Normally, fish is the only meat I consume, and while I’m not a vegetarian in the strict sense, I haven’t had red meat in 36 years. The sight of rare prime rib makes me nauseous. Most people love the smell of bacon frying. Not me. I have a problem with the odor and with the annoying, hot grease that spatters from the pan when you cook it. When I quit eating meat it had nothing to do with the inhumane ways of raising and slaughtering animals. I was not one of those nuts running around sobbing about cruelty to animals. I just didn’t like the taste of meat. In the years since I gave up red meat, I have learned a lot about the raising and slaughtering of animals so that we humans can have a nice pork chop, a rib eye, or a pepperoni pizza.
One such lesson came from Newsweek. When I used to read Newsweek, one of my favorite features was the “My Turn” essay. These are essays from ordinary people who write about a topic of their choice. Many of the pieces are educational, teaching me something or requiring me to think about something in a new way. I found enjoyment reading these interesting, enlightening, sometimes amusing or sad essays. The one that sticks with me the most was written by a not-so-ordinary citizen. One of eleven children, Bobby and Ethel Kennedy’s son, Robert Kennedy Jr., wrote his essay to make the case against our country’s industrialized pig farming. This exposé falls into the category of shocking enlightenment for me. Kennedy’s sensory language described the insidious practice of holding the hogs in cages with no room to turn around, squealing sows barely able to birth their litters in these confined spaces, and their waste dropping through the holes in the steel floors, which in turn flow into acres of pig excrement lagoons.
His prose conjured a stench enough to induce vomiting. His word pictures were enough for me. Because of his essay, there is a part of me that chooses not to eat pork mainly because of the practices of industrialized farms. I was teaching high school English at the time I first read Kennedy’s essay, and I gave my students the assignment to read, discuss and then write a response to it. The experience of reading, talking and then writing about industrialized pig farming was not enough to make my sophomores give up their BLTs or to stop eating sausage, but that was not my goal.
As critical thinkers, we must examine the many sides of an issue. Could my students open their eyes and minds to the evils of industrialized farming? Or at the very least give some thought to how much farming practices have changed over the last century? Are some practices better than others? Whatever happened to the family farm? What are the experts saying? It seems that there are a lot of people wondering about these important issues. And while I am no authority on this topic, it seems that since the time of his essay in Newsweek, Kennedy has become quite the authority.
Many more people are whooping and hollering about the evils of industrial pig farming because they are listening to the many who are authorities on the subject. Maybe you want to know what they are saying. If so, watch the documentary, Pig Business. Go ahead. Put down your ham sandwich and watch it. Or go online and read about the big business of pig business. Look at the pictures. I dare you. Familiarizing yourself about this issue might just make you squeal like a pig.
Read more: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/mag/farming_waterkeeper_lawsuits_target
