Normally I blog about light and fluffy stuff - vegan food, kitty cats and those exceptionally beautiful Supernatural boys. I'm not normally one for the serious blogging. But I read something in the paper this morning that just really made me cranky.
It comes from a new cookbook called 'Meat'. You can imagine this will not be on my shelf. In it he describes 'a stroll through an abattoir that is not for the squeamish'. I firmly believe that all meat eaters should indeed be confronted with the reality of how their meat goes from living, breathing, feeling animal to that slab on their plate. How many more vegetarians and vegans might there be if a trip to the abattoir was compulsory for all high school kids? So, let us read on...
'I'm not denying it's a confronting and even brutal experience, but slaughtermen are skilled professionals and I've always been impressed by the pains that they take to give the animal as stress free and as comfortable death as possible. The whole process is surprisingly quick. The animals are received into holding pens at the abattoir a day or two ahead of time to let them settle. When the times comes they are herded, single file, through a corral. At the end of the line each animal reaches a small restraining pen screened from the animal behind it. It is held firm and the 'knocker' holds a bold gun to the forehead, which stuns and kills the animal instantaneously.'
Sounds lovely. Stress free and comfortable death? How nice. Letting them settle? Absolutely. And screening the animals? Perfect... you know, if they also happened to lose their sense of smell, sight, hearing, I am sure they have absolutely no concept of what is happening.
Anyway, I am possibly scaring off some of the nonvegans who read this blog, but I am sure all the vegans reading it will have their own thoughts on it. To be honest, I just found the entire passage really disturbing trying to sugar coat the abattoir experience.
So now I will get off my little vegan soap box, and back into the kitchen.
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For what it's worth I agree with you that the pretense that abattoirs are just fine and dandy is disturbing. What dishonest nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThe truth REALLY does hurt, so pretending that there isn't a big white elephant in the room is more prefereable to knowing that it IS there.
ReplyDeleteI won't be putting that book on my list of wanted cookbooks either! :P
ReplyDeleteBut srsly, why do ppl admire abattoirs workers? They kill for a living and somehow justify it? Ba-bow. I think if more ppl admitted they know what goes on they would go vege/vegan.