Monday, August 19, 2013

Don’t tell the kids

811: 

For almost everybody, the quiche they eat, the biscuit with their coffee, the many thousands of items containing animal ingredients, none of these food items are considered wrong. They all seem quite benign. But each one connects back to animal abuse because of what they contain. The connection between that eggy-quiche and the creature who laid the egg is obvious. A three year old could comprehend it; they’d know the food was ‘wrong’ because of the way hens are treated.
            Making the connection isn’t the problem, it’s ignoring it that’s problematic. We aren’t used to examining the ethics of the food we eat or applying those ethics to daily life. It’s easier to continue eating whatever is delicious and avoiding these connections. By refusing to eat something (eg. a quiche) on principle means some level of self-denial, and for the sake of what? A chicken? A creature whose body we eat anyway, on a regular basis?
            To think it through, from egg to quiche, from imprisoned animal to dinning table, is a process any child could understand IF they were told. Most kids would have nightmares at the very thought of being involved with the entombing of hens in wire cages; they’d see that it couldn’t be justified by any need to have cheap eggs to eat.
Children might object strongly, if it were explained to them, but that would mean one huge hassle for parents when making the kids’ breakfasts. If children got wind of what was really happening to farm animals, and for instance refused to eat eggs, it could be the thin end of the wedge; it might lead to their refusing other foods. So, parents use ‘a small deception’, by withholding certain information from them. This is one farmyard story they don’t tell.
            “Please understand, it’s not lying, it’s just omitting certain crucial facts, and thereby moulding the way we want our kids to think”.
            Children are virtually powerless when it comes to food. They can’t ask a simple question and expect a truthful answer, not when it comes to asking where their food comes from. Keeping kids in the dark, over this matter anyway, is convenient for parents and teachers and the food retail industry.
When children start applying ethics to food, life gets complicated. Parents fill their fridges with handy, ready-to-go foods which work well with kids. Take eggs, for instance. They are used as ingredients for many items of foods. The egg works wonders, as do most meat and milk products. The foods made with these products are especially popular with kids.
            Most kids have a very natural sense of right and wrong, and so it’s likely that they’d have a natural sympathy with the aims of the animal advocate, and reject the very idea of harm being done to animals. But as they grow older they realise just how many of their favourite foods are made with animal ingredients and how cruelty is endemic to all animal farming. But they also realise that by standing up for animals they will have to give up many of their favourite foods, on principle. And that principle is not recognised in the adult world, where such things as eggs are still legal AND where it is also legal to conceal certain facts from children!! Most kids will cave in and conform to animal-based diets since they have no choice. But later in life, when they gain their independence, they’ll be faced with making a decision about whether to support or boycott unethical foods. Having had a grounding in the facts of life, about animal husbandry methods, will stand them in good stead for making their food-decisions later in life.


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