Meaty thoughts

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n the Christmas rush of seeing family, cooking, driving, and also trying to switch off, I have not done much in the way of thinking! However, I have read two very interesting articles recently and I simply wanted to share them here. Both relate to eating meat, which seems to be a theme in my life at the moment. 

George Monbiot, a British journalist, writes about meat, the current Western view of meat, and the farming practices which surround it. Whilst I am not able to comment on farming practices as I just don't know enough yet, I do agree with his idea that all children should be taken to abattoir (as part of the curriculum?), where they can actually witness the reality of eating meat: that an animal has to die. Ok, maybe not 7 year olds(!), but rather teenagers. Their decision to eat meat would then be built upon a more informed foundation. As Monbiot says:

"Rather than mindlessly consuming meat at every meal, we should think of it as an extraordinary gift: a privilege, not a right. We could reserve meat for a few special occasions, such as Christmas...All children should be taken by their schools to visit a factory pig or chicken farm, and to an abattoir, where they should be able to witness every stage of slaughter and butchery. Does this suggestion outrage you? If so, ask yourself what you are objecting to: informed choice or what it reveals? If we cannot bear to see what we eat, it’s not the seeing that’s wrong, it’s the eating."

(Monbiot, 2014)

I have come into contact with some people who are disgusted by the process that we had to go through when we slaughtered our own pigs, and do not want to hear about the process. Do not want to hear about the blood and the guts. While it is people's choice whether they can stomach it (no pun intended!), is it ok that they then go on to eat a steak for their dinner? I know this sounds militant! And on reflection, this is probably due, in part, to people not being exposed to the reality of meat production. I found gutting animals more off-putting when I started doing it than I do now. So maybe if people were exposed to the 'blood and guts' they would become more accustomed to it?

The second article was passed onto me by someone who thought it might help elucidate the ethics of eating meat. The Stony Brook Farm article, written by a pig farmer in the USA, looks at the the ethics of rearing and then slaughtering animals for meat.

"The simplest way to put it is that slaughtering animals for their meat is a socially permissible ethical transgression. Societal permission does not make it ethical, it just makes it acceptable. Slavery was for centuries socially permissible (in spite of the fact that there was always a minority standing firmly against it). Did that make it any less unethical? I doubt anyone today would say yes."

(stonybrookfarm, 2012)

Higher House Barn Sausages

The writer goes onto to say that "Because I give the pigs lives that are as close to natural as is possible in an unnatural system, I am honorable, I am just, I am humane, while all the while behind the shroud, I am a slaveholder and a murderer." Shocking as it sounds, this is how I felt after slaughtering our pigs. Whilst it was the best way for our pigs to die if we were going to eat them, the question still hangs: Did they have do die at all? I could chose not to eat any meat at all, and they would still be alive.

References

Monbiot, George (2014): Overgrowth. http://www.monbiot.com/2014/12/16/overgrowth/

stonybrookfarm (2012): The Grapple of Ethics. http://stonybrookfarm.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/the-grapple-of-ethics/

Winter and Us

Just before sunrise on Friday 19/12/14

So, after 48 hours of constant rain, I woke-up this morning to blue sky and the sun - and my mood improved. Through this change, I was reminded of how weather is a facet of Nature which nearly always punches through our disconnection to the outdoors regardless of what environment we are in - city or countryside. As a nation we moan about the rain or it being too hot. And, even though it is a negative attitude, it still illustrates our connection to the natural world: most of us are aware of the weather, if nothing else of the natural world.

I have become aware, this winter, of a shift in my mood as the days have drawn in, and the weather has become slightly harder, whether that be colder, windier, or wetter. My mood has dropped, or maybe I am just a bit more tired. I want to sleep more, and not go outside. It all just seems to take more energy. I know that I am not alone in this shift. And for me this demonstrates that we are more in-tune with the world around us than we are aware of - the seasons affect us whether we want them to or not.

The humble (and very cute) dormouse hibernates for long periods over the colder months, and so has to adjust to the drop in temperature. A dormouse can hibernate for up to six months, according to Wikipedia. So, our fellow mammals have to adjust to winter, and yet do we? We are aware of the days becoming shorter, and the temperature dropping, but do we do anything different to the summer months - do we adjust like the dormouse does?

As a person who clings to routine, I struggle to adjust, but I have found myself having to stop working outdoors earlier due to the lack of daylight, and wearing more layers to keep myself warm and dry. So, I have grudgingly adjusted to the season, but not very willingly! I believe that I am simply a reflection of society, however, which expects to continue with the 9 'til 5 work routine, and other usual tasks as if it was summer. And then people question why they find winter harder? society tries to explain the human difficulty with winter by diagnosing people with Seasonal Affective Disorder, rather than simply accepting that our moods, and our experience of the world, is affected by the seasons, the weather, and the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun. It is amazing to think that we are, in effect, directly affected by the amount sunlight the environment we live in receives. Obvious yet also amazing.

A significant experience

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 have oscillated between writing and not writing about the following experience for the past few weeks. It feels controversial. However, since this blog is meant to reflect significant ideas, experiences and thoughts that I have had, I must write about this.

Five weeks ago we slaughtered, and then butchered, our two pigs. Not at an abattoir, but at home; ourselves. It has been a life-shifting experience. I still think about it now at certain points during the day. It will be an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

We decided that if we were going to kill the pigs for meat, then the most humane way would be to do it in their field, in their space, while they were eating. The alternative was to drive them 8.7 miles to the abattoir; have them wait around in a strange place; and then for a stranger to kill them. Had we done the latter we could have sold the meat to family and friends, which would have been the upside to this method. The downside was the stress which it would have put the pigs under in their last few hours of life. We didn't feel it was right nor respectful to Penny and Bernie (our two pigs). We didn't want them to have even an inkling that they were going to die.

They died whilst eating breakfast in their field. In a practical sense, it was easy. Death is not difficult thing to dole out - didn't you notice that the last time that you killed a fly?. Emotionally it was much harder. And this is where it has marked me: Was it the right thing to do? Can I really justify killing another animal just so that I can eat meat? It is certainly better than eating battery chickens, and bacon from pigs which have been intensively raised in sow-stalls. But I am not convinced that it is absolutely right to eat meat. Why are my needs placed above that of a pig's?

I still miss them each time I look out of the window and see their water bucket hooked over the fence post. I feel poignant when I think back to the apples and banana which they were chewing as they died. And I feel sadness when I remember the way they used to gallop across their field when we came to feed them, or simply to say hello. They were very relational animals, just like us.