I'm referring to the above article that I just read tonight, it's a very interesting article with a very interesting view. I have been thinking a lot lately about animal cruelty, and what we eat.
Just recently we bought some chooks for layers, now in our backyard, they have full roam, they even got into my veggie patch which I was a little less than impressed with, however when we received them this is how they looked:
They had just a minimum amount of feathers. The reason for this is because they were battery hens. According to http://www.poultryhub.org/poultrypedia/cage-regulations/ the minimum size of a battery hen cage is 550 square cms, this is for two or three birds weighing less than 240g each. So shoved into small cages with other birds, hence they have their beaks cut in order to prevent them from pecking each other, so the feathers as a result come off from rubbing on the side of the cage.
So it made me think, most of our chicken comes from battery farms, even what we eat does. Hazledenes for example here in Bendigo, who supplies much of the supermarkets across Victoria, is a battery farm, their birds are allowed to live for 88 days where they are given high protein food that makes them lay sooner and more regularly, and then they are killed for food, they are not given a day or night, they are kept in a large shed where there are lights on 24/7... I don't know about you, but I'm not sure that this is an overly pleasant existance!!
Well what does all this mean to me? I'm not sure really, I like to eat meat, but I don't like hypocrisy. And I can't totally be sure that what they are advertising as organic is truly organic. As I was told, but don't know this for fact, that all it takes for a farm to be classed as "free range" is for the chickens to be able to get out a door, but unfortunately there are so many chickens in the shed, that they don't go out the door. As I said I'm not totally sure whether this is actually the truth, but would love to know your opinions about it.
I love a series on television called "River Cottage" Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall is the man who began river cottage, and his motto is to raise his own meat, that he raises completely free range and organically, and to eat every part of the animal. I like this idea! However, I face a problem with this idea, I don't have a farm!! However, the concept is brilliant.
I worry so much about what we are putting into our systems. For the longest time I never liked Apricots, that was until this year, a lady I know, her dog died and to cut a long story short, we buried the dog in our backyard, as a result she gave us an apricot tree. This year was the first year that they fruited... They were the juiciest most beautiful apricots I have ever tasted!! I bought some Peaches from Coles last week.... They were dry, hard and revolting. All of the juice had been completely evaporated. I looked into why this is, and the reason being that the fruit is picked before it is ripened on the tree, it is then gas ripened. So uses gas, the gas that it uses is a hormone called ethylene. I looked up ethylene, to see what it does to our bodies when ingested on it's own, the New York Times health section said that some of the affects are: Kidney Failure, Shock, Coma, Death..... Not nice things to read. So this made me wonder, what kind of affect is this having to our bodies over a long period of time?Has anyone else wondered why there is an increase of disabilities such as Autism? ADD? ADHD? Why illness such as Cancer, Diabetes and Heart Failure are on the rise? Now I know that to some extent fast food is a factor in this, but I have to question, with the amount of chemicals that are being put into our systems, could this be what is having a dire affect on our children, and childrens children?
I look back at my grandparents generation, my grandfather, lived until he was 88 years old, what killed him? He took a very nasty fall!! In the end he had Hodgkins disease and his health was beginning to fail, but he was 88 for crying out loud.... My grandfather grew up on a farm, ate food straight from the land. And I wonder is this the reason it took him to fall over before he was taken off this earth?
Maybe I'm just a bit of a conspiracy theorist, maybe I'm just paranoid, but I can't help but wonder if we take away all the fat and replace it with enhancers, flavourings and chemicals, if we can't even eat our fruit ripened under the sun and chemical free, what is this doing to not only our bodies but our future generations bodies....
Well it seems I have gone right off the point of whether eating meat makes us a bully, but it's an interesting thought, is the killing of an animal for food purposes right? Or is it in how they live that stops us from being bullies? Or is like Hugh, giving them the best life, the most humane and quickest death and then honouring their bodies by using every piece of it, the right thing to do?
What do you reckon?
Love you all
Sam
xxx
This was the rooster that we raised up and killed to eat.... it was quite delish!! But are we bullies?
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