The big difference is that my chicks get fed clean food, clean water and will get to live outdoors and actually BE CHICKENS before they are humanely slaughtered. If you eat meat, you are complicit in the death of an animal, whether at your own hands or by proxy.
This Meat Fail made me laugh, and then it made me very very sad:
Sorry for the terseness of this post, but the reality distortion field that the general population has propagated into the media and beyond gets a little grating sometimes. Know your food, it's the only way to stop the abuse of animals in our industrialized food complex. Give a damn about the animal who gave up its life to nourish your own.
9 comments:
Good post, daun.
A doc I used to work for...every year his family hosted fresh air kids from the city. Usually NYC. It was AMAZING to me...how they had no idea where food came from. Scary actually. I would also babysit for this docs family...had some interesting conversation with those kids.
We would take them to orchards, a friends dairy farm, greenhouses, and plant seedlings with them. They were older kids, but almost seemed to regress to little kids with their excitement!
Sorry for the long-ness!!
I'm glad your chickens will have the good life before they're eaten. Fatten up little chickies!
It seems weird, to ooh and ahh over how adorable something is when you know you're going to butcher it in a few months. But on the other hand, I don't see how closing your heart to the beauty of the world would be any better. I suspect that if your heart is so hard that you can't appreciate the beauty of your critters, you're more likely to mistreat them.
I am keenly aware of where all of my food comes from, but meat especially. That's why I don't eat much of it. Having said that, our four dogs put us very high on the meat consumption scale which is something I feel very unsettled about. How would the face of western food consumption change if none of us had pet carnivores?
Sylvia, You are so correct, people have no idea. But it's worse than that. When people believe that meat grows out of a petri dish and does not come from an animal, it allows the animal to live it's life hidden away from the public view. And then greed takes over and corners are cut and the animals suffer. If all slaughterhouses, feedlots, CAFOs had transparent walls, animal abuse there would stop. But not only have people allowed for the raising of meat to be taken away from view, they now believe that meat wasn't raised to begin with. So sad.
Funder, Exactly. Gratitude and appreciation are a part of life (and death) around here.
DP, Sadly, I think most carnivore pets in this country eat what humans eat, processed corn. When kibble became the main food for pets, meat left the menu.
I know if my four dogs didn't eat meat than our meat consumption would decrease by 80%. That's why it has been great to find a local farmer to sell me his "discards" (chicken backs, pork necks, turkey necks) for $0.50/lb. Between that and my eggs, my dogs are eating ethically as well.
Heh, I was just going to say that. If all the pet carnivores in North America magically disappeared, the parent companies of pet food manufacturers would just have to find something else to do with all that animal byproduct meal. Those of us who feed raw or home-cooked are a tiny drop in the bucket.
Funder, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times:
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
It's starting to creep me out. ;)
Funder and Daun, you guys crack me up.
I had a great note written about a similar topic that frustrates me. But then I realized I'd had too much wine and wasn't making sense. Let's leave it at I missed you guys! I've started a new job (while freelancing on the side), so my time management really sucks.
Oh god. I was just clicking around reading funny things on the internet and I stumbled on this horror story about pork. I am serious, it's horrible, don't click if you think ignorance is bliss.
I have got to source some local BACON. I can take or leave uncured pork but life without occasional bacon and hot sausage isn't really worth living for me.
Funder....blech! That rolling stone article was a great piece, but disturbing. Ug! I might have to start being a better Jew! That is, until I know where my pork is comng from. ;)
Post a Comment