To answer the question on beef.

1. Cows are sentient animals. Their lives mean as much to them as mine does to me. So if it is wrong to kill anyone whose life has meaning then it is wrong to kill cows. Even if they are bred to be killed. Humans were often bred to be slaves but nobody saw that as reason to kill them or enslave them.

2. Cows suffer from painful mutilations (dehorning and castration), legally performed without anaesthetic.

3. Cows are transported to slaughterhouses in cramped and inhumane conditions. With more regional slaughterhouses being closed down, cows are now transported further distances.

4. Slaughterhouses themselves do not kill animals humanely. At the line speeds they are forced to adopt, they cannot. Read Eisnitz’ account of US slaughterhouses or see the undercover footage in “Earthlings”. And I am not so anti-American as to think the Land of the Free has the monopoly on barbarism. According to ACC figures, slaughterhouse worker was the most dangerous occupation in NZ, more so than SCUBA diver, jockey or forester. So if this is the way the humans are treated, what chance is there for the animals

5. Cows, like all grazing have been responsible for intense habitat destruction, which is the main factor behind extinction and greenhouse gas emmissions. Most of New Zealand’s Kahikatea forests have gone, cut down for cattle. The Hauraki plains and the Horowhenua, once totally forested are now just boring monoculture full of cows and sheep.

6. Cows use grain or prime land that could go into feeding humans directly. Feeding grain to cows that could go to humans is a major facotr in world hunger.

7. Red meat is extremely bad for you, and every new medical study seems to show something else nasty that is caused by red meat. I am not convinced that humans are designed to be omnivores. If we were then we would not be so unhealthy when we eat meat. Recent genetic research in fact indicates that humans owe their survival more to eating starchy foods.

I have also made the choice recently to stop eating dairy and beef.
The other night I made lasagna with organic ground turkey and organic goats cheese instead of beef and dairy, it was wonderful.

We also eat meat, having said that I believe that any animal farmed for human consumption has a right to die a quick, painless and UNEXPECTED death.
For that reason we now purchase from a company that does farm killing, anybody who has seen the torture that the poor beasts go through at meat works will understand why I have made this choice.

I also refuse to purchase chicken or pork unless it is organic

We also eat meat, having said that I have changed the way we source our meat from these days, like you i refuse to eat anyting that is farmed in cages, I also cannot handle the idea odf

The last Green conference was actually vegan catered, and the next one will be too.

This is not denying people choice of what they eat - carnivores can byo, or go to a nearby takeway.

But it is an acknowledgement that avoiding animal food products is the most sustainable food choice option, and that much of the commercial chicken and pork production industries are the ultimate in animal exploitation.

Personally, I will eat chicken and pork (probably much to the horror of kiore1), but I will only eat them if they are certified as organic, which usually means they are not a go at a restaurant.

So I probably don’t live up to my political expectations of myself, but it is difficult to be politically pure.

Sorry if I am offensive to kiore1 and the vegans here, but to me nothing tastes better than an organic pork roast. So I do one occasionally, out of pure selfishness, because I enjoy it. I know the deceased pig doesn’t enjoy it, any more than I would if I were eaten by an animal.

But I don’t think humans (like dogs, who can also survive on a vegetarian diet) are genetically designed to be exclusively vegetarian. Some of us, like me, don’t have the biochemistry to make our own vitamin D.

My choice is to eat meat, take a manufactured vitamin supplement, or contract rickets and eventually die from that disease.

I’ve decided eating meat (particularly oily fish) is the more natural way to go for me.

> I voted in vegetarians anf vegans near the top of the party list. None of them made it to the top 10.

I think Kevin Hague (no 7) and Dave Clendon (no 10) are vegetarian.

I have had enough close shaves when it comes to taking direct action on animal abuse (although i dare say that i would still step in if I witnessed it again)
I want some of our politicians to do the right thing for a change, until then I will keep registering my protest at the supermarket when it comes to buying eggs and the like.