Bananas are ridiculously cheap even up here in Canada, and they aren’t grown anywhere near here. Yet a banana can grow, be harvested, be shipped, be stocked, and then be purchased by me for less than it’d cost to mail a letter across town. (Well, if I could buy a single banana maybe…or maybe that’s not the best comparison, but I think you get my point)
Along the banana’s journey, the farmer, the harvester, the shipper, the grocer, the clerk, and the cashier all (presumably) get paid. Yet a single banana is mere cents. If you didn’t know any better, you might think a single banana should cost $10!
I’m presuming that this is because of some sort of exploitation somewhere down the line, or possibly loss-leading on the grocery store’s side of things.
I’m wondering what other products like bananas are a lot cheaper than they “should” be (e.g., based on how far they have to travel, or how difficult they are to produce, or how much money we’re saving “unethically”).
I’ve heard that this applies to coffee and chocolate to varying extents, but I’m not certain.
Anyone know any others?
Even if the cow is responsibly raised, there’s still the question of how it was conceived. No farmer simply let’s a bull on top of a cow, since our modern cows are too big to safely mate. So usually a cow is artificially inseminated, which is an inherently violent procedure. The milk industry could simply not exist without this institutionalized rape
That’s only really true in dairy. Most meat cows are conceived using ‘natural cover’, where several bulls are just left with the ladies to do their thing.
Their method isn’t perfect, but taking steps is a good thing, imo
As you said, they can’t mate… so what’s your solution? Let them go extinct and we lose not only a beautiful creature but a significant part of our species food source and history? We’ve been drinking milk and eating beef since the dawn of animal husbandry
Wait you’re saying it’s better to be genetically experimented on, caged, forced to breed, and be killed in your early adulthood than not have children?
That’s it’s actually more ethical to make a creature who you later kill for your own pleasure than not to do that? because the alternative is only wild cows and cowlike creatures existing?
They’re living beings, not museum exhibits ffs. Species don’t have preferences, individuals do.
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That’s what a farm is. They’re saying we should keep farming them or else they would go extinct and that would be worse than continuing to farm them.
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What did they say then? What are the implications? what are they arguing against?
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Point out the wild bovine to me bruh, they don’t exist, they’re one of the many species dépendant upon humans for their survival.
Ummm. Are you serious?
Very frustrating to argue with people who claim to have no concern for living creatures when in fact they probably love their dog or cat and would find it just as hard as anyone else to watch a video of what goes on in factory farms. Food choices are such a fundamental part of human culture that most people just cannot stand having them questioned, it’s as if you are questioning their religion. Alas.
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Ok you should Google wild bovine. Aurochs are extinct, cows aren’t really a distinct species, and bovine specifically covers everything from wilderbeasts to yaks which all exist in the wild. So it’s worth ridiculing people so ignorant of the world and so unwilling to even do a Google search.
Hell there are wild escaped domestic cows a day’s drive from me lmao.
this is better, but it amounts to handwaving and anecdotes. surely you can address the logic of what they said and cite a source instead of saying “look it up”
no, there is no point in investing effort in a discussion when the other party wont. The commenter does not actually care whether there are or aren’t, if they cared they would look it up.
They want to waste my time arguing against a position they have no investment in. There is literally a Wikipedia page on wild bovines, that’s how low effort this is.
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What is meat farming? in most of the world at this point in time it’s much more efficient to eat plants. Nobody with access to a supermarket is eating only what meat they might need to survive with no alternatives, you eat it for pleasure. For this pleasure someone must die, therefore you kill them for pleasure.
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If I pay someone to kill you only a lawyer or a pedant would argue I didn’t kill you. Without me you wouldn’t have died.
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Terrible, no-good argument. By that standard you do not exist in the economy.
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Well if someone can prove they need meat to survive and only eat the bare minimum obtained in the least terrible way I’ll engage that fictional person in discussion but that is nobody you or I know so it’s moot.
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benefit for whom?
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Which isn’t a living being and has no feelings. It doesn’t matter unto itself.
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artificial insemination isn’t rape. it’s a veterinary procedure
If I artificially inseminated you would you feel raped?
I’m not a cow and I somehow doubt you are a veterinarian
So it would be abhorrent right? What makes it ok to do to a cow then? Is it the prop stethoscope? the certificate of graduation on the wall? Do cows just not matter? if so why not?
if you have something to say, say it. what I said is true.
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