While the meat rich diets many of us eat is known not to be good for us, neither is a pure vegan one.

Children raised on vegan diets show slowed growth.

This negative effect was not seen in those who ate small portions of meat 2-3 times a week.

The reason meat tastes so good is because there is an inbuilt need for it, that we over indulge does not obviate this fact.

As Fred Negro once said, "meat means yum!"

I have an average suburban block (a little room for my marrows) and a few chickens.

I was discussing this issue this morning with my chief hen, Harriet (who, incidentally, considers herself a chicken as well as a hen) and we came to the conclusion that the moral issue at hand is not only about the way you meet your end - but also about the quality of each day that you live.

Candide: You put that so well.
Yabby: I read ur link with great interest. ty!

My spouse and I both have relatives who own farms. In emulating their good practices, we years ago set up a small hobby farm with pumpkin, cucumbers and tomatoes; raised goats for milk and meat; chickens and turkeys and 3 or 4 few pigs at a time. It wasn't any sort of money making enterprise nor was it meant to be.

We raised and treated all of the creatures with kindness and as much freedom as possible - well the pigs were confined but they had fenced outdoor spaces; soil and hay underfoot and clean shelter.

As someone pointed out, chickens are not very bright. I can say though that an ordinary chicken is Einstein compared to the average turkey. My favourite bird btw; they're so goofy and gentle.

Anyway all lived very pleasant lives but in due course were dispatched efficiently. Sometimes in our aim to give them the longest life possible we would leave them a little too long - the suffering of an oldish bird that's egg bound is pretty horrible. What is the outcome for a geriatric pig?

Chickens and turkeys might not be bright; but they still feel pain.
Pigs can be clever ( if surprisingly brutal) but they still feel pain.

I eat meat sparingly but I believe we need it and it's good tucker. I believe that if we were less greedy in our consumption that we could afford to pay higher prices as necessary to support good farming practice. Money is not the main issue anyway when we are speaking of ... spiritual health and the capacity to feel empathy and mercy.

The way that chickens are kept and battery eggs produced is cruelty at it's most obscene. The way that hundreds of little chicks are tumbled into grinding machines is a a nightmare.

I believe that we can and must (for our collective spiritual health) do much better.

Farming can be carried out with relative kindness and we should insist on that as a minimum.

I had resisted promoting the puerile but things are just too tempting.. like the smell of a tasty pork roast cooking away in the stove or the divine flavour of a rib-eye steaks, gently seared and served, medium-rare, with a delicate mushroom sauce….

I agree with Rehctub “You lot just like to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

but rehctub and I should remember

we, as humans, are commanded to ensure the moles "mountain" is a fashionably advanced place, full of amenities, interesting galleries and relaxing little nooks, designed to amuse moles in their search for the insects which they like to tear apart, mercilessly, with their sharp little mole teeth :-)

Pynchme “I believe that we can and must (for our collective spiritual health) do much better.”

If you want, for the sake of your “spiritual health”, to do “much better” I have no objection but I will take this opportunity to remind you

that your “ambit of authority viz-a-viz: spiritual health” extends to the end of your nose and no further.



My personal “spiritual health “ is perfectly OK, under my own auspices, thankyou

and is not something which you can claim any share of, authority over or representation for.


Now we have established that your concept of the “collective conscience” is just a cheap trick used to pretend you are more important than is true, we can get back to the more significant matter: that-

Chooks and critters are not humans, lacking the full range of cognitive skills to be even able to do a bad impersonation of a human and are thus inequal to and not worthy of the same “considerations to elevated enlightenment” as humans.

“Farming can be carried out with relative kindness and we should insist on that as a minimum.”

“kindness”, whilst I favour it as my personal style for interaction,is a quality rarely extended between the lower orders of critters, toward their fellow critters or toward humans.

So I would not be surprised if such “kindness” is reciprocated to with something less by farmyard animals.

Hi Col,

Col, I wish I knew how to inspire empathy where it doesn't exist. Certainly it's up to individuals to decide what they want to contribute and what they don't; but I believe that we are all connected and that what we do matters to the well-being of the whole.

You say, "“kindness”, whilst I favour it as my personal style for interaction"; why then is it preferable ? If it is preferable, why limit it? (It's not like we're going to use it all up).

Of course other creatures; at least the very least intelligent, would be unlikely to show kindness as we understand it. So why modify our potential for compassion to comply with a lower level? That's illogical.

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
— Albert Einstein