.....food for thought.....

as many of you will undoubtly know, I have a thing for my food.
I enjoy the process of cooking and enjoy eating good food even more so. Most of this is probably down to my experience with all stages of cooking and restaurants and at all levels from the age of 6 to now. Add this to my almost obsessive nature, I have always taken a keen interest in this are as it has always been a part of my (extended) family's lives and livelihood.

Here's where I have to admit that I am a bit a of a food snob.
Now, to clarify, it's not like I only eat the finest things that money can buy; it's more like I appreciate that certain foods do cost more and I appreciate the reasons for this being so.
After all, it doesn't take a genius to figure out or understand why a burger made from a two month aberdeen angus (the black haired type) steak is going to cost more than a McTesticle burger. By the same token, I can understand why a some things like KFC is cheap. If given the choice between spending a little bit more money on dinner, I'd go the expensive route because I know I would enoy it so much more. It also makes the act of eating that little bit more special as I truely believe that eating is one of life's natural pleasures and should be something to be relished.

For this reason, I have no qualms in spending that little bit more for quality produce when I cook. This is where I get into the main crux of what I want to say;
recently, someone posted something about cruelty to animals on a forum that I post on. In particular, they were spamming a post+link to a site (run by PETA) outlining the horrible conditions that chickens (in america) are farmed and slaughtered.

Now any fool with half a brain knows that the food industry in the U.S is a big pile of shit compared to that in the EU but still, it isn't all a bed of roses this side of the proverbial pond either. Fact is, factory chicken is major bad shit. It won't kill you (in the short term) but it isn't as healthy as they'd have you think but hey, we are all aware of this thanks to the many tv shows outlining such things.

What i want to get onto is, is the fact that this arrogant fool decides that(in this case) she is better than us because we meat eaters are supporting the pain and suffering of those poor defenseless animals.
(there was also some metion of women deserving extra respect because they give birth to a baby which is the size of a water melon. I then went on the say that water-melons in my area are at least 12 inches in diameter and is she was to pass one of them through her vagina, I'd stop eating chicken)
What she failed to point out is that these chickens are farmed for this purpose. If it were not for our intervention, they would not be alive in the first place. It's not like we are actively going out hunting wild chickens and depleting natural livestock levels. Ok, granted the conditions aren't exactly good butthen again, that is all they know from day one. It's not comfortable living conditions but then again, they don't live for long, they die relatively quickly and a chicken has no real sense of self so while they know pain, do they know suffering? Anyway, this has veered slightly off course. The point is, I am aware that what I eat is a animal that used to be alive. As a result, I do appreciate the things that I eat and cook. That is why i try to avoid eating high street junk food because that is indirectly supporting their actions (particularly true in the US where McD and KFC control the beef and chicken markets) and where possible, but and eat the best produce because these tend to be better farmed animals.
The thing is, these animals were killed for my and your consumption and in most cases, we know that something died.

Can that be true for vegetarians and vegans?
How many of us think about all of the insects and small animals that killed accidentally or intentionally to clear the fields or during the farming and harvesting process? How many mice, foxes, rabbits, moles, crows, pigeons, sparrows etc. are trapped, shot, poisoned, accidentally run over by a tractor/combine to tend, protect and harvest them non-meat products?

Life is life.
I eat the things that are killed for such purposes.
No one eats the animals that are killed in the process of general non-meat farming.