Food Animal Cruelty

For some reason I seem to be seeing more about this of late. I read one thing on how to humanely kill/cook lobster, that also dealt with the humanity of how we cook shellfish (mostly by boiling them alive). There also seems to be a lot now on feed lots and how inhumanely chickens are treated in the run up to being delicious.

On the one hand, there are serious issues associated with most of the protein part of our food consumption. Cattle are voracious eaters. It takes a monstrous amount of land and crops (and energy) to raise cattle to the point where we slaughter them. Feed lots are breeding grounds for disease so the animals are all pumped full of antibiotics as a precaution which aids in the production of resistant strains. Many fisheries are strained and many farmed fish types are environmentally or ecologically troublesome.

That said, the notion of humanity in how we kill, butcher and cook food animals always strikes me as odd. Animals consumed by other animals in the wild don't draw this ire (Dear God, those lions didn't use any anesthetic before killing that gazelle and it took the poor creature minutes to die!). In more impoverished nations, larger animals are often bled to death, whereas here, they are killed quickly with a slug fired by pneumatic action into their skull. None of it sounds pretty or nice, but these animals are food and we are omnivores. It is certainly possible to get complete nutrition without eating animal flesh, but it is a fair bit more difficult. No flora can provide complete protein (on its own) and lots of good fatty acids are also harder to come by.

It is really only wealthy people with too much time on their hands who can afford the luxury of worrying about this. The attitudes they subject others to seem condescending to me (and likely others). The idea that we should care to treat pigs and chickens with the same level of humanity that we treat other people is insulting, particularly when one considers that we don't actually treat other people all that well. If we had rid the world of war, violence, hunger and poverty then maybe I could sympathize with people who felt compelled to make sure that, in the unlikely event that crustaceans can experience pain on some level comparable to us (they can't***) that they were executed in a fashion that would cause less suffering. But we don't live in that world and these people seem to me to mostly have severely out of whack priorities.

I do think that people should be given a better appreciation of where food comes from. It would be a good idea for schools to have field trips to farms, fisheries and slaughterhouses, particularly more urban (and suburban) kids who are less likely to get exposed to such things. I also think that overconsumption of meat is a problem, and I don't eat a whole lot of it myself (lots of fruit and veggies and grains). The amount of farmland, water, and energy it takes to produce meat is
insane, and going full vegetarian really is a green thing to do. It also takes more discipline and meal planning (or supplements).

But, hey, meat is tasty, and there is no valid (rational) reason to ditch it entirely. For the environmentally conscious there are more and more meats that are produced in a sustainable fashion. They cost a little more, but if you reduce the total amount, there is no reason that total food costs should go up.

I feel compelled to wrap up here by saying I do believe animal abuse is wrong and should be criminally punished. I have a dog, and I love my dog, and I will do a hell of a lot more than is purely reasonable to spare her pain and suffering, but she is not a person. It does not bother me in the slightest that there are peoples in the world who would and do eat dog meat. There are shades of gray here, but my main issue is when these issues are extended from pets and more intelligent creatures to rats, rabbits, and other lower thought order animals used for science and for food. I appreciate the notion that our actions toward those creatures beneath us are reflective of our character, but I also appreciate the need for food (animal protein) and scientific advancement and those lab and food animals are not people. (I'm not sure that I'm a whole lot more compassionate toward some people, but for the pain issue, this is a very valid point.)