Posted by:
Human
(
)
Date: October 05, 2017 04:02PM
I Love Bacon as much as the next guy, but at what cost?
***Warning: graphic and disturbing images and text are in the link, which connects to a story about a Smithfield Foods owned factory farm, Circle Four Farm in Utah.***
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/05/factory-farms-fbi-missing-piglets-animal-rights-glenn-greenwald/Glenn Greenwald, the author of the above article, says this on Twitter about the implications of sustaining ourselves on factory farms:
“There have to be spiritual costs from sustaining ourselves based on mass torture, misery, and slaughter of living things who suffer.”
Is this true?
Well, I don’t think at this point, despite enormous effort on the part of industry and government to cover it up, that we can deny that our meat is largely a product of “mass torture, misery and slaughter of living things who suffer.” That part is increasingly getting documented, despite the high cost to the courageous activists that risk almost everything to shed light on what is happening in our livestock industry.
But what of the other part of his point, the idea of our collectively suffering “spiritual costs” for consuming animals that have lived tortured, miserable lives? Is that true?
RfM could argue the idea of “spiritual” all day long, and have on several occasions. But I wonder, does believing that living things are without a soul, without a spirit, make it easier to stomach the suffering of living things? Is our descent into the practice of mass torture and suffering of animals a result of our increasing secularization? After all, our livestock practices are predicated on the rational practices of any other business. The spirit of humans or livestock are not part of the equation. Is this a mistake? Will we pay for it? I think we already are.
I’m struggling to not do what I really want to do: preach. But allow me to say one thing:
If you cannot go without eating meat (I can’t), then take the next best step and pay more to get your meat locally from humane farms. There is a lot of bullshit around “humane”. Whole Foods was just busted along with some chicken farm suppliers caught torturing its chickens and falsely advertising. There’s a lot of bullshit around food, as I’m sure everyone knows. So you have to actually visit the farm, meet the producers, tour the facility, etc. (In the Calgary area, I recommend using TKRanch out by Hanna).
Human