Yolko Ono likes rolling with the big boys. Chickens just ain't her style.
(Yolko Ono! I am definitely stealing that when we get chickens.)
We've been there to visit, and even though I feel weird about making sure that the animals were happy, it did actually make me feel better to see how well they live until they are, you know, killed and we eat them. It reminds me of this hilarious Portlandia skit:
[Does the chicken have "a lot of friends? Other chickens as friends? Putting his little wing around another one, kind of like palling around?" It kills me, so funny.]
Anyway, there is very little in life that is more aggravating than someone talking about their holier-than-thou approach to eating food, but that isn't going to stop me. Briefly, here is why we only eat humanely-raised animals, and would never feed our children anything less:
1. I worked on a pro bono case yeas ago in which we advocated for the humane treatment of New Jersey farm animals. That was my first exposure to the horror of factory farming. You cannot un-learn that information. If you are someone can still eat factory meat after learning about the truly cruel conditions those animals are subject to, I do not understand you. I just don't. That is the main reason I didn't eat meat for so long - I couldn't live with the fact that animals were being tortured to death for my convenience. Why did I recently give up my strict vegetarianism? Exhaustion, mostly. Coming up with vegetarian meals that meet my almost-constantly-pregnant-or-nursing nutritional needs, and the nutritional needs of my children, and keep my meat-eating husband happy was possible but time-consuming and often frustrating. Since my real issue was with the treatment of the animals, I decided that if I could find a humane source of meat I would be ok with the morality of eating it again. But I truly admire vegetarians and feel like I gave in on this one a little.
2. there are some really, really gross hormones, antibiotics, etc. in factory meat. No thank you. Oh, and MRSA. Yum.
3. the workers at meat-packing facilities and slaughterhouses are generally treated terribly. While that is true of a lot of industries, eating factory meat is something that is pretty easy to avoid, so we do.
4. traditional farming methods, like those practiced at John Crow, are waaaaay better for the environment. Factory farms lead to all kinds of pollution, groundwater contamination, excessive methane gas in the air, etc.
If this is something that interests you, there are so many amazing resources - anything by Michael Pollan, such as The Omnivore's Dilemma, is a good place to start. Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas, one of my favorite, favorite blogs, wrote a lovely post on the morality of food choices a while ago: Food Choices ARE a Moral Issue.
And if you live in Massachusetts, check out John Crow! (I'm not getting anything from them for raving about them here, I'm just a big fan!)
Well done post! But then, I'd likely not find it holier-than-thou, anyway, since we eat that way, too. And what a brilliant name for a chicken... A neighbour who raises meat ducks names her drakes after pop stars - Ringo is the eldest.
ReplyDeleteHow much more expensive, pound-for-pound, do you find good meat to be compared to standard grocery store prices? Here in west-coast Canada, if you buy from the producer, it's a little more than double. If it's had to go through a middleman like a health-food store, it's about triple. So feeding a family of seven is costly, but - what else are we going to do, right?