Read this quote yesterday in a book you will soon be hearing a lot about. The man speaking is named Ambrosio, legendary Spanish cheesemaker, modern-day El Cid, man of the fields.
Consider the chicken. Today we have industrialized animals. A chicken needs to be cheap to be competitive in the marketplace. So the industrial chicken has a life that lasts forty-two days between its hatching and its sacrifice. They flood the chicken with twenty-three hours of light a day so that the chicken constantly feeds, and then they give it one hour of rest. They do this for six weeks, then the chickens are put on a conveyor belt and either gassed or have their heads chopped off and are immediately dumped in scalding water, after which the dead body is sent to market.
On the other hand, the traditional chicken used to take one and a half years from hatching to sacrifice. You would see the chicken every day and speak to her, and you would share with her certain aspects of your own life. The chicken was your friend; she understood you. You loved each other. She knew she was going to have a happy life and tried to give you her best while you gave her yours. She knew her destiny, that eventually she would make a gift of her life to feed your family. But you honored each other. The chicken lived at home with you, and you ate her at home. It was divinity, not machines.
โfrom The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the Worldโs Greatest Piece of Cheese, by Michael Paterniti
Powerful!
Didnโt expect it but I cried. My sister has chickens & itโs true, they love her & she them.
ditto Carlinne!
Oh my goodness! I am the sister with chickens, and I cried too! I didnโt even see my sisterโs comment until now. I donโt think I could eat any of my girls, simply because I only have 6. I know them a little TOO well. While it always seemed cruel how industrial farms raised chickens, having cared for these sweet creatures myself, it now seems just horrifying. They are endearing and very funny. I now know why they are the subject matter for so many cartoons!
Thatโs it right there, isnโt it? I have been working on what that quote talks about for a while now. Figuring it out in my mind. I was just talking to some friends last night about how I donโt feel โsadโ when I kill a fish to eat but I cried when I harvested a rabbit. (It was my first time.) I grew up eating fish that we often caught. So, maybe I would have a similar dynamic of eating chicken or rabbit that I harvested myself if I grew up with it. Man, itโs hard to get your head on straight about meat once you have been removed from 99% of the process. Much easier to be involved from the beginning, seems to me.
Thanks so much for this quote. It is the best I have seen on the whole meat for food idea. And just to be clear, I am definitely a meat eater. I have just started doing lots more to look into the feelings surrounding meat eating. ๐
I think itโs Joel Salatin that says something like โWe aim to give them the happiest life possible and then a quick, clean death.โ Sounds about right!
I completely second Laura M.โs thoughts. Iโve been looking for ways I can eat meat with a clean conscience. This is giving me a lot to think about.
Thatโs why I love supporting our community organic farm. They provide happy homes for the chickens and pigs and cows before they are offered to us for our consumption. Itโs expensive, though, and itโs tough to do it exclusively while keeping my carnivores happy. Itโs worth it to try though.
The way animals are slaughtered these days is the main reason I became a vegetarian. I just canโt do it. I know itโs just a chickenโฆbut the practices in the US are disgusting.
Thank you for this. I was recently trying to find a way to explain to my husband why I was willing to spend $20 on a whole chicken from the local meat CSA when I can walk to the local supermarket and buy one for $4 on sale. I never realized how short factory-farmed chickensโ lives were. Iโve been trying to purchase only meat from a local farm for about a year โ it is more expensive, but completely worth it, if for no other reason than the respect I have for the lives of the animals.
The second paragraph made my heart race with frustration. โHappy chickens just waiting to give their lives as a gift to youโ really? The chicken may have had a better life in between but it still started in a hachery (where male chicks are tossed into a grinder because they are not useful to us) and ended with a violent death.
In a world with so many alternatives I think we can make better choices. Donโt cloud meat eating with euphamisms. For the environment and the animalsโ sake โ try veganism.
Ditto Mary!
I agree with the basic concept, but I canโt swallow this:
She knew her destiny, that eventually she would make a gift of her life to feed your family.
The chicken knows and accepts its destiny? Really? I am not opposed to eating meat, but we shouldnโt try to kid ourselves with a romantic story. When we eat meat (whether sustainable or factory), we are eating animals who went unwillingly to their deaths. If nothing else, eating meat should be done with awareness and reverence.
Yes Cathy! Yes Kristin! It is disingenuous to say, โShe knew her destiny, that eventually she would make a gift of her life to feed your family.โ No, the chicken doesnโt know or accept her destiny. Itโs ludicrous to suggest she knows and yet is still your friend the happy chicken. If you have to lie to yourself like this in order to eat meat, itโs time to stop eating meat. Itโs killing, not divinity.
@Kristen, yah I got a giggle out of that line, too, imagining the chicken solemnly placing her little head on the chopping block. โGo ahead, this is what I was born to do!โ
@Laura M: I had a second cousin who I met when he was in his 70s. He grew up in the 20s and 30s, and worked on his grandparents farm. He told me the only thing he couldnโt stand was the slaughter, and after serving in the Pacific in WWII, he became a vegetarian AND an animal rights activistโin the 1940s! The man was ahead of his time.
If you havenโt seen the documentary โFood, Inc.โ, it is a MUST.
Like other commenters here, I also disagree with the romanticism the author uses to describe the traditional chickenโs role in our food chain. If that bird had a choice it would not choose to give up itโs life to feed us.
The above quote reminds me of an argument for meat eating discussed by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in โThe River Cottage Meat Bookโ. Apparently, others have justified meat eating by reasoning that domesticated live stock allowed themselves to be domesticated over time with the understanding that we would give them food, water and protection from other predators. In return they would give us their wool, fur, milk or lives. I find this hard to accept. No matter how domesticated a chicken, pig or cow may be, it does not want to sacrifice itโs life. It does not thank you everyday for caring for it by then willingly marching to its death on harvest day.
I choose to eat meat and I accept that doing so means an animal who would prefer to live doesnโt get to. I do everything I can to find humanely raised animals that are given fast and clean deaths.
As a vegetarian (sometimes pescetarian) who cooks meat for her family, this is why I want that meat to be free range or certified humane. Thank you for posting this.