The politics of the plate

[hadassahchana[$]]

I just read a wonderful blog entry about Gourmet magazine's new monthly feature called 'Politics of the plate'. In this months magazine, they discuss the way chickens are slaughtered- which is not pretty.

I'm just really surprised that such a mainstream magazine would take on such a touchy subject. I'm going out today to buy a copy of the magazine- they are certainly being talked about which is good. I think it's about time that someone brings up issues like this. Ok, someone sane- i.e. not PETA. I'm hoping that the guys at Gourmet can keep doing this without using the guerilla tactics that PETA use.


Here is the blog entry, which is not gory. I absolutely love this blog!

Doolittler: Gourmet magazine gets kudos for its treatment of animal welfare issues

[theworm[$]]

As a vegetarian I get a bit suprised by this type of talk.

As most of you know, I am NOT one of those vegetarian's that thinks that eating meat is a sin. Eat what you want.

I do think that this type of article is great to make people think. I would love it if everyone viewed animals as living breathing animals. If you choose to eat them (and I see nothing wrong with this) then it would be nice to have it done with some respect for their sacrifice.

I would love for all meat farming and processing to be done humanely, but I don't know what that is. Letting little chicken or cow frolic in the meadow until we lop its head off and eat it is more humane how?

Making an animal sufferer needlessly is horrible. The slaughtering should be quick and efficient.

But if you choose to eat meat - an animal is going to be killed. Period. It's natural - it happens in the wild - and not humanely.

The difference is that humans have it down to an industry - it's not the poor rabbit being chased, caught and killed for food. Its an animal being raised to be food - not to be an animal.

If we want things to be done humanely - I'm not sure what that means to the meat industry. Nobody is suggesting that we all raise animals and go out back and kill them when we get hungry. Certainly when granny wrings the neck of a chicken its sort of icky too.

So what is the answer? What is the uproar. We each choose to eat or not eat meat. We can choose organic meat. We can choose kosher meat that has slaughtering rules supposedly making it more humane - though what happens leading up to the slaughter is still in question.

If we accept that people are going to eat meat - what is the "right" and "humane" way to do so? I think that most people in this country anyway, look at farmed animals in a different way than we look at wild animals and domesticated pets.

What I read in that article is not pleasant, but it's stating things that (to me anyway) are obvious. We're "lucky" to live in a society where most of us never have to really acknowledge what happens in "the processing of meat", but if we do, it boils down to raising something to take away its life.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Whenever I hear "humane slaughter," I think of the South Park episode where the turkeys go to the humane slaughter place to watch the Imax movie of flying over trees and then the big buzz saws come out of the walls to decapitate them.