Imagine stopping eating something that has been a natural part of your diet for years - imagine the reason being because you care what your food feels?
| If you’re eating the bodies of dead animals then your thoughts and feelings become degraded. |
Yep, it sounds a bit bonkers but Hindus take the view that animals have feelings and therefore should be treated as ‘brothers’ rather than burgers.
Goodness only knows what they make then of our battery chicken farms, chemically enhanced cows and protein packed pigs all ending up on the supermarket counter in perfect displays.
Alan McBride has been a practising vegetarian for fifteen years and has bought into the idea of animals with feelings hook, line and chickpea:
“Anyone who has, say, a pet dog, will understand that an animal has feelings cause they’ll see that sometimes the dog can be sad and sometimes he’s frightened,” he said.
“So, I would imagine all animals that are being slaughtered know what’s coming, they can hear the cries of their fellow animals, they can smell the blood, they know exactly what is happening. Therefore they feel great fear,” he said.
It seems that young people are onto the game as well. More and more of us are turning towards vegetarianism.
In 1986 only 2.6% of the British population (including the north of Ireland) were vegetarians but by 1999 5% were vegetarians. 40% percent of people in Dublin live meat free on a regular basis.
 High in flavour, but high in fat and with feelings of its own - is that why we're turning off meat? © FreeFoto.com | |
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Reasons why young people are turning away from meat may not be spiritual like Mr McBride’s, it might be for health reasons, sparked by food crisis or just that meat is quite high in fat compared to virtually fatless vegetables.
But the boom in the organic sector of supermarkets can certainly be pinned down to a more general awareness among all young people of the harsh treatment animals get under intensive modern farming methods.
Several animals may be kept in spaces no larger than your average family room and they may not get exercise for longer than twenty minutes a day.
Local animal rights activist Vivien Rhodes thinks the way chickens are ‘farmed’ is a disgrace:
“The way chicken batteries are run is absolutely atrocious and totally unnecessary…animals have feelings, they feel fear and pain just like a human being,” she said.
“There’s a great movement away from battery eggs to free range because thanks to animal right movements people have become more aware of the suffering that chickens go through while on a battery farm,” she said.
Robert Turner is a sheep farmer outside Tullymore, Newcastle and as you’d expect he’s very practical about the issue of animal rights.
“We don’t run an animal sanctuary,” he said. “I’m certainly concerned for the animals’ welfare. I always try to keep them healthy and well, but when the time comes then I have no problem seeing them going away on the lorry to the abattoir.”
“I think out in the countryside most people would think the same way as I do. I think the people who feel that animals shouldn’t be killed for food are in a minority,” he said.
It’s almost funny to think that animals can have feelings, most people I talked to in the Children’s Express Bureau found it silly.
I wanted to go to an abattoir and see for myself what the conditions are like, but found it impossible to get a go ahead from anyone.
From reading I found out that animals are identified by tags on their ears and then put into pens for about two hours.
They are then shot in the head and bled. The meat is then inspected and if it meets the standard it is sent to the shops.
Unfair? Maybe. It’s certainly efficient.
The latest CJD scare to hit newspapers is the fact that the brain disease may be transferable from animals to people.
One of the main reasons given to CJD developing in animals was that modern farming possibly pushed efficiency as a principle in front of health, with devastating results.
With that uplifting thought in mind Alan McBride’s simple argument that you are what you eat takes on a whole new dimension.
“In the Hindu tradition it’s regarded that whatever you eat affects your thoughts and your feelings.
“If you’re eating the bodies of dead animals then your thoughts and your feelings become a bit more degraded and you find it more difficult to develop spiritual consciousness.
“Whereas if you’re eating vegetarian food then you’ve become that little bit more sensitive, you’ve become that little bit more open.”
About the team
This story was produced by Cathal Hannan, 13. It was published by Foodstuff Ireland, an internet magazine.
