A colleague was urging another colleague to give up pork by claiming that pigs eat everything and anything, including their own faeces. I told her that’s probably the case for many animals, as their living conditions before slaughter are horrifying – cramped up with little space to move about, stepping on the waste of one another… Farmers feed them with food that one would rather not know what’s within. Some farmers even refuse to feed the animals a few days before slaughter.
Driven by hunger, the animals have no choice but to eat what they can find on the floor. My colleague was taken aback, for she believed that all cows eat fresh grass instead of ‘sh*tty foods’. I almost felt bad for telling her the hard truth, but most cows do not graze happily in open fields like they do in commercials. Some do not get to see the sun till the very day they are transported to the slaughterhouse.
What about fish, she asked. Fish feed on whatever they think is edible in the seas and pollution of the sea is no joke. How clean can the sea be by being the final destination of untreated sewage from drains around the world? Shocked, she finally claimed that all should all be like me – become vegetarians – since it seems to be the cleanest of all diets. I nodded and said that if possible go for organic, it would be even better, as organic foods are pesticide free.
The above conversation made me realise that there are still many who do not know or simply refuse to educate themselves about the ‘food’ they put in their mouths. The ‘ignorance is bliss’ attitude is a real killer of personal health and animal welfare. Just how can blissful can ignorance be when the animals that become food were not really healthy or happy in the first place? Perhaps, if they were made to live in those conditions, they would have more empathy towards the animals? It’s high time we stop poisoning ourselves and torturing the animals. Amituofo
Thanks guanzhao. In fact, lots of us didn’t know the reality and therefore, we are being misled!
Sometime last Mar, there was an article in Straits Times “Fleshing out the problem of eating meat”, mentioned how clean is meat etc, Gosh.
Read it from this website: http://www.wholeearth.com.sg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=1
Thanks for sharing …Sometimes I saw those lorries or minivan put up poster (slaughter meat) even mention that ..No antibotic or harmful chemical used .. :-O
Gosh I was real shock . How could it be ?
Does it mean assuring the public meat is clean and safe ??? I feel so sick about it . =((
Amituofo !!
Hi Crystal, thks for the ST article… Well, being misled is one thing, but to refuse to acknowledge the truth is another. Which was so for two of my other colleagues who happened to be around while I “announced” the sh*tty truth. They kept saying, “I don’t want to know too much!” tsk tsk tsk ::((
Hi Erica, I saw that poster before as well… I even remember asking myself, is that true? If there are no antibiotics or harmful chemicals involved, won’t the meat be considered as organic meat? But “organic” was no where labelled on the poster. So what exactly is it? No antibiotics doesn’t mean no hormones used, and no harmful chemicals used does not mean no other chemicals are used! With today farming standards, unless the meat is from those poor rural areas, which they rear only a dozen for living, I think most other livestock animals are fed with all sorts of stuff to fatten them up quickly en masse to increase profitability :oo:
When people endulge in Greed (hatred and delusions too…), in this case, to ease their taste bug, most tend to forget the truth. Even if we know, we might find excuses to say, we aren’t so “bad” afterall. =(( Sufferings indeed.
May all be well and happy. :heart:
Few year backs, I were near Woodlands Custom waiting for public bus and saw lorries and lorries loaded with little cage fully pack with live chicken, stack up on each other traveling from Malaysia to Singapore, on a very hot weather or even in the rain.
I look at those chickens in the tiny cages on their way to the slaughter house, how they feel physically in such a stuffy lorry, especially those at the lower stack, with shit dropping from the above cage, lack of fresh oxygen ….
For human, when the weather changes suddenly, we fall sick easily. How about those chickens, wouldn’t they feel the same and the virus started producing in their body and not detected because the next moment they are in the slaughterhouse. And the next into the human body.
Does illness or diseases only apply to human and not animal?
Did these animals went for medical check up and certified illness free (no cancer, no flus virus bla…bla.. bla…) before been slaughtered and consumed by human?
What are we eating? Think about it.:face:
When my mum was diagnosed with cancer, there was one thing she kept saying – she felt that the culprit was those sick chicken she ate during her younger days. Those were the poor days, when people wouldn’t want to waste food, so when the chicken they reared at home getting to fall sick, they slaughtered it immediate and eat that.
The surprise thing was, after many years my mom passed on, my grandma was also diagnosed with cancer (different type) at the age of 90. Heart disease didn’t kill her but it was cancer that ends my grandma’s life. :pp
Crystal, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s true that older people don’t like to “sayang” the food. The same goes with my parents where I got a little difficulties trying to speak animal and environmental concerns to them every possible. My father likes meat and it hurts me, just a moment ago, he is going for “chicken cubes” desires. I tried every possible methods and because he is my father, attachments, I can’t help anxious and feeling sad at times. When I attempt to place good healthy food, he bought his own food. I am not going to give up, but try different methods.
To touch animals, only when there is mutual affection between us and the animals. It’s difficult and sad to touch an lifeless dead bodies of animals and put it into our stomach. If we think touching a stray is dirty, eating a dead cooked chicken is dirtier and deprived rights in living on our mother earth, two cents worth only. =(( (U)
Refuse to know the truth, yup. I don’t know why? What is the real reason behind? Fear or afraid of letting go or don’t know what to do without it or addicted to meat or …
Guess, this also apply to a lot of other things in life … we cling on, hold on so tightly until feeling very miserable and yet refuse to let go and hoping for unrealistic expectations …
If only we dare to question, willing to look at it and accept the truth …
Sometime in life, if we think too much, it can also become a hindrance and cause unnecessary worry. So, I would not say they are totally wrong. Now the question is what situation, when and where to apply such thinking …
When our family does not understand animal and environment issues that link to vegetarianism, it is not their fault and it is not our fault too (we tried and failed).
Most of the time, we feel very sad, especially it is our closest family members, because we love them very much (attachment) …
Guess, to move forward, we really need to be very patient and try to see fully from their viewpoint (putting our own viewpoint aside first) and then see at what point, message can be convey and trigger their own thinking …
There could be other helping factors via other means if we can find those …
I like your determination of ‘don’t give up …’, use the powerful ingredients of love + compassion, eventually you will succeed, no matter how long it takes.
I think the most possible way is repentence and learning, ourselves. The safest, at least, to check the cause within ourselves, so that our actions will cause less negative results in us and others. The outcome is a let go, but if we don’t ensure or have thoughts of doing it right before we see the outcome, it’s hard not to have regrets later. It’s better to take note of the cause than to fear the outcome.
Yet share something we have already learned or quite sure that it creates “happiness” in us somehow, to share, so that we can relieve sufferings of all. I think there are certain things, we know, we are bliss because we are a little wiser. There are lots more things, we suffer because of our delusions. :oups:
About thinking, I work to think of good solutions with the most possible compassion and wisdom I could ever have now. No need to think so much, check on compassion, do we have a purer mind before we act? That’s what I’ve been trying hard to do and it works (sorry to say works…) 100% good in any outcome, good as in we are able to handle it better.
Before we say, if we don’t work we don’t have money and it put ourselves into trouble. It’s better to say, if we don’t put in our best, our actions affects all (including us) and it is not right when others suffer because of our foolishness. Trust me, it creates a fearless intention and we are more confident and tact. I can’t explain more, but it has been so good, I’m happier and sorrows are reduced to great amount.
I’m sorry if I sounded arrogance (if I do?)… just want to share because it is not “perfect”, but a good step to recuse me from my depression. 😀
I have many Qs on the term “dirty”. Is it just the meat from the animals? How real are the soil free, totally zero on contaminations like chemicals and pesticides? Organic fertilizers are from the animals dungs, don’t they contains the waste and toxics that the animal passed out too? Sad to say, even the air we breathe every second and the water we drink everyday are polluted and contaminated. How clean is clean? Can someone enlighten me?!?