The bite-back

1783: 

Food is more sensory than spiritual, so it’s usually just a case of ‘eat, drink and be merry, and be careful of your weight’. There's no other dimension to it. When it comes to animal food it usually means a pleasant sensation and a full stomach. But a stomach full of meat is mind full of murder.

We put our very sensitivity on the line when it comes to indulging in animal-eating. Both compassion and intelligence have to be monumentally compromised, both by our use of animal foods and in our conniving with the enslavers and killers of these entirely innocent, beautiful beings. They're so like us in many ways and in so many ways much better than us.

For humans, there's no courage needed to hunt the dangerous beast, and no risking of safety to bring them down; for our convenience, they're kept pinned to the wall. 'Food animals' are captive, bred by artificial insemination, imprisoned in cages from birth and see no prospect of escape. In other words, they are defeated. They don’t fight back (which might remind you of the classic human-to-human situation, where women have been purposely subjugated by males for the purposes of convenience).

As a species, humans enjoy a rich and safe life, by and large. Everything has been made easy for us ever since we sold our souls to the devil, by breaking the first law of predation, currently operating on this planet - it happened when we started imprisoning animals to make use of them. Humans shamed, Nature tamed, animal docility. Thanks for  the grocery, and Death to the Animals!

But we get our just desserts. Death to the humans! The animals do bite back in an unseen way. By eating their bodies and secretions, we put on weight and proceed towards our own deaths with an array of illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease. Tied to animal-based cuisine, the human is slowed down - the subjugation of animals sits in our conscience like a lump, weakening our affectionate nature. It makes us feel like savages, so we develop a hard edge, and apply it to anything or anybody who might stand in our way. When it comes to other species, we don't care. It's food! But it hurts that we can't care for the very beings we’d otherwise feel a great affection for.

The bottom line here is that we can’t resist eating them, sucking the juices out of them, stealing from them, skinning them, shaving them and wearing them. Consequently, there are very many products in the supermarket that are made with animal-based ingredients. Because humans have been for so long tied to this cuisine, the cooks and chemists have perfected their desirabilty. We want them so badly that we've become addicted to these malign products. We simply refuse to deny ourselves. We cauterise that part of us which sees things clearly in order to continue enjoying something which is so fundamentally wrong.

Because animals represent such rich pickings for humans, it would seem like madness NOT to take advantage of them. But by choosing to use animals we bring out the worst in ourselves. The guilt or shame might be heavy enough, but being addicted especially to animal food products, spending so much money on them, risking all the chronic conditions associated with them, it all adds up to a slowing-down of our self development. We're held back by mindlessly consuming what must surely be the ugliest products imaginable. And yet we think nothing of it since most of us are in thrall to the Animal Industries.

The Animal Industries are happy to do our dirty work for us, rearing and killing and presenting the end product, just so long as Joe & Jo Public don’t make a fuss about it. The deal is that consumers will do their best to turn a blind eye to all the horrors, promise not to tell the kids too much, and teach them how to objectify living beings.

Over the years, we’ve executed billions of animals, none of whom have ever been guilty of any crime whatsoever. This wash of cruelty and destruction has forced us to pretend to ourselves that what happens to animals doesn’t actually matter. At all events, we believe about ourselves that we are not cold blooded killers.