"Connecting To The Meat We Eat "
Today people want their meat products hygienically sealed, prepackaged, even by portion and one syndicated columnist thinks that makes our society more immune to animal cruelty issues. Does removing the practice of butchering and cutting up of beef, pork, chicken even wild game desensitize people to animal suffering? I’m Susan Allen, stay tuned for Open Range. Syndicated columnist John Crisp recently wrote a provocative commentary in the Milford (Massachusetts) Daily News titled “Connecting to the meat we eat’. In it Crisp states the majority of Americans turn a blind eye to animal cruelty, because they are oblivious to what he calls the bloodletting required to obtain meat. He wrote that “consumers today don’t want even the slightest reminder that animal food comes from animals. We prefer to encounter farm animals in Disneyseque settings on mythical farmsteads where the creatures are intelligent, talkative and perceptive. Because most people are unaware of the nature of animals, they are unmoved when they actually confront brutal situations like dog racing, marine mammal confinement, the miseries of animal experimentation and the mass exploitations of the American Pet Industry"’. Now I would counter in many cases we are are better aware of abuse today than a decade ago thanks to Animal rescue organizations. Yet Crip does make one think about all of the brutalities we turn a blind eye to and his contention that if people understood the positive aspects of modern livestock production and processing these other practices that out to be considered objectionable wouldn’t’ be tolerated.
