There is an interesting article in the Manchester Evening News today about a wonderful young man who recently carried out a week long vigil outside a slaughterhouse on Bow Street in Dukinfield. The article can be read here and the figures are truly blood curdling when you realise that 3000 pigs per day are being slaughtered at this site.
The gentleman featured in the Manchester Evening News is not the first to highlight the horror of what goes on at this particular slaughterhouse and I am sure this slaughterhouse is no different than any other. The video above is from a local filmmaker who has been holding vigils and comforting animals on the way for slaughter for years.
Pigs are intelligent animals and many may be surprised to discover that in IQ tests they can outsmart chimpanzees and dogs, read more here.
If you watch the video above and at 0.26 look into the eyes of the poor condemned creature you cannot help but feel sorry. Those eyes are saying to me please help me. As well as a high level of intelligence, pigs also have a powerful sense of smell and good hearing. They can undoubtedly smell the blood and hear the squeals of those being slaughtered before them.
I have tried for years to adopt a meat free diet. I had a Damascene moment a number of years ago while walking my dogs along the Peak Forest Canal. Prior to that I was a happy meat eater and I viewed many animals as a mere commodity to be consumed by those at the top of the food chain. I gave not a second thought as to what intelligence, feelings and emotions these creatures may or may not posses. I viewed ethical vegetarians as 'tree huggers' and when debating the rights and wrongs of meat consumption I would put forward arguments such as we are born carnivores which is proven by our teeth which are ideal for ripping meat and even more ridiculously, if God wanted us to be vegetarian why did he make animals out of meat.
I never fully managed to become a vegetarian but I am 95% of the way to being completely meat free. One thing is for sure; when I do have a moment of weakness and I revert back to my old ways I never enjoy it. Even if the taste is nice, the feeling of guilt is always there.
Advertising is where my weakness lies. I remember seeing a particularly eye catching Lurpak advert featuring a bacon sandwich and next thing I know I am on the meat aisle looking at all these exotic varieties of bacon and it all looks so harmless. Nicely presented packages, no hint of blood or suffering and it smells so good when being cooked. You then bite into it and the egg yolk on top begins to trickle down over the bacon but then for a nano second your conscience tells you that the the runny substance is not egg yolk but blood from the animal which had suffered so much before it was killed, dissected and neatly packaged and the next thing you know, it no longer tastes nearly as nice as you imagined it would.
3 comments:
Putin's fault
It was meat, with its extremely high protein, that played a crucial part in getting man out of caves.
The excellent nutritional effect of this high protein brain and body food also meant we had to eat less often which gave us significantly more leisure time, that is when we began to THINK and MAKE.
The rest is history.
There's no sound reason not to eat meat but very many TO eat it.
I cannot see why someone would choose not to eat meat but as someone who opposes industrial scale farming, I can see why the way its done horrifies people.
Preferably animals should live a good life before slaughter, have space to run about in and so on. But man should eat meat, we are meant to and it is good for our brains and muscles.
We don't need as much as we eat these days maybe, our ancestors ate it as a supplement to a diet of root vegetables and fish (if they lived near the sea)
But I can't say I care for dumb animals, life for them is not as hard on the soul as life as a human is and they will reincarnate happily as another animal again after a few centuries anyway.
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