Where They Were Kelp, are placeholders for photographs that supermarkets could position along side certain product items, to show customers the lovely conditions in which the seaweed was raised, prior to harvesting and manufacture.-- xenzag, Sep 23 2010 Edit_20your_20last_...20look_20rediculous now you know who to blame [xenzag, Sep 24 2010] I'd just love to see source information in general, not even pictures, just farm/grower, city, state (if US) and country. And include the primary ingredients so they can't get away with "packaged by/for".-- MechE, Sep 23 2010 How about a little snap shot of the actual animal? They used to put pics of missing kids on milk cartons. These animal gave their lives for lunch. Couldn't we honor them this much?-- Boomershine, Sep 23 2010 See, we’d dull snore. eee!-- pocmloc, Sep 23 2010 Might as well show photos of migrant workers picking fruits, disgusting packaging plants where grain is swept off the floor into the product, foreign child labor factories.........-- xandram, Sep 23 2010 Why?-- daseva, Sep 23 2010 <Obligatory Soylent Green reference>-- 8th of 7, Sep 23 2010 Wow.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 23 2010 I agree, it's unrealistic to expect any country to be able to produce the levels of hamburger, chicken nuggets and other meaty goods that people want without factory farming, at a price accessible to all.
However, there's no reason not to show happy animals, if the animals are happy, and if that helps to promote the sales of more humanely produced meat.
I am not sure about the US but, in the UK, at least a proportion of people buy battery eggs and factory meat either because they don't think about what they're buying, or because they can afford free-range but don't care either way.
I think it's a good idea to at least make people aware of how their food is produced. If not with actual photos, at least with clearer and less euphemistic signage.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 23 2010 There are dumber ideas here. Yes, it's unrealistic and unreasonable to expect/require supermarkets to show pictures of intensive farms. It would be equally unrealistic to expect suppliers to do so.
On the other hand, it's unrealistic and unreasonable to expect people to lay anti-inlaw landmine blanks - yet such ideas survive here.
I like a McNugget as much as the next freelance consultant topologist. I'm just saying, it's OK for people to know where their food comes from, is all. Sheesh.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 23 2010 Look - it's only a bit of seaweed. What's going on here?-- xenzag, Sep 23 2010 // There is never a good reason to hide the truth about that which we eat //
Join the Scouts. Go on a survival course. You'll soon change your tune.-- 8th of 7, Sep 23 2010 Food processing methods are cleaner and more humane now than at any time in our history.
However, showing cattle standing in 18 inches of freezing mud and manure is not going to help with sales of lot-fed beef, unless I'm mistaken.
Equally, shots of a hundred thousand chickens in a shed, eating antibiotic-laced grain, is hardly conducive to appetite.
Let advertising do what it does best... dupe the buying public into believing they are discerning, caring higher primates.-- infidel, Sep 23 2010 // painful //
Sorry to have to pull you up on that one, but most slaughterhouses in the developed world go to quite a bit of trouble and effort to ensure that food animals die a painless death. For instance, cows are stunned electrically prior to the use of a captive-bolt "humane" killer; pigs are often killed by the use of high dose (70% +) carbon dioxide which induces rapid, painless unconsciousness followed by death.
// I assume most people do the same //
There are parts of Arkansas you probably won't want to visit, then.-- 8th of 7, Sep 23 2010 [21Q], I seriously doubt that even your cynical, jaded outlook would be proof complete against feeling a twinge of concern at photographs of food animals displaying ulcerated sores, if they were posted alongside brightly lit displays of their earthly remains.-- infidel, Sep 23 2010 I can certainly accept that fact. I just think you're showing off.-- infidel, Sep 23 2010 Be careful here, [21Q], the idea is about putting pictures on the food packaging - it's not forcing people to choose any particular food. The masses can still choose to have their chicken from battery farms etc. etc. It's just that the packaging might make them feel a bit more guilty.
I'm not saying you should rescind your f'bone, nor I am disagreeing with your points (necessarily).
That tongue-dangling mockney, Jamie Oliver, did a really good TV show called "Fowl Dinners" where he got a small community together to raise, and ultimately eat some free range chickens. The point was to persuade them that free range was much kinder than the battery method. One mother in particular was very honest in that she just couldn't stretch her budget and she didn't care about the chickens when faced with her young family starving. I can't remember whether she came round or not by the end of the series - but she valued knowing more about the provenence of food.-- Jinbish, Sep 23 2010 It is arguable that being personally involved in the selection and death of your dinner - via hunting, raising chickens, or even pointing into the lobster tank and saying "I'll have that one" is less hypocritical than simply being presented with a cooked meal, the origins of which you are entirely ignorant of.-- 8th of 7, Sep 23 2010 Why is everyone so vexed over a bit of seaweed?-- xenzag, Sep 23 2010 What about "what about fish?"?-- xenzag, Sep 23 2010 //when most people can't afford a new car of any kind, it's wrong to make them feel bad for driving the used 1993 Ford pickup that they were able to afford because it only cost $500.00 instead of the &25,000.00 Hybrid.//
Why? The poor are the ones doing the damage to the environment. Shape up or ship out, soldier. We're all in this together. Why should I have to mitigate the effects of your laziness?
//It's a stranger attitude to adopt that they should just somehow be able to afford more expensive foods. Necessity isn't an attitude//
No, it isn't, but it is the outcome of the decisions made by those whose attitude is keeping them in a position of necessity. Poverty, in first world countries, is the outcome of inertia and conscious decisions not to attempt to better oneself.
Now you've gone from showing off to moaning about your lot, [21Q]. Which is it going to be? Self-aggrandisement or self-pity? Freedom, or crucifixion?-- infidel, Sep 23 2010 //What about "what about fish?"?//
OK, if you insist. I don't see how fish really fall under the same umbrella as cows, but then again, OK, what about fish?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 23 2010 There would be a picture of the fish farm, of course.-- ldischler, Sep 24 2010 // Poverty, in first world countries, is the outcome of inertia and conscious decisions not to attempt to better oneself. //
They should at least carry around a picture of where they came from, so we can determine if they've improved their lots.-- ldischler, Sep 24 2010 Jumpin into this one a bit late. //People see images of pigs rolling in mud and manure all the time//Sorry, that's just not right. Pigs are one of the only animals that will pick one spot to do their business in and not roll in it. Mud yes, shit no. Small point I know, but it's mine dangit.
I want to have free range chickens some day and have thought up all sorts of gizmos to make the chickens as happy as possible while minimizing chores and using their waste heat to power the gizmos.For feeding purposes a gravity hopper would distribute grain to individual compartments and the chickens would become used to eating solo.For slaughter purposes a few of these compartments would have a guillotine/wing clamp/blood collection system to keep the other chickens from becoming traumatized. I think that a similar system for cattle would be far more humane. No more shitting themselves in fear as they are driven through the chutes. They'll come running hapkilly.
//What...about....fish??//
I spent a summer working on a long line salmon boat. I was slightly appalled that the fish are gutted and cleaned while still alive. When the skipper found out that I was killing them first by smashing them on the head I got in royal shit for being such a fucking panzy. I'd only been on the boat for a couple of weeks and had never done anything like this job before and the other deck hand had sixteen years under his belt so I made him a bet. We'd count out the fish in both checkers and if I could gut them my way faster than he could he'd get off my back, if I lost, I got dishes for the next two and a half months.By the time we were four or five fish into it I started doing ninja sound effects while looking at him instead of what my hands were doing and finished mine before we were halfway through.
I don't know why we never really got along after that.
If you ate frozen salmon one summer twenty years or so ago there is a very slim chance you ate one of these...and...I like to think it tasted happier.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 24 2010 //In a capitalist society there will always be people on the top, people in the middle, and people on the bottom.//
Unfortunately, the same thing has shown to be true in other forms of economies/govt, as well. No class structure under socialism, communism, mercantilism, etc? Think again.-- Boomershine, Sep 24 2010 I'm just glad people aren't buying this idea simply because there's a nice little picture of a xenxag next to it ;)
But... aware of his cunning.. he's probably got a really nice idea up his sleeve he's simply priming us for. So, to be a counterculturalist. [+]-- daseva, Sep 24 2010 Balderdash. [-]-- Grogster, Sep 24 2010 [MB] //I mean exactly what I say. What...about....fish??//
C'mon, [Max], a little context wouldn't hurt. You were apparently asking us to compare fish to...what? The consumers or to the other meats in this argument?
//So, being a fish is not the fish's fault??//
I don't think it is. What other choices did it have?
//Poverty, in first world countries, is the outcome of inertia and conscious decisions not to attempt to better oneself.//
As a free-market capitalist, I agree with you, in principle. But, some people's conscious decisions are much more limited than others, no? People are NOT created equal.
Just saying...-- Boomershine, Sep 24 2010 My wee brar used to work on a fish farm during the day and in the evening wait tables in the local hotel. When the guests ordered salmon - which came from the farm - they would often ask "is the salmon wild?" to which my brother would reply "It was when I hit it with the hammer."-- calum, Sep 24 2010 [xenzag], don't be so bloody petulant!
I had just clicked on [+] and then got the 404 error because you changed the idea name. Well, sorry - you just missed a croissant.-- Jinbish, Sep 24 2010 I'm having one now with my coffee.. hehehe-- xenzag, Sep 24 2010 I love seaweed (+)-- normzone, Sep 24 2010 I'm remanining neutral, as I don't like the taste of seaweed, but I know it's good for you. The seaweed itself gets battered around by the ocean currents and we don't know if it's happy or sad. We don't know if it wants to wrap itself around a piece of sushi. I think most of this is all from a guilt complex we have because we EAT. We should just be reverent for the foods we chose to eat no matter what it is. It gives us what we need to stay alive. (Or we wouldn't be having this discussion.)-- xandram, Sep 24 2010 Nor I.-- infidel, Sep 24 2010 How about a story about underwater Triffids?-- xenzag, Sep 24 2010 Wake-a Me when it's ready.-- infidel, Sep 24 2010 Who wouldn't like the taste of seaweed and/or kelp? Especially when it's flavor is enhanced with medical waste from exotic, faraway lands! This delicious bounty from the sea is the key ingredient responsible for my towering height! (...well, that, and working for many years in the nuke plant...)-- Grogster, Sep 24 2010 //Look - it's only a bit of seaweed. What's going on here?//
{creepy incidental music}-- pertinax, Sep 26 2010 [marked-for-deletion] confusion objective achieved-- xenzag, Sep 26 2010 Wait a minute - what does this have to do with Halfbakery:Game?-- normzone, Mar 07 2014 random, halfbakery