Talk:Veal

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The free-raising method is environmentally friendly and sustainable.

Under types, free raised veal. This cites no sources and common sense tells me that it is probably no more enviromentally friendly than the other methods. It also cannot possibly be more sustainable unless the calves are allowed to breed before they are slaughtered. For these reasons I have removed this statement. The statement that this type of veal contains less fat also cites no sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.123.29 (talk) 03:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The statement about free-raised veal has a weak/biassed reference and strikes me as dubious. If these calves are never (never ever) given anti-biotics, even when they become ill, that would not strike me as a good thing.Ratinabox (talk) 19:13, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The controversy section

The "controversy" section is a good three times larger than the rest of the article, which seems to push this article towards a negative POV. Is there any reason there is no section about its role in cuisine? — TheKMan^talk 00:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a shame. Some people know enough of, and are sick and tired of hearing about, the method in which the meat is procured. I for one would like to see more information on the tendancies the meat has, like on all the other pages on various meats. It states certain cuisines, but apart from the names of countries, we have no more information!! Lady BlahDeBlah 15:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to add some balance, though I haven't included specific dishes. Some pictures of food would be nice.

Pictures smictures. I was looking for the best and proper ways to cook veal, of which this article is woefully deficient. Instead of a vegatarian's guide to why crackpots should hate veal production, how about a mature, intellegent guide to preparing, serving, and eating one of the worlds oldest meats? Its for reasons like this that many Wiki pages have become gutless imitations of propaganda blogs. Radzewicz (talk) 16:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a cookbook. The treatment of veal calves and the process of converting them into a food item is relevant. If you feel some specific portion of this article is biases, perhaps you should discus that instead of your anti-vegetarian biases. 08:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Blatant plagiarism: In this article, part of the controversy section reads: "In recent practice, living conditions for veal calves vary greatly, with some modern farms providing clean, well-lit and -ventilated environments, with enough room for calves to STAND, STRETCH, GROOM THEMSELVES AND LAY DOWN IN A NATURAL POSITION." This phrase capitalized is copied verbatim from this pro-veal link: http://www.dutchvalleyveal.com/html/vealfaqs-links.htm (See Q: How are veal calves housed?). Phrase needs to be cited in the article to show that this viewpoint is biased toward the pro-veal side. 68.238.194.212 04:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Joe Daniels August 20, 2006[reply]

There was no reference in the article to the recent decision of the European Union to ban the use of veal crates and anemia inducing diets. (as of 2007) I do not feel that including this citation in the article is POV; I am not asserting whether the EU was right or wrong to pass this legislation. Rather, it is simply a statement of what the European Union voted to do. The counterarguments to ending the use of veal crates in this section keeps this article balanced.

I've made a couple of changes to wording to make the article more informative. I think they're minor but didn't flag them as such in case anyone else disagreed.RDT2 14:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The contraversy section is rediculously large. No article should ever have more than 10% of the content as contraversy. WilyD 00:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article does seem to read like propaganda from the veal producing industry. Using the word "cull" instead of slaughtered is a perfect example of this. It is dishonest, and not neutral at all. Animals are slaughtered when they are killed for their meat. Now saying murdered would also not be neutral. I suggest "culled" be changed to "slaughtered". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.97.251 (talk) 03:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A dictionary I checked included several variations on "slaughter" as definitions of "cull". It looks like it's more of a synonym than a euphemism, so I don't think there's any need to change it. If it said they were, say, "processed into veal" then I'd agree that it was euphemistic, diverting attention from the killing by making the process of doing so vague, but to cull a group of animals invariably means to slaughter them. --Icarus ^(Hi!) 15:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote something a bit brash earlier and I think I'll replace that by saying the terms factory farm and "individual attention" are contradictory by nature. thousands of these animals are crammed into a single factory farm unit and there is no room for individual attention as, among other things, it is not economically viable to do so. Most veal end up lame before it is their time to be "culled" and that's the point. By restricting the baby calves movements so much it atrophies the muscles making the meat tenderer and more valuable. There are no sources to back up the claim that giving individual attention to these animals is a common practice on any factory farm, especial veal factories, and I dispute it. In fact, I think there's much to dispute about this entire article. As has been stated numerous times before, much of this reads like veal factory farm propaganda and I believe this whole article needs an overhaul.

Q: Why is Bernie Rollins marked as an unreliable source? He is the single most expert and experienced agricultural ethicist alive on the planet today.Ratinabox (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edited first paragraph of "Animal Welfare" to remove poorly worded sections. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.74.240.2 (talk) 08:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cull v. Slaughter

I grew up on a farm. Culling was what you did when having members of the herd killed due to illness, injury, or genetic inferiority (as to eliminate undesirable traits from a branch of breeding stock). I never heard the word 'cull' used as a euphamism for slaughter.

By contrast, 'slaughter' meant to kill an animal as a prelude to cleaning and butchering the meat.

Each word covered a specific process. 12.190.158.7 (talk) 14:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the inside knowledge! --Icarus ^(Hi!) 16:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with 12.190.158.7 - it is not another word for slaughter. A cull is a more widespread large-scale undertaking in which a part of a population needs to be killed off. 12.190... 's reasons were right on the money. A few months ago in Egypt, when people were really paranoid of the swine flu, the Egyptian Government decided to have every pig in Egypt killed off, even though none of them had swine flu, they did it, and that process of control is called a cull. It also happens with wildlife around the world. For example: wolves in some areas "seem" excessive to pro-hunting organizations, following people go out a cull off a number of them.

I've personally been to 2 veal farms in the states, and I have to say it was a very disturbing experience. It is 100% clear as to why veal gets so much retaliation.

'Culled' is used once in the article, to be more accurate, I'm going to change it to 'slaughtered'. Furthermore, with the passing of Prop. 2 in California last November, veal crates will soon be banned in California (& Michigan), I'm going to add this info to the article.

I agree with the WilyD above, the controversy section is very large, but since this is a situation with a high amount of controversy, I think the controversy section should be large, but if it over-dominates, then obviously we should make a separate page just for veal's controversy.

I'm going to spend some time on this article to improve it and get more sources. NoFlyingCars (talk) 00:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article Overhaul

Hey folks, yes, this article needs it. Tons of things currently in this article are not sources, especially in the Production section. Researching this unsourced information I could only find an accurate source for about 80% of it all. I thus will remove the unsorced content and replaced it with sourced content. I've gathered almost 40 other sources and a good bit of other information to really expand this article to be a great place to learn about veal. The major expansions I'm working on is adding a History section, which this article lacks. Furthermore, I have a strong amount of material to about double the size of the production section that goes into the entire production process: birth, housing, feeding, parts of calf used, and color factors that determine veal value. Furthermore, I feel the animal welfare section needs to be heavily expanded. I'm working on a good bit of information on it and trying hard to not make it biased. I feel it's about evenly balanced with what I have, so far. It will contain strong points in the veal industry, such as their cooperation to improve facilities by customer request. It'll have a little section on hormone usage, and a sort of timeline on where and when veal crates have been banned. Some of this info was in the Production section, but it really doesn't fit well in there.

Anyways, I'm gonna do the changes to this article in the next few days after I complete my drafts. I'd appreciate some feedback. And my grammar is not 100% correct, so someone will have to run through it to fix any grammar mistakes. It's taken me many hours to gather up all the information and arrange it, to make this a respectable article, but it's worth it. I want to get rid of the warning tags on the article, which is my goal. Thanks NoFlyingCars (talk) 08:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not buying into to the arguments but when you redo this page please try to take out as much repetition as possible. The controversy items are doubled up a bit which does make it seem a bit soapboxy.58.170.99.19 (talk) 08:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, I fully agree with you. I'm almost done with an overhaul which organizes everything better, and kills the doubled controversy items, and adds more information to the article, as well as tons of reliable sources. I've been spending a good while researching and so forth and will have the article updated before November 10th, 2009. It will require review. Much thanks. NoFlyingCars (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of questionable neutrality banners?

I re-did, improved, and expanded both the Production and Animal Welfare sections and I believe they are both neutral, as it is. I need more input on this. Do my improvements work? I would like to get these eye-sore banners removed and have a fully neutral article. It looks good in my eyes, how about yours? Much thanks, NoFlyingCars (talk) 23:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The banners are still there. I came to the Talk page to see why the "Production" section was considered of questionable neutrality; I don't see anything there that seems particularly biased (the periodic sections about "free raised" veal do read like they were lifted from a brochure or press release, but that's not necessarily an indication of bias as long as the statements themselves are objectively true). 68.105.71.75 (talk) 08:36, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The humane society link is broken

The article has a link into the investigation of the closed slaughterhouse. It used to be at: http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/10/veal_investigation_103009.html

It was changed to just say link broken. I chnaged to text to say it wasn't available anymore. If anyone else has a location for where it could be found feel free to put it back. I checked archive.org's wayback machine, and it wasn't there.

The article probably stand pretty well without the link to the video, and the reference could probably be taken out completely since the link doesn't work anymore. What do you think? Vettrock (talk) 16:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just took out the whole line. Vettrock (talk) 16:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found the video here http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/10/calf_investigation_103009.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.170.104.229 (talk) 22:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]