Childhood. In my family we used to eat meat three times a day. Just to give you an idea of a daily menu - a sandwitch with smoked meat or chicken pate for breakfast, chicken fillet with salad/ fries for lunch and some good sausages for dinner. Loved it and never questioned it.
And now let me continue to the fact that I don`t really like animals that much (sorry!). I think pandas and koalas are cute and cuddly, lovely to watch them, nothing more. Never had a pet since my mom was a cleaning freak and considered our flat inappropriate for a dog or a cat. A bit of a shame, but not a big deal.
When I was young in my country nobody was really a vegetarian. We thought it was unhealthy. For the first time I came across somebody vegetarian was a new classmate, who impressed everyone with fresh and sometimes rebellious views and behaviours when she decided to stop eating meat suddenly. When I look back it seems so strange that I was not interested in her point of view.
Then I moved to the UK where many more veggies crossed my path, quite a few of them good mates. And now it seems so long ago when I was asking them why they were vegetarians (many from a very young age) and them responding something about animal suffering or blablabla - I don`t ever remember. To be honest it all seemed irrelevant to me then. What I knew was that meat was tasty, healthy and necessary.
My dad though stopped eating certain meat products at some point as he said that it was immoral to eat the meat of mammals since we are the same, unlike poultry or fish. He just came up with it so out of the blue, and me and my mom were laughing at him and accused him of creating more work for her when cooking.
So as you can see me eating animals represents a long story of joking and lack of curiosity. As many others I just did not want to know where meat was coming from. I refused it consciously because I was afraid that I may have to change.
But then a friend of mine kept talking me into reading this book, which really shocked me and made me feel repulsed by people and meat. As you may have imagined I have been avoiding popular (or maybe not so popular) videos, documentaries and other infos that I was offered to understand more about the meat industry. So I knew that things were bad, but that bad?!
I only want to mention a few facts that personally surprised (or rather shocked) me:
Chickens and turkeys are being fed antibiotics daily. This produces resistancy to antibiotics in humans. So maybe next pandemic desease will be impossible to fight
Animals being constantly tortured and slaughtered incorrectly (factory environment and machines often fail) - skinned and de-legged whilst still alive/conscious!
The meat industry is so enormous that contributes massively to the climate change and the environment pollution
Animals living short lives of suffering in a closed cage deep in their own shit while more shit dropping down from the cages above
What does free range and organic really mean? Organic means no antibiotics and free range that chickens have access to outside. But having a 15 min access per day/ per week also means access....
And so on and so on...
I did know things about changing animal genetics to make them grow faster and make them more fertile, feeding them antibiotics to prevent illnesses, them not being able to move or go outside. And yes, this is about money-sucking and greedy soulless factory farming industry that sees nothing but numbers.
I knew some facts that I saw in the book but I had them hidden deep inside my head - somewhere I never wanted to look. Reading the book helped the puzzle pieces to come together. Unfortunately (yes!), I see the full picture now. And my question is what shall I do? Can I really eat meat after what I have found out!? I feel ashamed. "Food is culture, habit, and identity", and it is complicated to resist your culture, change your habits and re-invent your identity.
I don`t pretend to know much about eating animals or factory farming. I am only at the beginning of the investigation. Also I don`t dare calling myself a vegetarian. Some people say now that being a veggie is almost becoming fashionable, and even though I don`t like to follow trends - this one might be worth it.
The reason for this post is to share some information and reflect on my own journey. When you find out something that affects you - you just cannot stay quiet.
I just suddenly feel a moral obligation to recommend you the book that influenced this post - "Eating animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. Very good writing and reflection, and interesting facts that I enjoyed and hated discovering.
For now I will go and eat another tofu burger and entertain myself with making home-made hummus and azuki bean paste.
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