I Got The Meat

So I promised myself not to apologise for the delay in producing content every time I produce content, which means I'm not going to apologise for the delay in producing content here and now.

Oh no.

Instead I'm going to explore veganism. Yup, I went there.

Vegans are often derided for the difficulties they pose as dinner party guests, but having recently been forced to consider the ethics of the meat trade after receiving a large box of exotic meat, it kind of brings home the contradictions in our diet.

Most of us would stop short of eating a cute excitable puppy or a happy fluffy kitten, but how is that really different to eating Peppa Pig, Peter Rabbit or Sean the sheep?

Having initially baulked at the Rose Veal in the package, a brief investigation revealed veal calves now are probably kept in way better conditions than your average industrially farmed hen. And we are appalled at the prospect of chowing down on a nice juicy horse steak yet think nothing of slaughtering 9 million pigs a year, creatures of equivalent if not higher intelligence and sentience than your average family pet.

We apply these sorts of double standards every day because it suits us - we can be moral and yet immoral at the same time. It balances out, right? We certainly don't want to contemplate the conditions that animals are generally kept in and some of the extremely questionable practices that still go on all over Europe.

Humans are nothing if not experts in denial. We don't think about where food comes from, and meat itself is generally thoroughly disassociated from the animal from which it originates - who in Middle England wouldn't be appalled at the very thought of killing what they eat themselves?

Vegans do think about all this- it's why they are vegans. Ethically and environmentally speaking, it is absolutely the right thing to do.

For most of us though, it is difficult to take umbrage at the annual porcine Auschwitz when bacon tastes just so damn good.

vegan, piggies, slaughter, pointless keyword 4

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