I Adore Animals and I Hug Trees!
It is the irony of life on this planet is that all living entities have to kill to survive. We can argue that plants kill when they consume microbes for sustenance. Plants ingest bacteria and fungi that in turn supply Earth’s fauna with food. Microbes also decompose and recycle dead plants and animals, returning nutrients to the soil that supply our food.
Animals, including us, kill to eat. We all know that, but do we understand the implications of that fact.
Indeed, children learn from watching. For most of my adult life I assumed killing animals for food was all right. I watched with fascination and no feelings of sorrow as my grandmother casually captured a chicken, held it upside down, stepped on its head and pulled away its body, successfully decapitating it. I never considered the agony the poor hen endured.
Of course I ate the chicken, loving every bite because my grandmother was a magical cook. While eating no thought came to me about how she got the meat to my plate.
Then one day last year I found a video by PETA that showed ever so graphically where the flesh came from that I enjoyed every day. I watched while weeping as chickens died in way that made grandmother’s method appear loving. Cattle have their esophagi ripped out after having their throats cut, leaving them to wallow, kick and die in their own blood. Hogs are often dismembered while they are still alive, and grinning butchers skin fur-bearing animals alive so as not to damage the fur. All other food animals are subject to the same abomination.
I am now a vegetarian. My sweet lady is not, and I am her chef. I’m getting very close to a time when I cannot prepare her meat; visions of inhumane slaughter are before me as I cook her steak or pork roast. I can hear the cries of the animals being tortured to death.
In months and years to come I will write on this subject and I will not spare readers’ feelings. PETA uses shock and awe to bring these atrocities to light, and so will I. Vilification will only motivate me to increase the pressure and stress on those who deny or do not care about how their meat gets into their guts.
Reader discretion advised!