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Claudius wrote:Yeah I know you were seeing my line of reasoning DW. Its a tricky issue. I actually eat meat but I tried for a year or two to be a vegetarian, but after spending vacation time with meat eating family and feeling left out in the cold eating a potatoe and toast I gave up. It was hard to do because I don't like the health nut cuisine I want more of a yum yum vegetarian cuisine.

So when I say its just that we like the taste of meat perhaps I am speaking for myself.

But that did make me think the comment on cannabilism. Its actually probably partially true that we don't eat humans do to taboo. I would like to think that we don't want to harm them is the principle reason. But I guess its more cultural and habitual.

Dagoth_shel wrote:Just the thought of the workers in the 1900's who fell into the vats, forgotten till their bones were found and their matter sent out as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard, makes me seriously throw up...

To quote from Upton Sincliar:

"....there would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers spat..."

This still happens today, which is a part of my argument against the nation's choices in health. Dees-gusting.

Which is why I'm becoming a vegetarian.

"According to Sinclair, he originally intended to expose "the inferno of exploitation [of the typical American factory worker at the turn of the 20th Century],"[3] but the reading public instead fixated on food safety as the novel's most pressing issue. In fact, Sinclair bitterly admitted his celebrity rose, "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef"[3]. Sinclair's account of workers' falling into rendering tanks and being ground, along with animal parts, into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard", gripped public attention. The morbidity of the working conditions, as well as the exploitation of children and women alike that Sinclair exposed showed the corruption taking place inside the meat packing factories. Foreign sales of American meat fell by one-half. In order to calm public outrage and demonstrate the cleanliness of their meat, the major meat packers lobbied the Federal government to pass legislation paying for additional inspection and certification of meat packaged in the United States. [4] Their efforts, coupled with the public outcry, led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration.

Although the meatpackers lobbied the government for legislation, they did not welcome regulations. Sinclair and President Theodore Roosevelt were both integral to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Roosevelt was sent multiple copies of The Jungle, including one by Sinclair himself, prompting his curiosity about meat inspection, but not much else. After much persuasion from Sinclair as to the seriousness of the situation, Roosevelt agreed to send two men to investigate Sinclair's claims. The men the president chose, Charles P. Neill and James B. Reynolds, had both done investigative work for Roosevelt before, and were thought trustworthy. Sinclair wanted Roosevelt to send his inspectors into the factories so they could see how poorly the workers were being treated; he wanted the nation to become better educated on the issue of "wage slavery". Instead of acknowledging the poor conditions and inhumane treatment of the workers, the men reported only on the cleanliness, or lack thereof, in these packing factories.

Even though the meat packers had forewarning and time to clean up, the conditions Neill and Reynolds observed were described as "revolting". The only claim in Sinclair's work which they failed to substantiate was that workers who had fallen into rendering vats were left and sold as lard. Roosevelt was so concerned about the impact of Neill and Reynold's report on western stock growers and European meat importers that he did not release the findings for publication. Instead, he helped the issue by dropping hints from the report, alluding to disgusting conditions and inadequate inspection measures. This pressure was adequate, although the bill that was finally passed did not include dating cans of meat or charging the packers for inspection costs.[5] Sinclair rejected the legislation, as he viewed it as an unjustified boon to large meat packers partially because the U.S. was to bear the costs of inspection at $3,000,000 a year.[6][7] He famously noted the limited effect of his book by stating, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Dagoth_shel wrote:Just the thought of the workers in the 1900's who fell into the vats, forgotten till their bones were found and their matter sent out as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard, makes me seriously throw up...

To quote from Upton Sincliar:

"....there would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers spat..."

This still happens today, which is a part of my argument against the nation's choices in health. Dees-gusting.

Which is why I'm becoming a vegetarian.

Dagoth_shel wrote:Just the thought of the workers in the 1900's who fell into the vats, forgotten till their bones were found and their matter sent out as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard, makes me seriously throw up...

To quote from Upton Sincliar:

"....there would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers spat..."

This still happens today, which is a part of my argument against the nation's choices in health. Dees-gusting.

Which is why I'm becoming a vegetarian.

dragon wench wrote:Regarding the cannibalism taboo, I suspect it is as much biologically-based as it is cultural.... after all it doesn't exactly promote "survival of the species."

dragon wench wrote:You do realise that when Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle" he was making a concerted argument... Right? And you also realise that his focus was exploitation and not food safety, right?

I often find Wikipedia a dubious source of information, but this excerpt sums it up quite well:



If you are saying workers still fall into rendering tanks today, you wouldn't happen to have any solid, documented evidence would you? There isn't even clear substantiation that those who fell in the 1900s were actually left there and turned into lard.

I'm not saying, necessarily that it doesn't happen, but when you make claims like that you need to back yourself up.

"....there would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers spat..."

This still happens today, which is a part of my argument against the nation's choices in health. Dees-gusting.

Moonbiter wrote: I've always found this whole concept very western, and quite a bit absurd. Most of the population of the world is concerned with IF they're going to eat, not what they're going to eat.

Moonbiter wrote: I've always found this whole concept very western, and quite a bit absurd. Most of the population of the world is concerned with IF they're going to eat, not what they're going to eat.