from FT:
Factory farming produces cheap meat in unprecedented quantities. Before Steele’s experiment, chicken was a rare luxury. A “chicken in every pot” was an American dream. Today, says Foer, the average American eats “the equivalent of 21,000 entire animals in a lifetime”, while spending an unprecedentedly small share of his income on food. The consequences are dreadful.
Billions of animals experience horrible deaths after worse lives. Constantly sick, they give us our flu pandemics. They occupy and degrade nearly a third of the world’s land, use up and pollute water, and warm the planet. According to the United Nations, animal agriculture is the single biggest cause of climate change. It contributes 40 per cent more to global warming than all forms of transport combined. As Foer says: “Someone who regularly eats factory-farmed animal products cannot call himself an environmentalist without divorcing that word from its meaning.”
But what bothers him most is the cruelty to mammals, poultry and fish. This happens in secret, because factory farmers don’t allow visitors. Nobody needs to know how the sausage is made. Foer breaks into a turkey farm at night to see the misery for himself. As he points out, it’s all unnecessary. We could live at least as healthily without meat.
Certainly, in rich countries, logic should impel us to close factory farms and turn meat back into a luxury food such as caviar and truffles, to be eaten on special occasions only. That would accord with our stated ethics. According to one poll Foer cites, 76 per cent of Americans say they care more about animal welfare than low meat prices. Yet we have made a collective decision to torture animals and the planet simply because meat tastes good. We can’t blame the factory farmers: they supply cheap meat because we demand it.
Factory farming produces cheap meat in unprecedented quantities. Before Steele’s experiment, chicken was a rare luxury. A “chicken in every pot” was an American dream. Today, says Foer, the average American eats “the equivalent of 21,000 entire animals in a lifetime”, while spending an unprecedentedly small share of his income on food. The consequences are dreadful.
Billions of animals experience horrible deaths after worse lives. Constantly sick, they give us our flu pandemics. They occupy and degrade nearly a third of the world’s land, use up and pollute water, and warm the planet. According to the United Nations, animal agriculture is the single biggest cause of climate change. It contributes 40 per cent more to global warming than all forms of transport combined. As Foer says: “Someone who regularly eats factory-farmed animal products cannot call himself an environmentalist without divorcing that word from its meaning.”
But what bothers him most is the cruelty to mammals, poultry and fish. This happens in secret, because factory farmers don’t allow visitors. Nobody needs to know how the sausage is made. Foer breaks into a turkey farm at night to see the misery for himself. As he points out, it’s all unnecessary. We could live at least as healthily without meat.
Certainly, in rich countries, logic should impel us to close factory farms and turn meat back into a luxury food such as caviar and truffles, to be eaten on special occasions only. That would accord with our stated ethics. According to one poll Foer cites, 76 per cent of Americans say they care more about animal welfare than low meat prices. Yet we have made a collective decision to torture animals and the planet simply because meat tastes good. We can’t blame the factory farmers: they supply cheap meat because we demand it.
Posts
