Date:Feb 1 2008 LOcation: Restaurant in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina,
Dinner Order: Rump Steak , Medium Rare, no sauce.
Most memorable steak Ive ever eaten, truelly amazing.
I praise all the gods for allowing me to occupy this lofty place on the evolutionary ladder.
We ate there the next night , but i didnt order another steak in case last night was a one off 
I yet to sample anything in Australa that starts to compare!
i also practice "catch and release" fishing.
"catch" the fillets and "release" the carcass.
and people are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's easier to pick on rich women than bikie gangs.
My holiday job while I was at uni was slaughtering animals on the kill floor in an abattoir. Among other jobs I did there, one thing I did was stand at the knocking box with the captive bolt gun shooting them as they came in the door.
With that in mind, let me share some thoughts.
Everyone I worked with, and myself, took every care to treat the animals humanely. The movement through the yards of the animals does put some stress on them, but they don't know they're going to die (if they can comprehend such a notion). They are no more stressed than when loaded into trucks, or even just dipped at the yards back on the property they were grown on.
The bolt gun is effective and humane, despite claims on your video Relli. The bolt, aimed correctly, goes through the centre of the animal's brain. There is no consciousness after that, just the nervous system shutting down.
Other claims on that video I also found a bit 'sensational'. Not saying there isn't mistreatment of animals in the meat industry, but it is not the norm in my experience.
I still eat meat, and no less for having spent hundreds of hours killing thousands of animals. I too, Relli, like the idea of only eating what I'm prepared to kill, however in my case that's a whole lot of steak.
There is one principle I like to stick to however, to keep a clear conscience about it all, and that is to not throw meat in the bin. I respect that an animal had to die for me to eat it, and as a sign of respect I will eat all of it.
As for the original subject, eating meat to sustain our life on Earth, given what I've read and seen it would seem to me that we do not need to eat meat to sustain our life here. It sounds like substitutes can be found for our basic nutritional needs. However if it was instrumental in our evolution, would we be forgoing the next evolutionary step without it?
Personally I am not a big red meat eater.
Steak doesn't do it for me at all really, but I do love some meaty dishes such as roast lamby and beof borgoiune (mmm - made a deluxe one on the weekend).
I reckon one 200g serve of red meat a week is HEAPS for most needs but we live in a '3/4 of every meal must be meat with a token veggie thrown in to hide that small portion of the plate' society. I have my kids (and all of our fam) chowing down on 3/4 vegie 1/4 meat meals most nights and all are happy - not to mention not dragging around several kilos of undigested meat).
Funny though my ex-vegie wifey gets a bit stroppy if I cook vego more than once in a while though! Bloody born-again-carnivores!!
Ha ha - I used to live with a flame-haired bogun-bred bro n sis, who were from Sth Oz and absolutely full on carnivores. They (we) used to eat BBQs of steak (real big fkrs) and snags (3-4) with potatoes (2-3) and a token leaf of salad every single night, until I couldn't take it anymore and cooked a vegie pasty meal. There was just about a physical biffo, they were that cranky about forgoing meat for one night!! 
Really.. after that I started buying my own grub so i could eat healtheir and didn't have to eat meat or pay for them to do so every night. Lasted about 2 months before the set up came apart at the seams. Carnivores don't like having healthy lifestyles shown to them.
on a serious opinionative note. ( i think someone already said it) I am proud to say that i eat meat. I have been involved with growing and killing my own food which puts it in perspective for me, it's like a right of passage one should experience to really understand what it is to be a meat eater. How many meatasaurs here can say they have killed their own steak or would be willing to do it regularly. Is that why some "vegos" only eat fish? most people don't feel compassion for fish..... but i'd F&%^k one if it was cute enough.
There is a moral conundrum. Its interesting to hear the various views.
- As long as its humane killing its ok. (Speaks to minimising suffering)
- To waste what you kill is disrespectful. (Speaks to minimising killing)
- Doing your own killing is somehow better. ( I think this is about personal awareness of what is involved in killing so you are less inclined towards capricious consumption?)
- Some couldn't give a rat's arse about other animals or their suffering or their circumscribed joyless lives and see no hint of a moral issue. (Don't buy sailboards from people like this because they see you the same way 
)
What about capricious killing? I'm sure that's ok with some of you. When I was a kid I used to wander around the bush with a .22 and kill birds and rabbits. It was utterly capricious. Shooting bunnies was doing the farmers a favour but that's not why I did it. It gave me some joy to hit a mark with some pointed consequence. I wouldn't say I felt fierce visceral joy but it was a tiny bit that way. Hunters always feel a bit awkward justifying what they do.
I think there is a common view that killing and eating creatures is entirely natural and that is sufficient justification for doing it. I'm personally not sure about it at all.
I don't identify with that ethos. After all, its entirely natural to die at 40 too but that's not something I ever aspired to.
I don't think about killing at all when I eat meat. I feel a little guilty about my mindless attitude to it. I wonder if an awareness campaign might be in order, like the smoking awareness campaign or the driving safety campaign. Can you imagine going into Maccas and being confronted by a picture of Ronald up to his arse in fresh gibblets as he eviscerates some unfortunate creature with a caption saying "MMmmm Big Mac - only fresh kill used". People might at least think about what they do.
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Don't dis the fro bro.. I didn't say I was against eatin humans. You never know when we might end up on a plane full of thugby players in the Andes Toadyboy.
Sorry mate totally out of line to dis on ya fro 
Hows this for and alternative though looks rather special don't ya think
Yep good post Pat.
Only thing is I suspect we humans won't be around long enough to make it to the next evolutionary step either way at the rate we reproduce and over consume everything around us. Pass the ketchup..
Less is more is a simple and effective philosophy that should be taught to all kids I reckon. Less meat, less electricity, less fuel, less consuption, less greed, less waste... er.. more kiting though - just share the water!
we've stopped evolving, now days we just change everything around us to suit us, we encourage weakness by finding cures. If we need something we make it, we don't wait to evolve it. If we need to evolve it, we just need to move past the genetics debate and start improving ourselves.
I'd like to evolve a rumen.
