Permission to drink a lion

©tinna2727 via 123RF

It is much easier to be cruel than one might think. It depends on how we understand it and whether we choose to ignore it. Cruelty has to do with suffering, whether it be emotional or physical. There's no doubt the creatures we farm to eat suffer, but we probably never see battery farm animals so it becomes easy to ignore. In their lifetime, unless they're vegetarian, people in the developed world will eat the meat of around 20,000 entire animals.

Ignoring suffering is avoiding shame. The commercial marketing of animal parts (let's call it by its true name) is to avoid the possibility of feeling shame that may follow seeing how creatures are raised and slaughtered. We feel no regret for the life of a genetically altered broiler chicken, too big-breasted to walk and living on mesh wire in a space as large as an A4 sheet of paper. Anyway, knowing that would spoil the taste...

Read the full story on the Daily Maverick.