Saturday, March 28, 2015

Does It Matter If the Chicken You're Eating Was Humanely Raised?






I just don't get it. As long as you are going to eat a chicken, why does it matter how that chicken has been raised? The chicken's life might be a journey, but still...  Is its ultimate destination completely meaningless? It's one thing to die, and another to die and have your body processed into unrecognizable bits that end up on on someone's table and plate. The fact that a chicken might be eaten or not upon its death is an apparently insignificant detail for the supporters of the humanely raised movement. But how could that be? Death is, in a weird way, part of life, and the way in which you die may cast a certain light upon the way in which you have lived. That's why we, humans, have such things as martyrs. Now, when it comes to chickens and our humanity in raising them, it doesn't make much sense to invest a lot of effort and resources in order to make a chicken's life more enjoyable just so that, in the end, you can roast it in the oven. If we are really serious about treating chickens and other animals humanely, then we proceed from certain assumptions that leave no room for picturing them as edible meat. A humane treatment presupposes kindness, compassion, some kind of empathy. Where do killing and eating fit into this scene? When chickens are indeed humanely raised, your very attitude towards them and their life will not allow you to eat them. A humane treatment encompasses attachment and it's hard to believe that most reasonable people would be able to eat the living object of their sincere attachment.

For sure, eating humanely raised chickens will not help anyone other than ourselves. It will deceive us. It will make us feel that we're doing the right thing, whereas, in fact, we're making matters worse. Let me be more specific.This so-called humaneitarianism has been growing so much in the last couple of years up to the point that even big meat producers have decided to embrace it. Look at the Perdue Farms, for instance. Perdue was quick to adapt to the new values and needs of their costumers and, as such, they started labelling their chicken products as being humanely raised. Their chickens, however, are still raised to grow unnaturally fast and large, which makes walking impossible for them. The barns continue to be crowded and exceptionally dirty. Where is the humanity in all of this? 

We have to be honest about our values and expectations. The labor division within the food industry has alienated us from the moral implications that permeate our meals. Perhaps it is easier for us to eat meat that was raised under decent conditions as long as we ourselves are estranged from them and keep on thinking that the animal sacrificed for us had a relatively joyful life. Nonetheless, this does not change the fact that we are eating its meat. Whether it was humanely raised or not, you are still eating that chicken. And that's the only thing that matters, in the end.

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