The quickest death is the most ethical, IMHO. If cutting the spinal cord near the C2 vertebra means less pain, but doesn't extend the length of death, that seems like a good idea too.
I've lived less than a mile from a feed lot for cows (not down wind). The cows didn't seem unhappy to me. To me, the question isn't about "quality of life" for food animals.
Should we send them on vacation for a week before they are slaughtered?
I think that this idea is barking down the wrong alley. The misery of feedlot farming is not a function of how painful their last few minutes are, but rather the overcrowding. Feeding etc. Like a lot of other people here, I think the solution is for us to eat less meat. The rest should be free range or grass fed or whatever. If we gave up the fast food and junk food but kept up the steak and barbecue, both we and the animals would be better off.
@The Curse of Millhaven: Yeah I feel the same way. This doesn't really fix whats wrong with factory farming. Sure the animals don't feel pain when they're being slaughtered, but what about up to that point when they're crammed all together in poor conditions?
Interestingly, both kosher and halal slaughtering methods require that the cow's throat be cut with a very sharp knife. I think this is one of the most humane killing methods, as a cut from a very sharp knife is almost painless, and the cow loses consciousness almost immediately.
From a health perspective, I think it's probably better to have an animal calm when it's killed, so that its meat isn't all full of cow adrenaline when you eat it.
Funny, I think most of the pain and suffering that cows and other factory farmed animals experience in this day and age has been brought on by genetic manipulation (e.g. selective breeding to make animals larger and fatter, which has resulted in them having leg/foot problems). Screwing with DNA is a dangerous endeavor, whether done by the breeder or the scientist. So far, the only losers have been the animals.
This sounds to me like some marketing ploy dreamed up by a geneticist to squeeze more money out of the Agriculture industry.
Pain has nothing to do with not wanting to be dead.
I never understood why so many "ethical" arguments bring up pain.
Who here would be happy to die if they felt no pain?
The only question that matters is if Cows are sentient or not. Are they self-aware.
Personaly, I think not. Allthough I acknowledge its impossible to be sure.
Therefor, the safest path for ethicaly fine meat is just to grow it direct without a brain, like Better-Of-Ted.
Id be perfectly fine eating it as long as it tasted fine. (and dam all those people that think natural is automatically better then man made)
@joetato: We evolved to eat meat indeed. But we actualy evolved to eat 1/5th of what we currently do. Our soceity, great though it is, gives us far more supply then we would naturally have. (and far less work for it).
Our instincts to eat when we -can- however, havnt gone, thus as a species we are eating FAR too much meat.
Thats the problem really (environmental, healthwise etc). Its not we eat meat, its that we eat too much.
A properly executed cow shouldn't feel any pain in the first place. Bang, they're dead... A classic case of false premise, it's not like the cows in the abattoir are depressed for weeks like they were in the Bastille facing the guillotine. They get fattened up and think life is great until the pneumatic hammer comes.
People waiting at the DMV are subject to similar suffering, so STFU.
Or we could do the actually ethically, environmentally, economically and tastilly better thing by breaking up factory farms and returning to the family farm.
@Cory Gross: "ethically, environmentally, economically and tastilly better"
Facts not in evidence.
Smaller farming units are also less efficient, so it is not clear that in the end you could actually win on any of those axes for anything near the same production.
Never mind that this is a completely absurd idea, but isn't anyone concerned about the unkillable zombie cow factor? There are infinite ways this idea could turn into something very bad and mooooooooo-nstrous.
Sorry, didn't RTFA, but it seems to me that the question of "will factory faming be ethical if we remove cows' abilty to feel pain?" must be preceded by the question "is it ethical to remove cows' ability to feel pain?"
Not to mention that cows feeling pain is a small fraction of why factory farming is problematic. Weren't those No-Country-For-Old-Men captive-bolt pistols specifically designed to dish out painless, instantaneous deaths? It's the horrible conditions that they live in that's the ethical problem, like feeding them corn that they are not evolved to digest, and then pumping them full of antibiotics to stave off the inevitable sickness.
This coming from a guy who loves beef and meat of all kinds.
With the "ethical" meat, we can still have ethical heart disease, ethical hormones in meat that cause children to menstruate early, ethical colon cancer, and so on.
I love this type of shortsightedness, just for the raw stupidity.
@omgwtflolbbqbye: you are correct on both counts sir, the tears and the stress.
Srsly tho i work in a pork slaughterhouse and we spend shitloads of money to make sure that the animals are not stressed before they slaughter them, and then when they do, its from being put to sleep with co2.
09/08/09
I've lived less than a mile from a feed lot for cows (not down wind). The cows didn't seem unhappy to me. To me, the question isn't about "quality of life" for food animals.
Should we send them on vacation for a week before they are slaughtered?
09/04/09
09/04/09
09/04/09
From a health perspective, I think it's probably better to have an animal calm when it's killed, so that its meat isn't all full of cow adrenaline when you eat it.
09/04/09
09/04/09
09/04/09
09/04/09
This sounds to me like some marketing ploy dreamed up by a geneticist to squeeze more money out of the Agriculture industry.
09/04/09
I never understood why so many "ethical" arguments bring up pain.
Who here would be happy to die if they felt no pain?
The only question that matters is if Cows are sentient or not. Are they self-aware.
Personaly, I think not. Allthough I acknowledge its impossible to be sure.
Therefor, the safest path for ethicaly fine meat is just to grow it direct without a brain, like Better-Of-Ted.
Id be perfectly fine eating it as long as it tasted fine. (and dam all those people that think natural is automatically better then man made)
09/04/09
09/03/09
I guess what I really want to say is, we have canine teeth for a reason. Please pass the A-1 sauce.
09/04/09
Our instincts to eat when we -can- however, havnt gone, thus as a species we are eating FAR too much meat.
Thats the problem really (environmental, healthwise etc). Its not we eat meat, its that we eat too much.
09/03/09
People waiting at the DMV are subject to similar suffering, so STFU.
09/03/09
09/04/09
You are correct.
However, we could just as easily genetically engineer cows that are rendered ecstatic by suffering.
The easier thing would be to just stop caring about whether food has a fulfilling life, though.
-Kle.
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
Facts not in evidence.
Smaller farming units are also less efficient, so it is not clear that in the end you could actually win on any of those axes for anything near the same production.
09/03/09
09/03/09
Not to mention that cows feeling pain is a small fraction of why factory farming is problematic. Weren't those No-Country-For-Old-Men captive-bolt pistols specifically designed to dish out painless, instantaneous deaths? It's the horrible conditions that they live in that's the ethical problem, like feeding them corn that they are not evolved to digest, and then pumping them full of antibiotics to stave off the inevitable sickness.
This coming from a guy who loves beef and meat of all kinds.
09/03/09
I love this type of shortsightedness, just for the raw stupidity.
09/03/09
:(
In all seriousness though, I do remember reading, some animals (don't remember if cows were included) that have stressful deaths produce worse meat.
Something about hormones that get released into the bloodstream.
I don't know I wasn't really paying attention.
09/03/09
Srsly tho i work in a pork slaughterhouse and we spend shitloads of money to make sure that the animals are not stressed before they slaughter them, and then when they do, its from being put to sleep with co2.