24.
If we are animal eaters,
we support animal cruelty, whether we like it or not! If we’re at all
concerned, then we have to balance our own wants against the cost to the
animals themselves. If we don’t care about the feelings of animals then it’s
likely we are not to be trusted around any animals at all, since the use and
abuse of them is always going to be too tempting. We’re always going to be
considering our own interests before theirs. Even the most beloved companion
animals at home may prove this point. When their medical treatment incurs high
veterinary bills some can’t pay and some can but won’t and have their animals’
lives brought to an early end for their own convenience.
Perhaps it’s here that we’re most sorely tested – the
animal we say we love presents us with a difficult choice between the outlay of
a considerable sum of money and the saving of the beloved animal’s life. For
some it will always be compassion that decides. For others even the kennelling
costs whilst away on holiday convince them to have their animal put down, to be
replaced by another on their return.
Those animals that
are used for food are entirely beyond consideration since we are taught to feel
no responsibility for what happens to them. So long as we don’t know too much
about their living conditions or the manner of their death, we can enjoy the
‘benefit’ of them. Since almost all of us do it, there’s hardly anyone left to
put pressure on us to change.
These
farmed, faceless animals are not only very available (when dead), but as
everyone knows are so tasty to eat and a good source of protein. Surely, we
argue, we’d be mad not to accept Nature’s generous bounty? Since no animal can
match a human’s strength and brain power we know there’s no danger of them
fighting back. They make easy prey for us and once we’ve enslaved them, they
become rather like food-on-tap. We can regulate the timing of their lives and
deaths and therefore make efficient use of them, to the fullest extent. Most
people have never considered the possibility that this traditional use of
animals is wrong.
Those of us who are more kindly disposed towards animals
might want to make our disagreement known. But does that mean we must avoid all
animal food? If so, does that mean we will starve or become ill by not eating
meat or animal by-products?
Up until the middle of the last century, this was the
common belief; that animal protein was nutritionally essential and without meat
our health would be compromised - we’d become anaemic, lack physical and mental
energy and our children would sicken. By the second half of the twentieth
century this belief was exploded by a few brave people who experimented with
avoiding all animal protein, finding that the human body actually thrived on a
plant-based diet. From that point, everything began to change, for a
significant number of people. Now it was possible, if it suited us, to take on
a different regime of eating where there was no danger to our health by not
eating animals. Indeed, we were at last realising that humans do not need to
depend on animals for anything - transport, clothing, entertainment or food. We
would be able to regard animals as sovereign, irreplaceable individuals and
allow them to live out their lives without human interference. And yet as
free-willed human beings, we still had the ‘choice’ and it seemed that for the
overwhelming majority, making use of animals was still too tempting to give up.
No comments:
Post a Comment