Meat comes from animals - shocking but true!

[Zombie]

A family butcher in Suffolk has been forced to remove the carcasses hanging in its window display after a petition because the dead animals on display "upset children".

Richard Balson, manager of Dorset butchers RJ Balson & Sons, expressed dismay at the petition: "The people kicking up a fuss about this man have gone soft. They've lost touch with reality. When our family business was founded in 1515, the animals would have been walked into the middle of the towns, where they'd be slaughtered in front of everyone. I appreciate that it's a completely different world that we live in now. But this is over the top".

Understandable, perhaps, for non meat eaters. But some meat eaters obviously have a problem with the reality of their dietary habits and it seems dishonest to shield their kids from this reality. Perhaps they need reminding that the neatly packaged, plastic-wrapped portions displayed on supermarket shelves are not synthesized by some Startrek Replicator - they come from real animals

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/feb/24/butcher-meat-window-display-row-suffolk
 

*And, yes, it is true - Richard Balson's family butcher business has been going continuously since 1515*

 

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Edited March 5, 2014 by Zombie

[Bumblebee]

My mum always taught me where each cut of meat was from, and I understood from a very early age that cow was steak, bacon was pig and chicken was a bird, and I could fillet the fish I caught when I was a kid as well.

I think knowing where my meat was coming from helped me to become a vego.

 

And I think people forcing a butcher to take animal carcasses out of his shop window is ridicules.

[TetRefine]

This is absolutely ridiculous on so many levels, but its not that uncommon.

 

I grew up in a relatively rural area where hunting was a male past time, and every father and son did it. I was killing and butchering deer from the time I was 9, and I understood the concept of where meat comes from. A cute little Bambi or cow has to die for me to eat. It was never something that bothered me. I worked many pre-Thanksgivings on a turkey farm where we slaughtered turkeys to be sold. Yes, I have chopped the heads off of living, conscious turkeys, gutted them, and plucked them. Nobody ever saw it as anything unusual. 

 

Nowadays, I live in a major city where there are no farms around, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who grew up hunting or working on farms. When I tell them about my hunting and turkey slaughtering days, the reaction is always the same: disgust. Its as if these city people think the meat just magically appears at the supermarket or bodega, and have no concept of an animal having to be killed or slaughtered for it to happen. I can not tell you how many times I get a disgusted look from people when I show no sympathy for having killed a deer. Where I was raised, they were simply something to be killed and eaten. They weren't pets, and there was no need to feel emotional about you're dinner. 

 

God, city people can be so damn stupid and ignorant sometimes.  

[Ron]

A little absurdity goes a long way!

[C J]

Hmm.  I suppose it's got something to do with how civilization has developed.  There's a relentless push for efficiency and convenience.  Mass production, distribution and marketing have taken the place of family farms and hunting.

 

Here where I live I've seen a lot of animals killed and cleaned.  The old guy down the road has chickens, and when he needs one for dinner he goes out, picks one he thinks is ready, grabs it by the legs, puts a foot on it's head and then yanks on the legs to remove the head.  Then he lets the chicken go and it runs around flapping it's wings until all it's blood has finished squirting out it's neck and it falls over..  Sounds terrible I suppose, but that's what he does and I doubt he's the only one around who does it that way.  Of course most will chop the head off with a machete or something, but the result is the same.

 

People might benefit from some exposure to this kind of reality.  Then maybe they wouldn't either.  I'm not sure.  If something ever happens that stops the flow of food from the farm to the store I expect a lot of people are going to starve to death.  Knowing something about finding food in the wild would give them a chance at survival. 

 

In the mean time I'm still eating store food and an occasional pizza from the pizza place.  Then when summer gets here I'll be having some of the fresh stuff from the farmers market.  One thing I know for sure is that there is no beating the taste of the fresh stuff.  In that respect store food is pure crap.

[Aditus]

Well, I can't say how stupid 'city people' in the States are, but here we learn where the meat comes from in school. We watch films, we visit farms (one step outside the city and bam there is a farm and a forest where hunters hunt real animals and us dumb city kids learn where the meat comes from). We have a market where pheasants and hare and around Christmas even deer and bore hangs on hooks, bleeding on the ground or in a bucket. If I had wanted I could have learned how to hunt and fish an be a real manly man although I'm living in a city. Stupid me didn't want that.

So if one is disgusted with dead animals hanging in the butcher's window or on the market, they shouldn't eat them, it's not as if we would die without eating meat, even if some think they might.

[Slytherin]

Some people are so stupid What will happen when they find out that the sea and the lakes are  full of fish ??

[Suvitar]

Children are allowed to watch TV/DVDs where people get killed, they can play games where they can kill all sorts of creatures but knowing where their food comes is too real and upsetting?! 

[Kitt]

I think Suvitar has the right of it.  If games like HALO 3 and the like are not "damaging to a child's psyche" how can a side of beef in a butcher shop window be?

 

If it bothers mommy to see it - walk down the other side of the damned street!

[Bill W]

When I was a kid, everyone around us raised animals for food.  As kids, we were warned against naming the animals, because we'd become to attached to them and then would have trouble dealing with it when it came time to slaughter.  It was, however, a part of life and part of growing up.  

 

Kids now are often too sheltered from the harsh realities of life.  I'm not a fan of the survivalists that are constantly preparing for the end of the world, but in a way they are doing their families a service.  They are teaching them what it will be like if a major disaster strikes and the world suddenly is cast back into a more primitive existence.  If that happens, how will some of these complainers and naysayers survive?  Then again, it will be their problem, won't it? 

[Zombie]

When I was a kid, everyone around us raised animals for food.  As kids, we were warned against naming the animals, because we'd become to attached to them and then would have trouble dealing with it when it came time to slaughter.  It was, however, a part of life and part of growing up.  

 

Kids now are often too sheltered from the harsh realities of life.  I'm not a fan of the survivalists that are constantly preparing for the end of the world, but in a way they are doing their families a service.  They are teaching them what it will be like if a major disaster strikes and the world suddenly is cast back into a more primitive existence.  If that happens, how will some of these complainers and naysayers survive?  Then again, it will be their problem, won't it? 

 

I don't think this is about survivalists, Bill, it's about the growing disconnect between urban and country life. For all their cultural sophistication / urban lifestyles, city dwellers are as dependent on farming and agriculture as humans have ever been. The big change has been that they can now live their lives with no knowledge of how food gets onto their plate. And that's a bad thing all round

 

 

 

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Edited March 5, 2014 by Zombie

[TetRefine]

I don't think this is about survivalists, Bill, it's about the growing disconnect between urban and country life. For all their cultural sophistication / urban lifestyles, city dwellers are as dependent on farming and agriculture as humans have ever been. The big change has been that they can now live their lives with no knowledge of how food gets onto their plate. And that's a bad thing all round

 

 

 

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You hit it right on the head with this Zombie. 

[Kitt]

I keep wondering what will be said if suddenly they can no longer attain or afford that nice rib eye steak because they have pushed the "butchering animals is horrid" idea too far.

[Sasha Distan]

the butchers received so many complaints after it had taken down the display that they are reinstating it. 

 

I see the gap being town and country all the time. I used to teach in a very rural school, and meat, where it came from and how animals grew up and were treated was normal. Now I teach in a very townie (if not massively urban) school and when i run a lesson (for year 8 ages 12/13) students many of them are completely shocked by the idea that living animals actually produce the meat they eat. they do not like to face the reality.

the modern world has such a strange attitude towards food.

[K.C.]

One time when my daughter was little (3-4 years old) she asked where hamburgers came from.  When we told her that it was from a cow, she got a weird look on her face and stopped eating for a second then started giggling and said "Cows are tasty!"

 

I have been hunting and fishing and caught my own food many many times, but I'm also lazy and like picking up a clean-wrapped-package at the grocery store.  I've told all 3 of our cats that if the shit hits the fan and it comes down to my family starving to death or have cat-kabobs.... I will be eating pussy!   

[Andy78]

For the most part I've lived in a major city (London), but I also spent a huge amount of my childhood with my great-grandmother and grandmother.

 

I can remember preparing kidney and liver at the age of 5 or 6, and by the time I was 9 or 10 I was breaking down game birds.

 

I used to love making sauces and gravies with my grandmother back when we used the bones and the offcuts as the base.

 

I was never a fish fan as a child, but give me a rabbit or a pigeon to break down and I was happy as the proverbial pig in muck.

 

If a parent is happy to feed their child pork, chicken, kidneys and so on, then they can't get angry when someone shows them where that food has come from.

 

I for one have no qualms about eating Babe, Rudolph, Thumper or even Nemo.  I remember when I was 12, my aunt told me off for telling my cousin that the venison he was eating was Bambi.

[Zombie]

If a parent is happy to feed their child pork, chicken, kidneys and so on, then they can't get angry when someone shows them where that food has come from.

 

There's also a whole other discussion to be had on squeamishness about buying, preparing and cooking animal organs like kidneys you mentioned, and liver and heart and such. Handling these is quite literally visceral and while your grandma's generation had no problem, now it's definitely an issue for many. As for trotters, tripe and sheep's head *licks lips * ... ooo, and brains on toast...

[Andy78]

I love heart, liver, and sweetbreads (thymus, pancreas, parotid gland, testicles).  Never had a problem preparing offal, and never had a problem eating it.

 

Actually, when I was in primary school, I looked forward to liver and bacon for lunch, because it was the only time I ever got to have seconds  

 

ooo, and brains on toast...

 

I must admit to enjoying brains myself.  Dipped in egg and coated in breadcrumbs.  Deep fried.  Redcurrant jelly on the side.

 

**drowns in own drool**

[Slytherin]

I will be eating pussy!   

ROFLMAO You are a very bad Muppet, KC !!

[Kitt]

  Never had a problem preparing offal, and never had a problem eating it.

 

 

The only problem I ever had with it was when people called it offal, since here the word is also used to refer to excrement.

[rustle]

It's not just a disconnect from where food comes from, it's a disconnect from the natural world, of which we're very much a part. This disconnect is why some folks think humans aren't animals.

 

I'm glad the display is back up. Folks, if you're gonna eat meat, grow some skin. If not, try getting some dirt under your nails, hoeing turnips, for pity's sake. Get involved with life; it's all around you and within you.

 

Just curious - any of you ever eaten armadillo or opossum?

One time when my daughter was little (3-4 years old) she asked where hamburgers came from.  When we told her that it was from a cow, she got a weird look on her face and stopped eating for a second then started giggling and said "Cows are tasty!"

 

I have been hunting and fishing and caught my own food many many times, but I'm also lazy and like picking up a clean-wrapped-package at the grocery store.  I've told all 3 of our cats that if the shit hits the fan and it comes down to my family starving to death or have cat-kabobs.... I will be eating pussy!   

 

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM... chili con gato.

[Celethiel]

Oh noes!! Meat doesn't come from animals it comes from the meat fairy who brings you nice wrapped steaks, surlions and assorted other meaty goodies

 

oh i am sure the children were NOT upset at all, However their emotionally destraught parents WERE... they wouldn't be so upset of their children seeing it if they had to go out and kill then butcher the meat themselves.

 

On the note of the picture in the article:

actually from what i've seen America actually doesn't have a wide variety of meat products compaired to other countries sitting on the shelves in the meat department at the local store... all i've seen are turkey, beef, Chicken, pork, and some fish/Crustecians...oh and processed meat, must not forget processed meat... if you want variety here you have to hunt it down yourself.... no local little butcher shop to give you pheasant, or venison...

[Aditus]

I wonder why nobody complains about fish. There they are, looking at you and your children with their sad, dead, milky eyes, if they still have a head, that is. Next somebody wants the fishmonger to blacken the windows of the sales counter (or however that thing is called).

 

It's not just a disconnect from where food comes from, it's a disconnect from the natural world, of which we're very much a part. This disconnect is why some folks think humans aren't animals.

 

I'm glad the display is back up. Folks, if you're gonna eat meat, grow some skin. If not, try getting some dirt under your nails, hoeing turnips, for pity's sake. Get involved with life; it's all around you and within you.

 

Yep. It isn't possible for everyone living in a big city to hunt, but in theory, that would put the whole 'where do I get my next piece of meat' into the right perspective again.

In the past people didn't waste meat, it was too expensive and rare. They didn't eat meat every day or several times daily. They also wouldn't dream of wasting all the tasty things Andy and zombie mentioned. With my background I wouldn't eat liver, kidneys etc., even if I would still eat meat. I had the pleasure to work with those in the lab, frankly they are the garbage can of the body and today's garbage isn't anything I'd wanted to eat. And don't get me started on the number of antibiotics that didn't work on my astrocytes cultures, because the calves where the brain came from had been treated with them since day one of their existence.

Oh and rustle...does a cherry tree count if I planted it myself?

[rustle]

 

 

Oh and rustle...does a cherry tree count if I planted it myself?

 

Yep. So does the lettuce and spinach I picked from the garden for tonight's salad. And when it's too hot to grow lettuce here, it'll be tomatoes and cucumber and jalapeno and basil and dill and chives.

[Zombie]

And don't get me started on the number of antibiotics that didn't work on my astrocytes cultures, because the calves where the brain came from had been treated with them since day one of their existence.

 

That is a real problem with farmed meat and poultry - routine, unnecessary overuse of antibiotics which isn't good for them or us Another reason to catch your own meat.