Ateday gets the prize for the biggest inferiority complex, believing he/she is no better than an animal.

The author says that farmers are "permitted" to do "cruel things" to animals, but doesn't elaborate on what those cruel things are. I don't believe there is any permission given in Australia for anyone to be cruel to animals. There is no doubt there are people who are cruel to animals, and when they are detected, they are prosecuted by via perfectly good laws. Animal "rights" are just a load of tosh. Animals should be well-treated, cruelty should be punished; but the author and her friends are dreaming.

I think farmers do an honorable and respectable job putting food on other peoples plates.

It seems you have an issue with the treatment of chickens.
Did you know that farmers must raise these chickens for 6 weeks (sometimes less) before it ends up on your plate?
Did you know the farmers get less than a dollar a bird so that everyone can get a nice roast chook for under 8bucks at Coles and Woolies?

You want to blame the farmer, but they are being squeezed by everyone, till of course they put a gun in their mouth and squeeze the trigger on that.

And if you are worried about Mastitis, why don't you look into Monsanto Bovine Growth Hormone and what it does to every single milk producing cow that is injected with it.

I enjoy a piece of venison backsteak. and once eaten you'll never eat beefsteak again? Moreover, mum could create the most delicious and tender roast bunny that you'll ever taste and wild pork takes some beating if you know how to prepare the carcass?

And while roasting a Sunday roast in the oven replete with crackling. A traditional maori hangi takes some beating for melt in the mouth meals!

Naturally none of these alluded to feral animals suffered as carefully placed projectiles destroyed their tiny minds.

We are omnivores and rightly so, given that's the only reason we survived as a species, or indeed get enough, essential for our sanity, vitamin B12 and as the best source of essential iron. And beats the hell out of having to eat a bucket of broccoli every day to maintain a bare and necessary minimum of dietary elemental iron.

Yes emotions are important, inasmuch as we leave them out of constructive debate, rather than be ruled entirely by them!

[The green response to mining a dead reef?] Imagine applying the same over the top emotional response to inhumanely chomped on down (while still alive?) oysters, (we should shoot them furst Hillbilly) a more than useful source of many essential dietary minerals.

And given that is so, humane treatment of farmed animals will alway trump doing otherwise, which as a husbandry model just imposes unnecessary stress, which n turn creates tough meat more suitable for shoe leather than the plate!
Alan B.

Inner city nonsense.

Alan B.,

I can get quite emotional over venison back straps too. This way,

http://www.realtree.com/timber-2-table/bacon-wrapped-venison-loin-with-mushrooms-and-red-wine-sauce

I do enjoy my old-fashioned, slow-cooked venison, roo or goat casserole in the not so old-fashioned Bedourie camp oven (great gear). Beaut, leads you back to camp.

What is good is the trend towards cooking shows where game is used. Great for children in highly suburban Oz.

Flagging country towns can do a lot of business if the game appetite and traditions of hunting for the table of our grandparents, or parents in the case of many migrants, were revived and they should be.

Let the grey nomads take their 'squirrel guns' (.22) to those rabbits (and any fox that appears) to help out farmers and put some tasty bunny in the pot to give the potatoes some flavour.

Honestly, why do the Greens and animal welfare activists -'animal welfare'?, they are joking - push for expensive contractor chopper drops of 1080 poisoned carrots to cause magnificent animals like deer to die in excruciating pain and be left to rot in the bush?

They are game, first class protein and should be recognised as such.

This strikes me as very much a "first-world" issue, designed to make work for people with an overload of emotional baggage, but little understanding of how life treats the vast majority of the seven-plus billion humans on this planet.

If the same amount of energy and expense were directed at improving the lot of a bunch of hungry and thirsty people somewhere in the less fashionable parts of the world, I'd be much more impressed.

We must be a very rich country indeed to spend time and money (I assume there is a government department somewhere that is paying Ms Hatten's wages) on such pointless activities.

I wonder whether she keeps a pet? Animal cruelty, much?