There is no such thing as happy meat

This post is probably just preaching to the choir, but some of my meat eating friends do read this, so I persist.

In my last entry, I alluded to the fact that this comment on a friends blog irritated me to no end:

"By all means make it humanely slaughtered organic red meat, but red meat is still your very best source of dietary iron."

There is no such thing as humanely slaughtered animals. Killing animals is not humane. If you think it can be done humanely, come over here and let me stun you with a stun gun, or cut you with a knife and then you can tell me all about how humanely I did it. No animal wants to die. And, you know what, no animal needs to die so that a person can eat dinner (my previous post addresses the iron issue). If you want to think that you are eating happy meat, you should assure yourself that the meat was really happy.** Otherwise, you really don't know what you are talking about. So, watch the videos of slaughterhouses, chicken farms, and bulls being castrated without anestisia and then see if you still think that the animal is happy. These things happen on all farms including free range farms, and the animals are sent to the same slaughterhouses as animals not raised free range.

Furthermore, if you are still reading this, even if there truly were some real life happy meat where animals roamed free and slept in hay and rolled in the dirt when they wanted to... and you commited yourself to only eating happy meat, and free range eggs... what happens when you go out to dinner? Do you ask the chef how the meat was raised? or do you eat vegan when you eat out so that you can be sure that you are sticking to your morals about how animals should be raised? Of course not. The fictional happy meat is a myth that meat eaters want to believe and the meat industry put out there. It makes you feel better about eating meat and killing and abusing animals.

Sorry if this seems like an angry post. But, I have a hard time not getting really mad thinking about the 10 billion plus animals that are killed every year for Americans to eat. It's horrifying. Once you know how many animals are killed and how they are treated, how can you still eat it?

** Ask me and I'll lend you some videos.