And Another Thing.
There have been a few things I've been meaning to post about. I think today, I'm going to go with something I find quite tricky to accept in people, which is their ability to switch off and just not care about something unless it directly affects them. I see this all the time, and of course, I do this myself sometimes too although it's something I'm trying to change. One hard thing I've had to do recently, is sign off Nandos food. Not because they make bad food, but because they don't use free-range animals for their food. My wife saw a video a while back which had her in tears about how animals are treated in factory farms. It seems some people can adopt a mentality of, "Well it's going to die anyway, so what's the big deal?". It's funny because if humans, which all die eventually too were treated the same way, there would be an armed revolt about it. But we have convinced ourselves that it's ok in this situation and also the main reason we don't care, is because we don't know. Ignorance is bliss and all that. I would have recommended not watching the video had I know, because I know from experience that once you watch something, you cannot unwatch it. It doesn't work that way. I won't post the link here either, but some of things that have been recorded over a six month period by an animal welfare worker, working undercover in a chicken farm that supplies KFC:
* Employees throwing the chickens against walls for no reason other than to cause them pain.
* Employees jumping up and down on chickens until they burst, literally.
* Employees squeezing chickens until they defecate themselves.
* Chickens being kept in cages which are not maintained or cleaned, where the build-up of ammonia (from their waste) burns the skin off their feet.
* Chickens are de-feathered by being dunked in boiling oil, the machine that 'processes' them often doesn't kill them, (it simply admits an electric shock to stun them) and there was footage of chickens being boiled alive, trying to get out of the oil.
To be honest, I could go on, but I really don't want to. Simply typing this is making me ill. For ages I happily dined at various restaurants and bought whatever was tasty, without any knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes, and I think the first step I've made towards becoming a person I like more, is begining to care about these things. I can't stop them, by flicking a switch, but I can stop contributing to them by supporting others restaurants, manufacturers and brands. Free-range stuff is out there, you just need to look for it.
There was a series in the UK called Meet the Meat, where they take a meat-eater who loves his meat, and he follows the life-cycle of an animal from birth to death. He couldn't eat meat at all for 6 months after doing this, the process was so horrific. He does eat meat again now, but only free-range.
I love animals. In South Africa in my bedroom at one time, I had as pets:
* 3 tree frogs.
* 3 scorpions.
* 3 snakes (3 was a popular number for some reason).
* 12 mice.
* 6 rats.
In another room, I had:
* One really huge spider, I forget the species.
* A cockatiel.
* A chameleon.
Eventually I had to let them all go, as catching food for them all was taking close on several hours a day. Also, I much preferred seeing them not in cages. I don't think it matters how an animals life is going to end, and I don't think that means we can pawn off it's suffering as unimportant. I know if the positions were reversed, my suffering would be of paramount importance to me. So why don't we care, as long as it's not us? Are we that selfish?
Food for thought.
Cheers,
Digit
"The first time I ever entered a battery house I thought it was the entrance to Hell"
Violet Spalding.
* Employees throwing the chickens against walls for no reason other than to cause them pain.
* Employees jumping up and down on chickens until they burst, literally.
* Employees squeezing chickens until they defecate themselves.
* Chickens being kept in cages which are not maintained or cleaned, where the build-up of ammonia (from their waste) burns the skin off their feet.
* Chickens are de-feathered by being dunked in boiling oil, the machine that 'processes' them often doesn't kill them, (it simply admits an electric shock to stun them) and there was footage of chickens being boiled alive, trying to get out of the oil.
To be honest, I could go on, but I really don't want to. Simply typing this is making me ill. For ages I happily dined at various restaurants and bought whatever was tasty, without any knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes, and I think the first step I've made towards becoming a person I like more, is begining to care about these things. I can't stop them, by flicking a switch, but I can stop contributing to them by supporting others restaurants, manufacturers and brands. Free-range stuff is out there, you just need to look for it.
There was a series in the UK called Meet the Meat, where they take a meat-eater who loves his meat, and he follows the life-cycle of an animal from birth to death. He couldn't eat meat at all for 6 months after doing this, the process was so horrific. He does eat meat again now, but only free-range.
I love animals. In South Africa in my bedroom at one time, I had as pets:
* 3 tree frogs.
* 3 scorpions.
* 3 snakes (3 was a popular number for some reason).
* 12 mice.
* 6 rats.
In another room, I had:
* One really huge spider, I forget the species.
* A cockatiel.
* A chameleon.
Eventually I had to let them all go, as catching food for them all was taking close on several hours a day. Also, I much preferred seeing them not in cages. I don't think it matters how an animals life is going to end, and I don't think that means we can pawn off it's suffering as unimportant. I know if the positions were reversed, my suffering would be of paramount importance to me. So why don't we care, as long as it's not us? Are we that selfish?
Food for thought.
Cheers,
Digit
"The first time I ever entered a battery house I thought it was the entrance to Hell"
Violet Spalding.