I often have personal conflicts with my choice to be a meat eater. The term meat eater is taken a bit more generally with some people. The most common meats that you would think about would be fish, pork, beef, and chicken. I think what companies do to these animals in bad enough let alone getting into the “specialties” and “delicacies”. Veal for example is just a baby that has been kept in a much smaller cage so the meat is tenderer. Lamb in my opinion should be used only for its coat that it supplies us with not for a nice rack of ribs. And even that could be gone about much more humanely in many places. I think of the Native Americans that killed only what they NEEDED and found a purpose for everything that came from that life. I could go on and on about an endless number of issues about livestock but I want to point out one that is probably in the top three of the worst I have ever seen.
In Europe and very few places here in the states horse meat is considered to be the cream of the crop. These animals that have transported us from point a to point b, pulled farm equipment to feed our families, and to date are often our pets, are now being bought, smuggled, tortured, and butchered to feed the whim of the rich in my opinion thoughtless. Granted the slaughtering of the most common of meats is still inhumane, the ways in which the horse slaughter houses here in the states is unacceptable. The two most common ways they kill them prior to butchering them is by cutting off a portion of the leg until they bleed to death or shooting them in the head with a nail gun. Neither of these is quick and easy per say for the horse. It often takes hours for the horse to “give up” with its injured leg. With the nail gun it often takes a few before it receives a fatal blow. All the while the animal is aware of what’s coming and usually, in the plants that this takes place, able to see the horses that have gone before them hanging by their hind legs being “bled”.
I understand that not everyone is going to stop eating meat; many probably wouldn’t cut down on the amount of meat that they eat. It’s very hard to say that one animal is ok to kill and another is not but we have to stop somewhere. Why is it that we have gone beyond the few animals that some believe are needed to have a balanced diet. Why do people need to have more, more, more? How is that so many people have come to enjoy the suffering of another living being so they can impress someone at the dinner table with the most expensive meat they could buy? I wish that we could go back to the time where we only killed what we needed and used all we took.
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People only see what is on the plate in front of them, so it often causes no moral dillemma with the "more, more, more". We have no idea that the norm in some countries is meat once a week, if that. When we can afford the luxeries, we can also afford to waste them. I read fast food nation for middle school and it was a real eye opener for me on how bad the situation is for both animal and human. People losing limbs in machines, knee deep in blood, with tortured animals was enough to turn me into a vegetarian for years. I could never understand why this wasnt made a bigger deal, until one day my grandfather tricked me into eating veal. I nearly cried when I found out, but his response was "it tasted good though, didn't it?" People will follow through with anything if they like it and it is the norm, since when that veal is covered in noodles and sauce it doesnt have a background beyond the kitchen that prepared it. And yet, in all my hypocracy, I'm not a vegetarian anymore....I eat ramen with flavoring packets of ground down chicken bones and who knows what else. If there was a picture of a chicken hung upside down being plucked and tortured would I still eat it? Probably. It only cost me 16 cents, while it cost some animal misery its whole life. It always seems to boil down to money and the ability to turn the other cheek.
ReplyDeleteWell the Native Americans (and I hate calling them that, because that’s not what they call themselves-ugh) were the ones who only ate what they needed. The people who took them over did not. We can’t go back to what we weren’t originally. I read of a similar story a couple of years ago where chimps and monkeys were being killed for their meat, and their brains. These were considered of the highest of delicacies in Europe and in some parts of the states. To think they could do that to a majestic animal as the horse is berserk. People are sick. There’s no other explanation. I sort of do a dance with vegetarianism and meat eating. People have to realize that being a vegetarian is expensive. That is why eating meat is cheaper. I think everyone should try vegetarianism for a week, or some period of time so that you could see the effects that it has on your body, your cognizance and your overall well-being. I can actually say that you do feel differently and think differently. You are what you eat. When you eat meat, all you ever think about is meat. Isn’t that the craziest thing?
ReplyDeleteI have always loved animals, and have always struggled to eat meat and want to be a vegetarian. That is really horrible about the horses in Europe. Duck is also considered to be an upscale cuisine, the more people buy it, the more they will make of it. Meaning there will be a lot less ducks. American's always use more than we need, including meat.
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