# Our relationship with the animals we eat



## Benjy

Something which happened the other day at work, pretty much typical of an attidue that I perceive in *most* english people, especially as you move towards the big urban centres, and it got me thinking because it was a pretty extreme reaction.

I work on the meat counter at the local super market. That just means I do all the stuff that a finisher would do in a butchers (we get the joints in, and do the cutting into steaks/stringing/rolling etc). Anyhow, we had some sirloin steaks in that were particularly dark, and this was most likely due to the animal being stressed at slaughter. A customer asked me why the meat was darker. I politely said "You probably don't want to know". She insisted, and so I informed of the probable cause. At this, she went quite pale and told me she wouldn't be having any meat, accused me of being some kind of militant vegan and deliberately trying to put people off their food.

What I would like to know, is how "intact" (if you will) the link is between the general population and is and the animals that they eat, and if you think that it has had consequences on the quality thereof. 

In England in general people just don't want to know, which in my opinion has done more than anything else to contribute to the clubfooted march of supermarkets across local industry, which everyone *seems* to agree is a bad thing. Our customers, in general, have no clue about what meat or fish should look like, and much prefer it vacuum packed and looking as little like a cow or a fish as possible. To me this makes no sense: If consuming meat raises ethical problems, deal with them or don't do it. The desire of the English public to pretend that they are not eating meat just seems really odd to me.


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## emma42

Interesting points, Benjy.  But why does such a "desire" seem odd to you (probably because you are a very "thinking" man)?  In our society, we close our eyes and ears to many difficult issues every day, made very easy for us by the sanitisation of such matters.  I am thinking of our food, our clothing (made in Romania, China et al), our electrical goods...

I consider myself a thinking person, and buy organic free range chicken once a month as a treat because I am aware of the treatment of non-free range birds, but then I will find myself putting a ready-made cannelloni in my basket and closing my mind to the likely treatment of the cows used to make it.  Never mind the cruelty to pasta issue.

I suppose I am just a lazy hypocrite.


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## xarruc

It's interesting. I think there are some cultures (and the UK was no different in the past) where it is still common to buy live food for slaughter at home. In Spain the markets sell dead birds with heads and rabbits with eyes.

I guess it is tied up with freshness.

During the war people used to keep poultry and rabbits in their gardens as fresh meat was scarce. There was no issue. Now I expect it would be illegal.

I think it's sad. Like you say, people should just deal with the ethical issues. I know the food I buy here, meat, fish or vegtable is better than what I got in the UK. I am not the only immigrant here who has noted that things taste different.

It is a luxury of city-folk to not have to deal with conflict between the natural human emotions towards animals and the natural animal emotion towards food. Children who grow up in agriculture must have to deal with this conflict.

Between lower prices and "cleaner" looking meat, the supermarkets have an advantage over the small traders, and so as they close down the vacuum-packs become ever more the norm.


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## Benjy

emma42 said:


> I suppose I am just a lazy hypocrite.


Me too! So glad to know that I'm not the only one. 

I guess the thing with meat is that we don't *have* to eat it. Clothes and child labour and all of the other horrible things that go in with much large-scale industry are all terrible, and I guess I'm breaking our own sacrosanct stay on topic rule slightly , but in some respects I feel that I have very little choice left. I can't afford expensive clothing (made from fair-trade organic cotton and the like), and I have to wear clothes.

Meat on the other hand is not necessary to life. I eat plenty of veg dishes and enjoy (as you do) from time to time some quality meat, from quality assured establishments.

Thing is though, for me that's not the crux of the British meat-eater's ethical question. It's the fact that something has been killed to feed them. That is why I find it so hard to understand that they want to distance themselves from the animal which has been slaughtered. Either it's ok to kill animals or it's not. Pretending that the thing didn't die or that you are not eating an animal seems to me to be ridiculous.

I wonder if other countries are the same. In France you see whole skinned rabbits in the supermarket. Can you imagine what people would say in England?


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## purpledragon

I am sorry to ask this, but I don't get it.Why the market should sell dead birds without heads in your country?


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## xarruc

They are dead, plucked, and without heads. The innards (jiblets) are often in a plastic bag inside. Its easy, cleaner and resembles an animal less.


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## AngelEyes

Benjy,

Your thoughts and observations are very interesting!

American Indians felt there was a spiritual bond and connection between the souls and spirits of the animals they slaughtered for nourishment.

They would thank the dead body of the just slain animal for sacrificing itself in order to sustain life to the person who ate them. This mystical connection was mentally observed and acknowledged between each of them, it was believed.

Maybe in our modern times, it's the same thing when Americans say, "Grace" before a meal. 

There are lots of small miracles around us everyday. All we have to do is look.

I think all animals can teach us much about ourselves if we only listen.

Great subject with many levels attached to it.

AngelEyes


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## Paulfromitaly

Benjy said:


> Our customers, in general, have no clue about what meat or fish should look like, and much prefer it vacuum packed and looking as little like a cow or a fish as possible.



True, I did notice that in every supermarket over there, with just slight differences between let's say A*DA or TE*CO and Ma*ks & Spe*cer.
Most of the people like their meat to look like chicken and this wrong (by my opinion) attitude towards different kinds of meat is pushing kids to eating chicken only.
In Italy we eat many different kinds of meat which British wouldn't likely even want to be considered as edible: horse, goat, lamb, wild boar, hare, donkey, rabbit..
The funny thing is that my mum wouldn't buy rabbit at the butchers if it didn't come with its head and legs in order to be able to tell whether it's actually rabbit or cat..


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## Luke Warm

AngelEyes said:


> I think all animals can teach us much about ourselves if we only listen.


 
Dead animals don’t talk much.
 
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!  But you’re absolutely right.  Because much of (Western) society has distanced itself from so many basic aspects of our survival (not just meat), people are more likely to take what we have for granted.  I remember a girl in university once commenting on how gross the act of eating and digestion are “when you really think about it”.  Sometimes I wonder what we’d all do if societies collapsed and all services and infrastructure failed.  While grace before meals does promote appreciation and respect for the food one is about to eat, I also don’t think it’s a bad idea for young adults (or even children if presented with the correct commentary—you don’t want to traumatize them) to actually witness the slaughter of an animal or at least see the dead animal whole and then have it prepared and eaten.  For some, that may seem extreme, but it is reality.


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## Kajjo

Paulfromitaly said:


> In Italy we eat many different kinds of meat which British wouldn't likely even want to be considered as edible: horse, goat, lamb, wild boar, hare, donkey, rabbit..


The same in Germany... I love the variety of meat available on markets and in supermarkets, not to forget poultry of various species.



> The funny thing is that my mum wouldn't buy rabbit at the butchers if it didn't come with its head and legs in order to be able to tell whether it's actually rabbit or cat..


Yes, I learned the same rule. I think it is a post-World-War-II thing were meat was really scarce and tricking people into cats was quite common. Nowadays, we buy rabbits without heads and innards.



			
				emma said:
			
		

> In our society, we close our eyes and ears to many difficult issues every day, made very easy for us by the sanitisation of such matters.


I fully agree with you, Emma. Food is not at all the only issue where many people turn a blind eye, too. It is symptomatic of our society that besides some superfical and general moaning no real thinking and learning takes place. Many people do not realise how dependent we are on many things they take the liberty to "not like them".

Benji, I believe people wanting "clean meat" that does not look to much like animal, is partly due to the reasons you stated, e.g. like distancing themselves from the issue. However, partly, from my German point of view, many people are just lazy or have little time or knowlegde nowadays to prepare meat -- they expect the meat to be ready for the frying pan or oven. Personally, I very much enjoy to cook, but I admit that I like it when the butcher prepares the meat with his super-sharp knifes so that I do have less work with it. Why not have him cutting and cleaning it from sinews and fat? He is much quicker and effective than I woud be.

Kajjo


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## Hockey13

And I quote Douglas Adams:

"I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?"


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## Benjy

Kajjo said:


> Benji, I believe people wanting "clean meat" that does not look to much like animal, is partly due to the reasons you stated, e.g. like distancing themselves from the issue. However, partly, from my German point of view, many people are just lazy or have little time or knowlegde nowadays to prepare meat -- they expect the meat to be ready for the frying pan or oven. Personally, I very much enjoy to cook, but I admit that I like it when the butcher prepares the meat with his super-sharp knifes so that I do have less work with it. Why not have him cutting and cleaning it from sinews and fat? He is much quicker and effective than I woud be.
> 
> Kajjo



Working a fishmonger/butcher job I totally agree that I am probably better than you at preparing meat  And yes I grind the knives before I start work. This is not the issue. I give a simple example. Turbot and brill are two exceptional flat fish that are wonderful cooked whole on the bone. Almost no preperation needed (bash up some rock salt and coriander seed and rub it all over the fish, cover it in sliced lemon and wack it in the oven, for example) and yet I am forever being asked to fillet it because "I don't want the head looking at me when I'm eating".


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## Sallyb36

lol Benjy, there is no fathoming the great British public!  I also work dealing with this fabulous body of people, and am frequently amazed, gobsmacked, in despair, and flabbergasted.
I love animals both alive and roasted on my plate, eyes or no.


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## Kajjo

Benjy said:


> and yet I am forever being asked to fillet it because "I don't want the head looking at me when I'm eating".


I think I understand. I Germany, it is quite common to put an orange or lemon slice in a lamb's or piglet's mouth when serving a whole roasted animal. I know some people eating the eyes of fish -- probably more to entertain than for culinary reasons, but you see, it is common to serve them in whole.

Again, I see the same point. My mother always used to buy a bunch of plaices on the fish market and we prepared them  ourselves. Anyway, I prefer to save me the the "dirty work" of cutting fins and heads and buy them quite often ready filetted (with skin, though). I think it is not about not wanting to see the head but about saving time and efforts -- and smelly hands 

I have understood that this appears to be drastically different from England. When I lived in London I did not notice it at all, probably because I could not imagine it. Maybe I was the favorite customer of my butcher without knowing it?

Kajjo


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## Kajjo

Sallyb36 said:


> I love animals both alive and roasted on my plate, eyes or no.


Same for me.

Kajjo


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## RedRag

> Originally Posted by *Sallyb36*
> I love animals both alive and roasted on my plate, eyes or no.


I'll second that.

Coming out of the bullring a few months back we saw the last bull being hung up by the slaughterman and the chunks of meat from the previous bulls.

[For those not familiar - fighting bulls are a separate breed of bull to domestic cattle and live an extremely priviliged life for a farmed animal: they live outside in massive pastures with almost no human contact, none of the steroids and contraceptives and god-knows-what-else pumped into them, etc.]

Anyway, stepping over a bit of blood I overheard some American women who were watching. Expecting to hear a "oh gross" or similar what I actually heard was quite uplifting:

"gosh what a wonderful animal, that has to be the tastiest meat ever"

There's hope for the human race after all.


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## cuchuflete

Just piping in at the back of the line to note that I don't think there is any ethical issue about animals eating the flesh of other animals.  If some people want to go all anthropomorphic about what they eat, they may as well tell my neighborhood foxes to stop eating the chickens, and the coyotes to cease and desist from venison meals.    There may well be ethical concerns about the way livestock is fed and contained in small areas.  That is a different topic from eating meat.

Free range carnivore,
cuchuflete


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## purpledragon

> They are dead, plucked, and without heads. The innards (jiblets) are often in a plastic bag inside. Its easy, cleaner and resembles an animal less.


Thanks,I got what you mean.But I guess make it clean is the most important reason.Do I feel it animal less if I bought a chick without head? No, it also has the animal body.


> In our society, we close our eyes and ears to many difficult issues every day, made very easy for us by the sanitisation of such matters. I am thinking of our food, our clothing (made in Romania, China et al), our electrical goods...


What's wrong with the cloth made in China?


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## Chaska Ñawi

The attitude is the same in Canada, even in rural areas, except among people who have grown up butchering animals.  They don't want to know.  

The agribusiness corporations have taken advantage of this customer inertia big time.  Those "free range" chickens are simply chickens kept loose in barns instead of being caged ... they do not stroll around an outdoor run stuffing themselves on worms and other delectables.  All the labels on the milk containers feature contented Holsteins in spacious pastures, but most breeders never let their cows out of their stanchions once they start lactating.  Frankly, I think that we should know where ALL our food originates.  In Canada's case, this applies to the tomatoes grown in Mexico under sometimes atrocious labour conditions, the beef feedlots of Alberta, and the chickens laying eggs in cages stacked in semi-darkness down the road from me.

However, it seems that we are more robust than some other cultures.  I heard a story about a Canadian teaching in Japan who prepared a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to thank all the people who'd been kind to him during his stay.  He procured a whole turkey with great difficulty and roasted it and served it with all the traditional side dishes.  When he removed the cover his guests were revolted at the sight of an entire dead bird, and many literally fled the room.


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## LV4-26

Benjy said:


> [..]If consuming meat raises ethical problems [...]


It may be that and it may be something else too. It may be the fear of our...say, *organic* status.  And, at the end of the day, the fear of our own death.

You're very right when you say that we (generic "we") _much prefer _[our meat] _vacuum packed and looking as little like a cow or a fish as possible. _Could it be that we prefer it looking like a clean, manufactured, mineral object?
We know we're animals like them, we know we have a body with humid red organs in it. But we'd much prefer not knowing it, we'd like to think we only have a mind, a skin and nothing inside. Because being made of flesh is what sentences us to death. 

I may be wrong but I see a connection between the shock we get from looking at a dead animal exposed at the market and the one we get from seeing a dog, a cat or a fox that's been rolled over by a car on the road.

Don't you have the impression that our immediate environement, urban and technological, is more and more made of "mineral" objects and much less of organic ones?



			
				Luke Warm said:
			
		

> I remember a girl in university once commenting on how gross the act of eating and digestion are “when you really think about it”


I think we're going in the same direction.


			
				AngelEyes said:
			
		

> American Indians felt there was a spiritual bond and connection between the souls and spirits of the animals they slaughtered for nourishment.


Interesting. Our modern societies have broken the bond with the deads, be they animal or human. We no longer have any "_symbolic exchange_" with them (I borrowed the phrase in italics from Jean Baudrillard).

Droid LV4-26


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## maxiogee

Driven mainly by my tastebuds I'm almost vegetarian, and until I go the full mile, I insist that the animals I eat must be vegetarians. 




LV4-26 said:


> It may be that and it may be something else too. It may be the fear of our...say, *organic* status.  And, at the end of the day, the fear of our own death.
> 
> You're very right when you say that we (generic "we") _much prefer _[our meat] _vacuum packed and looking as little like a cow or a fish as possible. _Could it be that we prefer it looking like a clean, manufactured, mineral object?
> We know we're animals like them, we know we have a body with humid red organs in it. But we'd much prefer not knowing it, we'd like to think we only have a mind, a skin and nothing inside. Because being made of flesh is what sentences us to death.
> 
> I may be wrong but I see a connection between the shock we get from looking at a dead animal exposed at the market and the one we get from seeing a dog, a cat or a fox that's been rolled over by a car on the road.
> 
> Don't you have the impression that our immediate environement, urban and technological, is more and more made of "mineral" objects and much less of organic ones?
> 
> I think we're going in the same direction.
> 
> Interesting. Our modern societies have broken the bond with the deads, be they animal or human. We no longer have any "_symbolic exchange_" with them (I borrowed the phrase in italics from Jean Baudrillard).
> 
> Droid LV4-26



You make some very valid points there Droid.
When I was a child every village in Dublin had several butchers shops. The carcases were hung on view, in the public section of the shop, and dripped occasional drops of blood onto a sawdust covered floor. And the butchers would hack off the part one wanted before 'trimming' it to the required cut. These carcases were delivered regularly in wooden lorries, hanging in the back and exposed to public view as they were unloaded and carried into the shops. Beef, pork and lamb arrived like this. The butcher's was one of the centres of social interaction for people, as they waited to be served, and as they then had to chat to the butcher for a few minutes before saying what they were looking for. He (and it was always a 'he') then continued chatting to them while he fetched whatever cut they wanted. Then it had to be weighed - and either brought up to the required weight, or else if it was "a little over" it would be negotiated about.
He then wrapped the meat and worked out the price on the piece of paper which wrapped it. One then went to the cashier's cubicle and showed her the bundle, and paid her. The process could take fifteen minutes on a quiet morning. Great for social contact.

Nowadays the public health officials would close down the village I grew up in. The meat must never get near the public, it must be kept in refrigerated storage, it must be sealed in plastic, the butcher couldn't be chopping steaks one minute, mincing beef the next and then carrying a carcase without ever once washing their hands!

The greengrocer's shop wasn't any better - and the confectioner sold loose sweets and tobacco. The bakery was probably the cleanest place there was - but then the public never saw the 'working' parts. Our neighbours ran the bakery and I saw it - enough said. 

I tell you, I grew up in a raging health hazard! It would all be closed down today! What has gotten into society that it demands all this _all germs must die_ hygiene regime?

On a further note, the local shoe-repairer had hides hanging in the shop, and we wore only leather shoes and mainly woollen clothes - all directly animal derived.


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## cuchuflete

> Driven mainly by my tastebuds I'm almost vegetarian, and until I go the full mile, I insist that the animals I eat must be vegetarians.


 Stay away from free range chickens and fish!


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## emma42

I insist that my free-range chickens have had a proper Marxist education and only wear fair-trade alpaca.


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