No sense in arguing over taste, and perhaps I am a bit of an alarmist, yet I still must insist that general proximity of farms to mega cities is problematic. Even in places like Kentucky, that has only been recently colonized by masses of industrial humans, I have found issues with the quality of animals raised near the larger cities or industrial areas. We have a lot of dirty coal power plants, vast conventional farmlands, over grazed pastures and issues with contaminated water runoff.

Though I have no degree of certainty on the matter, to me it just doesn't seem feasible that there would be any Land within 50 miles the city of London that would be considered pristine by my own standards.( Does anyone here know of any truly ideal sources, from farms close to London?)

Ive been using Google maps to investigate farms before actually driving out to inspect in person, and if I see a farm in the middle of a major big agra center, or near other major industrial, or urban activity, then I will try to look elsewhere.

I would discourage seeking local sources of Land Fat near London or any other mega city...there is just too much runoff to be sure that the adjacent farmland isn't contaminated.

If possible try to find distributors that would import from more pristine areas.

I understand the intentions behind modern versions of censorship and manipulation of information platforms , but must insist that attempts to ban stupidity are not only exercises in futility, but may actually lead to exponentially more stupidity, due to the axiom of "What you resist persist".

The best way to limit the negative effects of human ignorance, is to allow its proponents to make a fool of themselves in an open forum Milieu. Could it be that the people giving the orders to manipulate the algorithms are so intellectually dense as to not know their efforts to manipulate the flow of information are having the opposite effect of what was intended?

Im not buying the virtue signals and soulless excuses by the tech companies....the heads must on some level know that the current digital economy model based on personal data mining and advertising revenue is becoming obsolete...and these underhanded tactics are in reality, desperate attempts to suppress the emergence of a parallel open source system that is quickly evolving to circumvent the need for centralized authoritative controls!

This Memes War!

Not only are the tech companies beginning to suppress anti vaccination advocates, but they are making the move to subvert all anti establishment free expression, through manipulation of their algorithms. Google, Youtube, and a number of other major online platforms are now openly engaged in the censorship of material that is arbitrarily condemned as conspiracy theory.

The information war is only heating up, Australia has just banned David Ike, primarily on the basis of his anti vaccination stance. There are numbers of radio programs being broadcast, where ignorant strawman engage in scripted debates on the subject of vaccination. The news feeds of everyone's phones is stacked with skewed agenda driven talking points. The new AI generated algorithms are carefully designed subterfuge, that distract, confuse and obviate the masses...making real human to human rational discussions nearly impossible in the public sphere.

There seems to be a prevailing view among the technological overlords and various subforms of elitist ilk, which regards the average person as far too ignorant to be able to make their own decisions regarding what one chooses to take into the body and mind.....

By keeping the public entranced by artificially pushing to the top of search results, these modern mainstream day equivalent of false prophets, are surreptitiously suppressing the organic outcry of emergent independent media...

The stage is being set for a most epic war of the worlds showdown.  Bring on the ork-bot armies from mordor....The remaining free people of middle earth are getting ready for the challenge. If push comes to shove, the great power of modern digital wizardry will not be allowed to remain in the hands of the unworthy. The wise cultivation of this great technological power is our destiny, and when the meek have had enough of these foolish games, the messengers will be sent to unite in convergence upon the ivory tower...in order to seize Eye of Sauron and take back the ring of power. 

"Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found it is small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." Tolkien

Dairy could be involved in a number of those symptoms and It could take three weeks( give or take) to fully clear any possible aggravating dairy stuff from the body.

Give it a little more time without dairy before trying other drastic changes.

Adaptation and the development of more instinctive/intuitive eating habits will take time. Eliminate possible problem foods, and find some good quality animal foods that can be used as dietary staples. Eventually you should become more attuned to your bodys needs.

For all you Dairy Lovers out there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6w8OFgI22A

Indeed the shrouds of ignorance are at the crux of the issue, this is exacerbated by the trend to outsource most of modern food production away from actual human beings. Faceless corporations, now control the means of production for much of the worlds food supply. Many of these monetary machinations of Mammon have no humanistic sensibility or sense of responsibility for anyone or anything other than the monetary gain of its benefactors. For these corporate entities, if it is more economically lucrative to lobby for laws to prevent people from exposing animal cruelty, than it actually is to incorporate less cruel methods of production, then the PR order will go into effect and the cruelty will continue under the cover of darkness. In such an atmosphere it is understandable why there are so many misguided and confused about what to actually do to stop the cruelty, greed and "eco-ill-logical" idiocy of these out of control industrial combines.

Solving these problems of ethically feeding and optimally sustaining the evolution of a more human/humane world ecosystem, without going down the cynical malthusian road of Damnation for all of humanity, is not going to be easy...This new fangled phenomenon of self determination is destined to force our species to learn these difficult lessons ; The revelation will not come to us without great casualties, immense suffering, and stifling complication.

What we are now facing could be likened to life on earth reaching the next layer of the great filter. As things are today, is it possible for us to continue to evolve in more positive directions , without both losing our humanity or destroying the ecological viability of the primal womb from which it was conceived? (I honestly do not know)

Perhaps much of what is playing out on earth right now and within the epoch of humanity at large, is the growing pains of a new entity. These pervasive and collective pains experience by all of the Plants and Animals, as a consequence of human interference with the worlds ecological systems, may prompt in the ensuing generations, dramatic world wide epigenetic shifts. This new Genesis resulting mass mutation, is an eminent reality, and its task is to work as a counter balance to the destabilizing acts of ManKind. In the same spirit, earth's biome once responded to the very acts of God, that caused past mass extinctions, that gave rise to Mankind; The life forms of earth are now being forced to respond to the acts of man, with future mass extinctions eventually giving rise to a new form of life whose destiny may reach beyond this world.

Through this dynamic process of perpetual cannibalistic mutilation, know as life on earth, the children of earth just might one day be ultimately transformed, beyond the "Childhoods End", achieving the level of maturity needed to reach very edge of the Great filter....   

You can be an animal rights advocate, or you can be a regular meat eater. You can't be both. Choose.

I believe you can advocate for animal rights and still eat meat....just as you can advocate for justice and work at the top floor of the justice Department... Humans have the wonderfully convenient capacity for hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance and diabolical duplicity.

Joking aside, "rights" can mean anything to anyone. For the most part even our most cherished human rights are more guidelines than absolutes.

From the perspective of a mindful meat eater "animal rights" means good animal husbandry. Insuring a quality standard of life for the animals raised for meat, while they live, and giving them a quick death without prolonged and cruel suffering, when they are harvested.

There is also a more eastern perspective to consider that denies the separation from the self and the outside world, so to kill and consume life, is to kill and devour a part of your self....This view goes way beyond the limited  notions of individual rights, and chooses to focus more on respecting the interconnectedness between self and other, human/animal, or predator/prey. Violation of our food animals basic "humane" living standards will give rise to negative Karma in the flesh, and will have to be payed for with future negative Karma, by those who blindly feed upon their own cruelty...

For me Humane is a subjective term, in which the individual uses human judgement to decide what conditions are conducive for maximum health and minimal suffering, of another being. Being humane in regards to livestock is to put yourself in the animals position?? For example... If you were a Sheep in a shepherd's flock, you wouldn't have any  of these high falutin thoughts, or agony over injustice.... so what would be considered human to Ewe would be much different from what is humane to me.

If I were a sheep that was going to be eventually slaughtered and eaten... I would hope that I was given good pasture to eat, fresh water, protection from wild beast, the ability to move free...to spend what short time I have without suffering or trama....spending a good many beautiful days grazing, breeding, ruminating and bleeting as sheep do...blissfully unaware of the hungry reapers watch.

The environment of much of the UK, in and of itself, seems to drive many of decent people to Drink and use Drugs. The Grain heavy nutrient deficient diet of the average Brit, clouds the judgement, and confuses the senses... it makes people feel hollow and horrid. For many people drinking Beer is actually a healthier option than eating the marmite sandwiches and crumpets served as dietary staples throughout the United Kingdom. The Sugars Glutens and yeast consumed by almost every man woman and child over there, act like drugs in the Brain...this combined with a general air of despair, leads many people over there have a transgenerational predispositions for substance abuse.

Totally Brexiting the situation by leaving the country would be a suggestion for anyone who is hopelessly addicted and needs a fresh start. Otherwise I would encourage them to get off of Grains and refined sugars first, then throw away the marmite and beer, and start drinking the purest spring water available. People do not realise how drug addictions are exacerbated by food addictions, and it may go along way to help people get off alcohol and hard drugs if they could first get off of Sugars, Grains, and processed foods.

Ive come to accept that many people are not willing to even take these first simple steps toward cleaning up their life, and in most cases its a waste of time to get into further discussions regarding adding raw meats to the diet. I also know a large number of people with these issues, and recently my cousin had died, as a result of years of Drugs, Alcohol, and Processed Foods. Many will never see the connections, but if you look at most drug addicted people, they are usually also addicted to Junk Foods, that hooked them as young children. The brain gets conditioned toward addictions, and for people already long down this road to ruin, it can be monumentally difficult to change.

I have found it best to accept that many people wont change, even if the say they want to.... to try not to make things into a personal judgement, while showing them you care for them anyway, regardless of what they are struggling with.

Humor also helps, and whenever I see someone hopelessly chasing the cycles of addiction it reminds me of poem "the perfect high" 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGALoQoxXrU&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6sI-2TZgtU

My advice would be to eat mutton and not lamb...most pasture raised lamb being sold on the market does not contain enough fats to sustain my diet. I go after the fattest, fully mature, pasture raised animals I can find.

I can usually tell by just looking at the Animals how much fat they have to offer. Sometimes it can be difficult if they have a full coat of wool to hide behind, and I will try to tell by feel, the fattest Animals that are for sale.

Fully grown mutton that is properly nourished, and from a stocky built meat breed, like a dorper or katahdin, should have copious amounts of fat throughout the whole animal.

The fattest purly pasture raised sheep I have had were from older ewes that have been left unbred for at least a year...not having to nurse young lambs will allow the animal to pack on maximum levels of fatty goodness. Older Rams will also get really fat if they are seperated from the females....not constantly chasing tail and fighting for mates, they tend just to eat all day and put on fat.

The sheer low quality and pervasiveness of school food is a solid argument in favour of homeschooling.

I would homeschool if I could...the food choices in the local schools are truly horrid.
For breakfast they serve items like pop tarts and sugar cereal
For Lunch its the most processed low quality food imaginable served with a carton of low fat chocolate milk.

My personal situation is quite dire at the moment, the mother of my children is in a losing battle with insanity and I am not yet financially able nor do I have the family support to file for full custody of the children. Me and my girlfriend are the only ones in their lives who actually cares about the quality of the food and environment, with any true passion.

Having them for only two or three days out of the week it is difficult to rebalance and compensate for the 4 or 5 days of junk food they get with their mother and at the school. We have been at odds for years over many issues, and she refuses to pack lunches and serve them unprocessed foods, even though I offered to pay the difference in cost and deliver farm fresh meat and produce to her door.

The ideal situation and reality as it is now, are worlds apart, and it breaks my bleeding heart to have to make these compromises....alas for now I provide them the best combination of cooked and raw foods available when they are with me.

I'm not saying animals don't live healthier eating raw, but Pottengers' study seems flawed to me in that 95 percent or higher of cats in the US eat Only cooked diets and live respectable lives in terms of health and go on and have little reproductive issues, contrary to what Pottenger is trying to point out.   What am I missing here?
   IF,,  I'm not missing some important key factor, may I then point out how eager we can be to want to believe in the 'magic' of raw, as if it's going to save us from death.

   *All my pets have eaten entirely raw forever

Pottengers study enabled the pet food industry to supplement their nutrient deficiency cooked kibble with synthetic aminos and vitamins so as to avoid the kind of deformations and sterility caused by an unsupplemented cooked diet.

I would think this supplementation of cooked food carries over to the human world, so that many processed foods are supplemented with extra vitamins and minerals, and humans raised on primarily cooked diets can still grow fairly well and be athletic...even though the diet isnt rawptomal.

It would be interesting to take the offspring of the most awesomely athletic cooked food specimens, and raise them on a totally raw diet for comparison?....until then all we can do is speculate on these matters