I have become a more conscious person with age, and after being vegetarian for 27 years, I’m mostly troubled by the meat industry with it’s cruelty, abuse, environmental and social implications. I’m not getting into the “is it wrong to slaughter a living thing for food” moral debate. what I am opposed to most is indeed the industrialization of the process. I mean if a person is able to raise a chicken/cow etc, take good care of it, and at one point slaughter it for food with his bare hands, and he can live with that, it’s a very different story for me than the cruelty of having an industry where meat becomes a product, and the person who eats it doesn’t give a second thought about how that thing ended up on his plate.

I’m under the impression that a lot of people who would see the process of the industrial meat industry from start to finish would either become vegetarian altogether, or reduce their meat consumption, or at least go for organic meat where the animals are at least being treated somewhat better before becoming a consumer product. And also there’s nothing that bugs me more than the portions in restaurants where people order a huge steak and never finish it and throw half of it away. I mean killing an animal for food is one thing, but killing it and throwing it away? I really can’t stand the thought of it.

Ok, and here’s a link that explains a bit why the industry is working this way – http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/why-a-big-mac-costs-less-than-a-salad/ – i find it very troubling.