Slaugherhouse

[Aroura]

I tried becoming fully vegetarian, it didn't stick. However, my family has successfully reduced our intake of meat quite drastically. I buy one whole chicken or turkey per month, we get to eat it for 2 to 3 days, then it becomes soup for another 2 to 3 days. Other than that, we eat meat for holidays, and about once a month eating out. I buy from anow actual local farm now, too. No more mass produced meat or eggs. For milk and yogurt, I'm fortunate to live in a state with a lot of local dairies, though none are small, I'm doing what little I can as a consumer and talking with my wallet.

I've also helped slaughter some animals while I was younger, but it bothers me more now than it did then. I think there are some good moral arguments about cruelty to animals, but also human heath and environmental health that just point out its better for everyone and everything if humans stick to a mostly plant based diet. I think it's one of those things where moderation is key. Moderation in this doesn't mean just once a day either, lol.

Also, slaughtering your own animal is nothing on those slaughterhouses. If you raise chickens or cattle or pigs in the kind of setting you have in your head, grass fed open range etc, then pull one out now and then to feed the family and the neighbors, that's really not terrible. But that is not how 99% of the meat produced in America is raised OR killed. It's truly a horrendous ordeal. I am doing what I can not to support it, but most people just really don't give a fuck, so my impact seems pretty meaningless.

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OUr modern form of industrial meat production is a mixed bag. Some of us have enough money to buy ethically raised meat. I buy my beef and lamb from a small local butcher who gets grass fed only. No feed lot. No crowding. No mistreatment. But I'm not going to pretend that this isn't a luxury.

Humans are biologically omnivorous. We eat meat. And industrial meat production, however unpleasant, allows more people to get access to meat. And I can't begrudge that.

When we can grow synthetic meat I will fully support the abolition of feed lots. Until then it's a necessary evil.

I'm not so sure this argument holds up, simply because Americans don't just want access to meat, we want it 2 or 3 times a day, which is also a luxury, but one we oddly take as normal.

Historically, humans get meat when they slaughter an animal all in a big burst, then maybe some dried or preserved here and there, but not 3 times a day every day. And although some things that were reserved for the wealthy, like basic Healthcare and clean water, are something that is good and right for everyone, this is one of the things we need to ditch. I've lived on foodstuffs alone, and I know how tight that can be I really do. If we thought about meat like we do about other food luxuries, like candy and cake, people would be more accepting of only being able to buy it maybe once or twice a week and buy the quality local grass food on range meats, instead of once or twice a day garbage factory crap.