Is it possible to produce veal without causing calves to suffer?

Yes, I’ve been in veal farms where the calves are very well cared for. I’ve also been in the opposite.

From what I’ve heard yes, and I guess @Adirondackwannabe reinforces what I have geard. I don’t eat veal, it’s the one meat I don’t eat, because I am so upset about how the calves are treated on many of the farms.

@Adirondackwannabe Can you tell me more? I think you know a lot about this, and I trust you. What does “well cared for” mean?

@longgone Okay, I was raised on a farm and we always took first class care of our animals. We made sure their comfort came first. That was something I watched for in my first job as an ag lender. I have been in a ton of farms. I saw places that would turn your stomach. I also saw places where the calves were as well cared for as some children. It’s possible to raise veal humanely, it takes some extra work. Most good farmers take excellent care of their animals. I did not deal with anyone that didn’t take good care of all of their animals.

I am remembering a conversation I had on a farm in Vermont. There was a beautifal calf, seriously his coat was so gorgeous, and he was just calm sitting there in the barn. Talking to some of the farm hands it was obvious they loved the animals. The farm was beautiful, well maintained. It became apparent the calf would likely be sent to slaughter. The woman I was speaking to who worked on the farm said the females became dairy cows, and only a few males were needed so a lot of the male babies wound up basically being marked for slaughter.

Only once meat is produced artificially, without the involvement of any animals.

Of those I know who have livestock, none are cruel to their livestock. I don’t know any dairy farmers well. Isn’t it possible, @Adirondackwannabe , or @anybody, to do gender preselection with some degree of success?

From what I understand about veal, what makes it tender (which is the goal), it’s kept in pens so that it cannot move, and therefore cannot develop many strong muscles. Also, something about what it’s fed, so that it craves iron and will desperately lick the nails on the pens in an attempt to get iron.

Veal calves are not farmed like regular calves, running in pastures, from what I understand.

I do not eat veal.

@Here2_4 They have tried to do gender selection, but it hasn’t been widely successful. And farming is a brutally tough business. If it doesn’t pay the bills, it isn’t tolerated. When the market for male calves tanked, and they weren’t worth shipping to the market, farmers took them out back and shot them. Not very nice or pleasant, but our assholes in government want cheap food over everything else. And the veal market wants white, not red meat. When we begin to value all life maybe we’ll get a bit more enlightened.

“but our assholes in government want cheap food over everything else”
Wrong. That is what the consumer wants.

Yes. Huffington Post

Yes, as evidenced by the Huffington Post article submitted by “marinelife.” Only thing is, whether the calves are treated humanely or not, the end result is the same, they are killed and eaten.

@Katz22 The end result is most certainly not the only important thing.

The thing is to produce Veal the calf is fed an unhealthily low amount of iron, protein and other nutrients to produce anemia which results in pale, tender flesh. They are also restricted in their movements so as to not bulk up with any muscle and the mere fact they are taken from their mamas at birth and fed a substandard, anemia producing diet, kept confined and isolated, often in low light conditions makes any farming of Veal inhumane, period. Veal and Fois gras are two extreme examples of cruelty based farming and we should all boycott these products.
I have the pleasure, right now, of watching two month old calves frisking in green pastures, studded with beautiful trees across the pasture from our property here.

These babies will be kept for the training of competitive cutting horses and never be sold or eaten. They are precious happy little souls frisking about their 10 acre field and napping in the sunshine. Quality of life is everything for all creatures and cows, even of they end up on the table have a right to enjoy their beingness in a manner befitting of cows. Grazing, napping in the sun, playing, living in relative freedom doing happy cow things.

Fois gras is another completely horrific abusive treatment of the animals. Good point @Coloma and worth mentioning.

@JLeslie Yes, it is one of my major passions, infact, recently my friends sent a letter to the head chef at a Las Vegas resort that had Fois gras on the menu during their stay for her husbands biz. convention, pleading with them to discontinue this item and we sent pictures of the geese and ducks here at the ranch. We received a nice response and an openess to take up the matter with the hotel managers. I think the chef was amazed to see what loving and social animals these birds are.
Baby steps in educating people. :-)

Actually, it is possible to produce foie gras humanely. This is a TED talk about it, but for those who don’t want to watch: Eduardo Sousa keeps geese without fences so their instinct to gorge before migration remains strong, which is how foie gras can be created without force-feeding. He does have high loss of geese to predators, but his farm is so attractive to geese that he has had wild flocks fly down to live with his own birds.

@wildpotato That is certainly preferable to the evils of the typical Fois gras farming industry. Thing is, wild geese do not bulk up and gain the fatty liver the same as heavy weight domestic breeds like Embdens, Toulouse and the heavy set Pekin ducks. This must be a leaner “product”. At least the birds get to graze and free range opposed to being crated and force fed.
Still..I can proudly say I have never sampled any veal or Fois gras products ever. I prefer my geese to be fat and fluffy and cuddley in my arms not on my dinner plate.

I’ve never had foie gras either. I stopped eating veal 20 years ago when I found out what they do to the babies. Once in a while it is in a meatball and I didn’t know I’m sure, but I never buy it knowingly.

We went to a farm yesterday and the most beautiful cow was there. She wanted to be petted; so sweet. I really need to try harder to be vegan.

I saw a show about a culture in Africa that ships their 13–14 year old daughters away for a week and force feed them fatty food so men will find them more attractive as potential wives. Makes me sick. It’s abuse to animals and those poor going ladies.

@JLeslie Fatty liver disease is on the rise in America due to the obesity epidemic, no different than Fois gras, except that nobody force feeds humans or eats human liver pate, well maybe, Hannibal Lecter.
Human fatty liver disease often goes unchecked, few symptoms til it becomes inflamed which can lead to scarring and cirrhosis. I was reading about it recently, something like half of all people over age 50 have a fatty liver. Gak!

I don’t know. Children all over America are still told to finish all the food on their plate and those people often grow up to be fat.

@JLeslie Agreed, and apparently there are lots of fat kids that are needing liver transplants as young as age 12 from advanced fatt liver disease. O-O

Doesn’t matter, had veal.

I don’t think you answered the OP question @SecondHandStoke

From what I understand, the original definition of veal would usually be what is now known as “pastured” or “free-raised” veal, or a calf that had not been separated from the mother until time for slaughter.

I don’t believe this question would have come up if the animals were not cute

@Shut_Yo_Mouth I disagree. I mentioned how beautiful the cows and calves are, but their beauty is not the biggest factor. The biggest factor is they are living, feeling, animals, and I can’t stand to see anything be abused or suffer. As you can see we have mentioned geese, and people pay extra for free range chickens. They pay more for eggs from cage free chickens. They pay more for milk from cows that they believe are treated better. Many people care how animals are treated even if they still eat meat and animal products. People draw thebline in different places for what is acceptable treatment of an animal and whether they are willing to give up food they have always eaten or not even try food because of how the animal is treated.

true i hate factory farming if it were labeled as such i’d avoid it

I am not a specieist at all. I save mice and rats and gophers and moles and all sorts of critters considered unworthy. I happen to love Coyotes even though they have snatched a cat or two from me over the years and one of my favorite animals is the Turkey Vulture. All species play an important role in our ecosystem. I may do away with a rattlesnake now and then when they are underfoot here, but they are incredibly beneficial in their job of rodent control.

@Shut_Yo_Mouth One label you can use to tell factory farmed beef from pastured is “Grass fed.” Factory farming uses corn feed, so you know that any cow that ate grass did not come from a factory farm. Chickens are a bit trickier, since “free range” does not always mean that the birds spend time running around outdoors, but for eggs at least “Cage free” is a pretty good label to tell if they haven’t been factory farmed.