Saturday, May 16, 2015

"Humane Bacon"

Good evening everyone!

I ran across this article on NPR called " 'Tales' Of Pig Intelligence, Factory Farming And Humane Bacon," and I thought I would share it with all of you.  Warning:  For those bacon lovers, this article might make you grimace the next time you take a bite out of a strip of bacon.

The article focuses mostly on journalist Barry Estabrook, author of Pig Tales: An Omnivore's Quest for Sustainable Meat, and his experience researching the lives of animals that he enjoys eating, with a focus on pigs.  He says he wanted to do this because "if you are going to eat an animal, maybe you owed it to yourself to find out as much as you could about the way the animal thought [and] its cognitive abilities."  Through his research, he learns that pigs are smart and sentient beings.  However, he also makes the point that most Americans do not know much about the lives of these great creatures before they end up on their plate.  He talks in great detail about the living conditions of pigs in large-scale operation farms and industrial slaughterhouses, most of which are gruesome.

This article does a great job in inciting thought into the reader about how the animal they are about to eat may have lived, and if there is such a thing as "humane meat," or in this case, "humane bacon."  This article definitely stirs up the controversy of animal cruelty, as well as ethics, and I invite all of you to read it.  I hope this article makes you think before asking for that side of bacon with your eggs! And no, I am not trying to convert people to vegetarianism!

I hope everyone has a great remainder of their weekend!
~ Cosme  

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