Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[sheridan]

to be clear, I've not been given a specific diet just told to lose weight and reduce my blood pressure & cholesterol, so I've cut out butter, bacon, crisps, biscuits and chocolate, as well as my Friday evening home-drinking session. I'm having less sugar in tea & coffee and eating more fish and chicken as opposed to red meat and lots of salad and vegetables rather then chips.

Cheers for all your encouragement!

Good luck with the healthier eating!

[Jim_Campbell]

microwaved eggs are wrong...

Scrambled eggs are just fine. There's a knack to it, but it's quick and easy and, as I say, easier to make a low-fat version. Since my Dad was only a year older than I am now when he had a heart attack that the doctors said he was lucky to survive, not following in the family tradition is a bit of a preoccupation of mine...

Cheers

Jim

[Hawkmumbler]

Microwaved scrambled eggs are nomnomnom! Figure I'll make some for breaky now.

On the topic of eggs, I've a hypothetical question for some of our vegan forumites. Contrary to popular belief, eggs are a waste product, and fowl only live in the same 50 metre square space their while life, so could a mutually beneficial relationship between free range hens and humans, where the latter can provide the former with given food source, not still be considered friendly?

[Tiplodocus]

If you have a big enough farm and a hen running round unfettered and leaving waste product around for you to pick up then feel free to fill your boots. I wouldn't myself.

If I found myself in the same hypothetical situation? Much like the hypothetical animals only desert island I keep getting invited to live on, I prefer to spend my time addressing the very real, unhypothetical, world situation we live in by not continuing to the torture and murder of animals.

Importantly, that set up is not viable to maintain the demand for eggs (not just as eggs but also as ingredients in other foods)  that we currently have though. And never will be.

What is currently defined as free range can vary in size. Sometimes it means an area no bigger than a piece of A4 paper (battery hens have it ridiculouslying bad, often with beaks and claws removed without anaesthetic and never seeing daylight).

Plus there's the problem of what they do with male chicks. These are of no use to the egg industry so are unceremoniously slaughtered. There are plenty of videos around of the male chicks being thrown live into grinders that might be of interest.

So, no, not an  acceptable solution for me or most compassionate people.

[Jim_Campbell]

So, no, not an  acceptable solution for me or most compassionate people.

You understand that it's this consistently judgemental tone of moral superiority that gets people's backs up and does your cause no fucking favours, don't you?

Jim

[Professor Bear]

to be clear, I've not been given a specific diet just told to lose weight and reduce my blood pressure & cholesterol

I was told by my GP that unless it's sky-high, only about 10-15 percent of blood cholesterol is actually affected by diet.  Did yours proscribe statins?  GPs seem to be giving those out like sweeties these days.

[Tiplodocus]

So, no, not an  acceptable solution for me or most compassionate people.

You understand that it's this consistently judgemental tone of moral superiority that gets people's backs up and does your cause no fucking favours, don't you?

Jim

Heh heh. I suppose not.  I'll think about how to adjust what I say. It's meant to convey that I'm doing it for the ethics rather than the health or the environmental benefits (though those do play a big part).

I try not to be judgemental but sadly don't always succeed.

[The Legendary Shark]

There are about a dozen hens wandering free around the site where I'm living - rooting about in woodlands and meadows and under caravans and returning to roost at night. They squeeze out so many eggs that the lady who owns the place is slewed out with them - which means free free-range eggs for me. And very nice they are too.

Sometimes, though, the occasional hen does get eaten by foxes or possibly werewolves. I guess free-range isn't all idylls and roses. Still, yummy eggs.

[Hawkmumbler]

I think you got a little carried away their, Tips, all the irks* you brought up where solved in the (admitidly hypothetical but still practical) question. And as Sharky said, it can and has been implemented.

*When I say free range I MEAN free range, as I said in the wild fowl will live in the same 50M squared area all their lives.

[Tjm86]

Yep, after 13 years, I just hand in a notice at work.

You were Ian Duncan Smith all along?!?

I know it seems like a lifetime since those bar stewards got back in but has it been 13 years already????

[TordelBack]

Yep, after 13 years, I just hand in a notice at work.

You were Ian Duncan Smith all along?!?

I know it seems like a lifetime since those bar stewards got back in but has it been 13 years already????

Not quite, but the last time Goaty,.. errr, IDS resigned was (almost) 13 years ago, when he stood down as party leader.

And best of luck Goaty!

[Tiplodocus]

Yes, I got that. That's why the first part of my answer was saying it was fine if you like that sort of thing.

But it's not a viable solution for industrial scale egg production that is the food retail industry requires.

[Hawkmumbler]

The only solution to that is the ethic i've implanted into my own diet choice, eat less, eat local.

[Tiplodocus]

So, no, not an  acceptable solution for me or most compassionate people.

You understand that it's this consistently judgemental tone of moral superiority that gets people's backs up and does your cause no fucking favours, don't you?

Jim

Actually thinking back, I was way too conciliatory in my original response to this.

Yes. Compassion. It's not a bad thing.

And yes, I have made a morale stance on this and I do think that most people have made the wrong call when it comes to animals.

You are a smart man who presumably knows what torture and murder goes on in the name of the food industry. (I am not even going to get into the environmental stuff here).

Yet you choose to ignore this for whatever reason.  It could be convenience, whatever.

Bottom line is you know the facts but still choose murder and torture of another species. I knowvthe facts too and I choose compassion.

I might suggest it's not me adoptING a superior tone.

It's everybody else gets ridiculously defensive when they think about their shortcomings.

If having a sweary go at me, and picking apart every little syntactic mistake or slightly incorrect use of a word I made when writing this makes you feel better about that and let's you eat another bacon sandwich while moaning about preachy vegans then enjoy yourself.

(If I recall one boarder has issues digesting anything other than animal flesh - so I won't consider that in the above).

[Hawkmumbler]

My only problem with your "murder in the name of the food chain" speal (yes, I excluded torture from that quote because i've agreed with you from the very beginning that battery farming is awful and I don't support it, move on!) is it doesn't take into account other omnivorous or even carnivourous species. Are these organisms also evil, does the lion playing with it's pray know the torture it's inducing? What about pescatarians and insectivores*? Or is it just things you personally consider cute that you think should be given a free pass?

*MOST mammalian species are now believed to be insectivores, particularly large even-and/or-odd toed ungulates.