Snappy the Clam

Hi John,

First of all, thanks for reading the site -- we tend to not like cognitive dissonance so we generally only seek out websites that support our point of view (e.g. Republicans read conservative blogs that complain about liberals, and vice versa). The Ethicurean is generally a resource for people who are interested in eating animals who are humanely raised and slaughtered. However, it can also be a forum for debate -- there are a lot of facets to eating ethically and not everyone agrees on how to do so. I agree that we tend to euphemize slaughtering of animals, and I definitely agree that it's because we're uncomfortable with the idea. I recently started interning on a farm, and death is ever-present. In fact, I took a picture of a young chick and a chicken that had died, and I thought I ought not post it on the site. However, perhaps I will now.

And, for the record, I do intend to kill my own chicken when the chicks I'm helping to raise get to be seven months old. Unlike many others, I don't think this is necessary in order to be a carnivore. Your post suggests that it is.

Ethical omnivores and vegetarians are on the same page about one thing: both groups believe in a more humane life for the animal. Maybe there's a way that we can work together on that front, even as we debate our differences.

Hi John,

First of all, thanks for reading the site -- we tend to not like cognitive dissonance so we generally only seek out websites that support our point of view (e.g. Republicans read conservative blogs that complain about liberals, and vice versa). The Ethicurean is generally a resource for people who are interested in eating animals who are humanely raised and slaughtered. However, it can also be a forum for debate -- there are a lot of facets to eating ethically and not everyone agrees on how to do so. I agree that we tend to euphemize slaughtering of animals, and I definitely agree that it's because we're uncomfortable with the idea. I recently started interning on a farm, and death is ever-present. In fact, I took a picture of a young chick and a chicken that had died, and I thought I ought not post it on the site. However, perhaps I will now.

And, for the record, I do intend to kill my own chicken when the chicks I'm helping to raise get to be seven months old. Unlike many others, I don't think this is necessary in order to be a carnivore. Your post suggests that it is.

Ethical omnivores and vegetarians are on the same page about one thing: both groups believe in a more humane life for the animal. Maybe there's a way that we can work together on that front, even as we debate our differences.

I don't think it's necessary to kill the animals yourself. I was discussing this in the context of the linguistic sanitization of slaughter - that by using terms like "harvest" and showing pictures of cute animals it tends to distance people from the very real fact that in order to go from cute pig to bacon, someone has to kill the animal, and it's usually not the person who's going to eat the bacon. I don't think you need to produce all your own food, whether by slaughter or gardening. Though I do have more respect for you knowing that you're actually willing to do your own killing, most people don't want to walk that path. As regards veganism, I hardly think that the world is about to go veg*an. I have no illusions in that regard. Nor do I think everyone has to be veg*an; what worries me is "locally-raised" just becoming another foodie trend where people are unaware of what's involved in getting their grassfed beef/pork/whatever to them. If locally raised and slaughtered meat is a way to move away from the industrialization of food, then using euphemisms like "humane slaughter" and "harvested" just encourages the same disconnect from what you're eating and where it came from as does slabs of steak wrapped in plastic at Safeway (or Whole Foods, for that matter.) That unease you speak of is something the meat industry has worked very very hard to make you forget about.

You're probably right, actually -- many people will simply use the words "locally raised" and "grassfed" as a free pass. I was eating dinner at a popular Thai restaurant the other day -- where diners are obliged to sit elbow to elbow -- and was pleased to overhear a conversation regarding factory farming and the Corn Invasion. A beat later, he started talking about the health benefits of the "lemonade cleansing diet." My point is, the majority of people will always appoint "experts" to sort out what they should eat. Anyway the wind blows, you know.

And I'm certainly not excluding myself from that -- I haven't been to all of the farms from which I've purchased meat. I've asked questions, I've seen pictures, but the only way I can be sure that the animal is raised and killed in a way that I consider humane is if I see it for myself. Baby steps...

A few months ago I was eating bags of frozen chicken from Costco and not thinking about my food at all. And I admit that I am not always consistent -- I'll eat dinner as a guest, no questions asked -- but everyday I'm learning more and I'm always open to the possibility that what's okay with me today may very well not be tomorrow. For instance, I only recently began looking at factory farm pictures and reading about the conditions there, so I cannot live with purchasing factory-farmed meat or poultry.

I'm really wondering, do you not see visiting the farm, seeing the animals, and talking to the farmer (something industrial agriculture facilities are unwilling to do) as more connected than simply buying "slabs of steak wrapped in plastic at Safeway"? I really see a big difference there.

I'm really wondering, do you not see visiting the farm, seeing the animals, and talking to the farmer (something industrial agriculture facilities are unwilling to do) as more connected than simply buying "slabs of steak wrapped in plastic at Safeway"? I really see a big difference there.

No, of course there's a difference there. I think seeing the animals and talking to the farmer are good things. I like animals. But I think that there's still a disconnect if you're just going and seeing happy, frolicking animals in pens. This is the point I was getting at with the Pollan comment - I don't think you have to kill the animal yourself, but I do think you need to see it getting killed. Not every time, no, but I do think at least once. Perhaps you can stop by on the day Millie gets killed and watch it? Because then it's less about pigs (or, actually, pork) in the aggregate, and one pig - Millie - with all her personality and intelligence, which you found sufficiently charming to record - being killed. And then see if you can buy some of her and eat her. I would imagine that'll make you even more uneasy.

Yeah, I can get behind that.

I would like to point out that my coblogger (and cousin-inlaw), a.k.a. Dairy Queen, is the one who wrote the post, however. Just so you don't think I speak for her.

I had a bit of a hard time eating the meat from the bull that Chickenman had slaughtered and processed -- and I hadn't even seen it happen. But I had met him.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to discuss this, as well as the critique. Too many blogs end up being "echo chambers" of commentary. I plan on writing more in-depth on the topic of slaughter, and indeed, backing it up with some real research.

Best,
Omni

Hi John:

Dairy Queen, author of the offending euphemisms and piglet cooing here. And yes, I do intend to watch a "harvesting," starting with some chickens being killed and working my way up. I do think it's important to get an idea of not just the happy, mud-wallowing life, but the death as well. And ideally, I would be able to do the deed -- wield the knife or the stunner, if you want me to speak plainly -- myself.

I don't think this is for everybody, for sure, but neither is trying to grow your own food.
We have written about this uncomfortable topic many times, here's a few where it's explored in more detail:
http://www.ethicurean.com/2006/09/24/killing-chickens/
http://www.ethicurean.com/2006/08/02/would-you-could-you-anywhere/
http://www.ethicurean.com/2006/07/06/red-wattle-pigs/

For what it's worth, I used to be a strict vegetarian and card-carrying PETA member. I eventually began to eat protein that I was willing to kill myself, in theory, starting with shellfish and moving up to midsize fish, where I stopped. I started eating meat two years ago when I realized I could eat animals that had been allowed to live as pigs or chickens or whatever, instead of as protein widgets. I am an animal lover, and now I am a born-again carnivore -- eating in between the black-and-white moral areas.

Even as a piglet-admiring tourist, however, I am painfully aware that these animals would not be enjoying their lives nearly as much were they not destined for my dinner plate. A friend recently came back from India, where she described numerous starving cows wandering desolately through the pollution and traffic. No one eats these sacred beasts — but no one feeds them either. So unless someone can figure out how to build a petting zoo for the 9 billion poultry and 32 million cows that we kill every year in the United States, I prefer to focus my moral outrage on the meat factories and aseembly-line slaughterhouses, and not quibble over the word choices employed by farmers who humanely raise and kill small numbers of animals with their own hands.

Dialogue is important. If one can't defend one's beliefs, then they're probably flawed.

I don't get the whole "protectors and consumers" argument. It's an answer to an artificial situation. The "stewardship" argument seems to posit that these animals which we breed for our consumption are far better off than if we had not bred them for our consumption and therefore, we are perfectly justified in killing and eating them. However, if we weren't breeding so many, we wouldn't need to kill them in order to keep them from overrunning the country, as you seem to suggest with your "petting zoo" remark. By these lights, instead of putting stray dogs and cats in Humane Society shelters, we should be eating them as the best way to control their population.

Again. I am not interested in "meat or no?" arguments. All I am saying, is that if you are as willing to take as hard a look at this as you claim to be, looking at pictures in the newspaper of throat-cut chickens and reading Michael Pollan is not enough. I don't think you have to kill the animal yourself, so the "do you harvest your own vegetables?" question doesn't apply. I do think you need to actually see the animal killed, however, and I have to ask again - could you go see Millie killed, buy a portion of her, and cook and eat her? Not some abstract pig, but that individual, intelligent pig who likes being sprayed with water? I think my "quibble" with terms used come from there - that if you're really ok with killing the animal for your food, why not just call it that? Why the need for a term like "harvesting?"

In the comments to the "Would you could you anywhere" post, a couple of the commenters say something along the lines "these animals gave our lives to feed us." Well, no. They died because someone killed them and you ate them. They didn't give their lives to feed you, you took them. If you're going to kill animals for food, at least don't romanticize it with this "noble sacrifice" stuff. It's humane right up till the tip of the knife goes in, and then the terror is identical.

Again, it's all hypothetical for me (and I suspect you) at this point, but I am willing to say that yes, I could watch Millie being killed, then butchered, and then I could cook her and eat her. Human beings have done so for thousands of years; vegetarians are a tiny minority on this planet, and it's not because of advertising. Why do I think I could handle it? Because Liz Cunninghame, the rancher who owns Millie, and named her, and named ALL those cute piglets, does so every day.

I do, however, agree that we should all eat a lot less meat, and raise far fewer animals for food, and eat as much of them as we possibly can -- not just the ham and the bacon, but the ears and the feet and everything else.

Actually, there aren't any real good statistics for the world percentage of vegetarians; India seems to be the largest at about 30%, and even that is iffy. So I certainly agree that vegetarians are a minority while perhaps differing on degree. Why majority or tradition for carnivores make much difference here I am not sure; after all, you could use the thousands of years of tradition argument to justify slavery. I'm also not really sure why the farmer being able to handle it means you could, since you are different people and have different stakes in the endeavor. She has an economic reason for doing so, possibly including eating those animals to economize; you have no such economic stake. Again, I don't think that anyone has to become vegan. I just think they need to be honest about what it is they're up to. I do think even though ultimately slaughter in its cruelty belies the whole humane moniker and serves mainly to make carnivores feel better about killing animals for food, I also would rather see animals not suffer during their lifetimes, cut short though they may be. So on that point at least, though probably for different reasons, I think we can agree.