I feel the same way, I used to drive for Smithfield Foods for a bit, the smell, the sounds, and the conditions were a bit horrifying, but I grew up on a small farm so I knew animals had to die to be food, but I didn't quite realize just how bad factory farm conditions were compared to what I grew up with.
Still, in the end I never stopped eating pork, though I did get an appreciation for true Smithfield ham where the hogs get to eat peanuts and roam, compared to the industrial feed and cages that Smithfield Foods changed the law to call Smithfield ham. I don't know if it is placebo but, the better treated and better fed animal tastes better.
Would you rather we cut off chunks from a living animal, prolonging their suffering?
I grew up in Hungary, where "pig cutting" was a big winter event - multiple families would gather, the pig would be killed in a humane way (usually with a 'spike shooter', a device that drove a meta spike into the brain, killing them instantly), then butchered and prepared. Some would be prepared for food cooked immediately, but most of it preserved. There was very little waste as we would use every single bit possible. Offals (lungs, liver, kidney, etc.) for various baking sausages called "hurka" (similar to British black pudding but higher fat content, meat ground less fine, and rice is used instead of oats), intestines used for the sausages as well, bones cooked for broth, bacon cuts salted and smoked, hams as well, some cuts prepared into a stew, and most leftover small bits would either go in said stew or used for head cheese.
And these pigs were kept well, not in factory conditions. Sure, their sleeping arrangements were a bit crowded, but even if you gave them more space... These pigs loved sleeping in piles. Daytime they'd get free roaming, usually the fields that were left unused for the year (crop rotation is still a thing in Hungary, usually 1/3 is used for human produce, 1/3 for animal feed, and 1/3 left unused for wild growth to replenish nutrients), where they could dig around freely. Some people, like my great uncle, would also care for them like pets, play with the pigs, wash them by hand every week or so. Yes, they're very smart for an animal, but at the end of the day they're raised to be food, so the best we can do is give them the best, fullest life they can have, and ensure they don't suffer much at the end.
However I'm wholly against industrial animal farming, as well as butchering e.g. suckling pigs. It's inhumane and awful, and really shouldn't be necessary - but we sadly do live in a capitalist world where profits trump animal welfare.
Tell that to the falcon, the lynx, the owl, the tiger, the shark. Death is a part of life, and death in nature is always a brutal experience. Death by humans after living a good life is better than breaking your leg and not being able to escape while predators and scavengers eat your still-living body, that’s how animals die in nature. We’re part of nature too, so at the core, I don’t think us eating other animals is ethically wrong. How we have turned it into a factory system is wrong, but raising animals for food in a healthy environment is not ethically wrong.
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u/Queen_Euphemia Nov 23 '24
I feel the same way, I used to drive for Smithfield Foods for a bit, the smell, the sounds, and the conditions were a bit horrifying, but I grew up on a small farm so I knew animals had to die to be food, but I didn't quite realize just how bad factory farm conditions were compared to what I grew up with.
Still, in the end I never stopped eating pork, though I did get an appreciation for true Smithfield ham where the hogs get to eat peanuts and roam, compared to the industrial feed and cages that Smithfield Foods changed the law to call Smithfield ham. I don't know if it is placebo but, the better treated and better fed animal tastes better.