the source of their meat and/or raise it are awesome. It's so frustrating when I talk to people at work about meat (they always bring up the fact that I'm a vegetarian and that they CAN'T live without meat). They won't listen to me when I say that I am only a vegetarian because I can't support cruelty to animals. Dr. D is the only one that raises cattle for meat, but she will also eat meat at restaraunts and such. You'd think people from a vet would at least try to understand you're point of view. They don't look down on me, and when we go out or order food they try to think about a place where I could eat, but gaah it's still frustrating ... especially since they're the ones that bring it up!