Ethical Carnivore - Louise Gray

I loved this book -  Ethical Carnivore  by Louise Gray - it got better the further in and I found myself thinking about it quite a lot.  Louise comes across as a kind, determined, vulnerable woman who wants to be honest about what she does.  She eats meat - so what is the honest thing?  Kill it for yourself and don't hide behind plastic packaging and anonymous looking chunks of pink stuff.

Louise comes from a farming/shooting background and so the idea of picking up a gun isn't totally new, although it seems her brothers took to it as children more than she did.  When she made this decision to spend a year only eating meat she killed herself, at least she had her dad to teach her how to handle a gun and take her out to shoot rabbits, I wouldn't have a clue who to ask.

The first chapter is less strong than the rest, it feels a bit - well- shaky.  She finds it hard to manage the gun and can't dispatch a rabbit without tears.  I probably wouldn't have started this way, but her vulnerability comes across straight away, and that is good. She isn't a campaigning, tattooed activist who lies in front of lorries, she is a normal, sensitive westerner who has been removed from the reality of food and now has decided to face up to what it means to eat meat.  I liked that - I identified with her fears and squeamishness, I couldn't have done what she did.

She delves headlong into abattoirs and intensive chicken farms, eating road kill, going on fishing trawlers and breaking the necks of roosters.  Eventually she tackles shooting a deer. She visits farms where animals are simply units to be processed and others where they are loved until they die humanely. She describes being in a large abattoir as being in hell and was deeply traumatised.  Addressing the question of whether CCTV should be be installed in them she says no - no one should see what happens, it is like being in a vile dream. But how else do you despatch enough animals to supply the ever growing demand for meat in this country? Around 8 billion animals (livestock and fish) are killed each year in the UK for food. Can that really be true?  This figure is taken from a vegan website which says:

The total number of animals killed in British slaughterhouses in 2013 was over a billion.

This included 9.8 million pigs, nearly 15 million sheep, 18 million turkeys, 14 million ducks, over 945 million chickens and 2.6 million cattle. Add to that 4.5 billion fish and 2.6 billion shellfish you have a total of over 8 billion animals killed in the UK each year.

This equates to around 22 million animals slaughtered every day; 919,000 an hour; 15,000 per minute and 255 every second.

I was particularly interested in reading this book after making "Would You Eat An Alien?" for Radio 4 - a whacky look at the intelligence and sentience of farm animals.  It was such an eye-opening set of programmes to be involved with and taught me a lot.  We are strange creatures, we don't treat chickens as real birds, or cows as real mammals - somehow farmed animals are different to their wild relations.  But of course they are not.  Maternal and social bonds are just as strong, the ability to feel pain and fear is just as strong - but it is far easier if we don't acknowledge it.  If we had to kill pigs or cows ourselves I am sure most would be vegetarian pretty quickly.  But we don't and we absorb the Old MacDonald farm image and turn a blind eye to reality.

I went to see Louise give a talk at the Birdfair this year - she asked if the audience would rather be a chicken or a pheasant? Clever and brave for that venue - the majority of whom would be opposed to pheasant shooting. Most of the people there, and I am sure more generally, would choose to be a pheasant - given than it lives a wild life until shot (or run over or eaten by a fox).  Surely better than living for only 6 weeks, bloated and full of chemicals, hardly able to stand and never seeing daylight. She was courageous, polite and definitely, in my opinion, held the moral argument. There is no doubt pheasants - agree with their existence in the UK or not, have a better life than your average broiler.

Therefore I applaud Louise - she didn't pretend everything was fine - she found out for herself, carried on eating meat but did the honest thing and killed it with her own hands.  And the surprising thing is - she carries on trying to eat only the animals she kills, which has had a drastic effect on how much meat she eats.  She now eats mainly vegetarian food with occasional meat thrown in.  That seems to be a very healthy and sensible way to live. We all know the dangers of too much rich, animal fat.  Many people in the West overdose on protein they don't need (my family for a start!)

Well done Louise - well written, direct from the heart, not one ounce of preachiness and its challenging. Its a great read. And if I was asked round to Louise's for a squirrel supper, I think I would look forward to it very much.

Is it only humans that experience emotions?

It is high time we stopped batting off the difficult and potentially highly inconvenient questions around animal sentience. Let's just recognise that life other than humans have feelings and emotions says Mark Bekoff from the University of Colorado at Boulder.  Very true says Christine Nicol from Bristol University, who is applying animal behaviour to our treatment of livestock.  She has already made big improvements to the lives of chickens by helping formulate the recent legislation for higher standards which took account of her research.  Hens, after all, are domesticated junglefowl with many of their original instincts and behaviours, to ignore them is downright cruel.


    Commercial free-range hens indoors

There is a tangible move in some spheres (nowhere near enough though) towards living in a kinder, more compassionate world.  I am very glad, the pain caused by a cold us and them approach to life on earth is reaching desperate proportions as meat eating soars and more and more animals live short, brutal lives for our plates.  I am not against meat eating by any means (my family eats meat) but I find I am increasingly anxious about the way we treat life on earth - domesticated and wild.

What research is increasingly showing is that we are not that different from our furry and feathery fellow travellers.  We are not the only species to feel empathy, grief, affections, bonding, trauma, distress, pain, depression, joy etc.  As the evidence piles up I hope it filters through to the rest of us in society.  We need to hear these things, we need to be able to let this extraordinary and challenging research seep into our thought processes and help guide what we buy and what we eat.  Human beings are complex creatures and it takes time for us to change our ways, but the more we can identify with other life, the easier it will be to push through meaningful reforms.

I love the idea that a chicken can display delayed gratification, can recognise and react to distress in other hens and can communicate with their chicks while they are still in the egg.  My forthcoming book on John Muir gives examples of how he recognised that farm animals have similar feelings to us.

Tim Birkhead, Professor of Animal Behaviour at Sheffield told me recently that it is time for the science of ethology to look at emotions more carefully.  He believes the stage has been reached where this is no longer a taboo.  His study of guillemots on Skomer (the subject of a Living World on Aug 17th, 6.40 am) has convinced him these long-lived, communal birds who form life-long partnerships feel real affection for each other.

Science is challenging the long-held notions about what it is to be human and it seems theological research is a couple of hundred years behind the times.  Religion is too important to the way the world works for it to carry on as though ideas on what constitutes a human being has never changed.  It has and continues to present new aspects at an increasingly fast rate.  Fascinating and challenging ideas are arriving thick and fast and the world's faiths and would do well to consider them.

Religious slaughter of animals

It was brave of the chief vet, John Blackwell, to call for the banning of killing animals by bleeding them to death without stunning them.  This practice, used by Muslims and Jews, produces meat that is considered holy.  But is it humane? "I don't think an outright ban is a long way off, there is enough of a view that this practice is inhumane and causes suffering at the time of death."

The Muslim and Jewish communities have retaliated that there is no evidence that allowing an animal to bleed to death, if done properly, is anymore inhumane than conventional slaughter.  According to Wiki's information on Halal meat:

 This method of slaughtering animals consists of using a well-sharpened knife to make a swift, deep incision that cuts the front of the throat, the carotid artery, windpipe, and jugular veins to cause the least amount of suffering to the animal. The head of an animal that is slaughtered using halal methods is aligned with the qiblah. In addition to the direction, permitted animals should be slaughtered upon utterance of the Islamic prayer "in the name of God."

There are a few things strike me about this.  One is to do with religion and approach to food.  At least the Islamic and Jewish methods have a spiritual ritual involved in the production of their meat.  They are supposed to kill the animal with as little amount of suffering as possible and they utter a prayer as the animal is killed, offering the action to God.  It shows an awareness that killing another sentient being is important and should be recognised as a religious act.  There are no rituals, no incantations, no sense of a religious act in normal slaughter houses where it seems animals are literally walking meat trays that simply need processing.

Saying that, I wonder how humanely the animals are killed in Halal butchers in todays crowded, meat hungry world.  Like all rituals they were developed when there were very few people and when animals were killed where they lived. Meat was a luxury, not a daily right as it is today.  I don't know if that reverence and respect is maintained in modern Halal slaughter houses.  We are told 6000 animals are killed like this every week.

Modern slaughter houses are supposed to be clinical and efficient.  The animals in conventional slaughter houses are stunned in a variety of ways as this table shows:

They maybe stunned but how do they feel before the bullet or the electric shock?  There is a lot of research on the sentience of farm animals and it is a growing and exciting area of science.  Fascinating facts about the lives of hens and their chicks reveals an intimate relationship that requires constant communication that starts even as the chick is developing in the egg.  Sheep can identify the cry of their lamb amidst hundreds of others.  Cows show joy and  are excited when they solve problems.  Recent findings show that happy cows produce more milk, here is a quote from Scientists Live on work being done at Newcastle Univeristy:

Drs Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson have shown that by giving a cow a name and treating her as an individual, farmers can increase their annual milk yield by almost 500 pints.  The study, published online today in the academic journal Anthrozoos, found that on farms where each cow was called by her name the overall milk yield was higher than on farms where the cattle were herded as a group.

Those that are herd animals have fine instincts and are tuned to fear.  When one animal is frightened so are the others, producing a herd panic.  It is inconceivable that the transport of animals for hundreds of miles and their inevitable wait to be slaughtered is not keenly felt.  Is that more humane than the Halal method?

These are questions we have to ask and be honest about what we feel about farm animals as opposed to our pets and creatures in the wild.  It is easier to view them as unthinking dullards rather than intelligent creatures. The problem is though in the religious world, and I point the finger at the Christianity here, I am not convinced that the knowledge that animals suffer is very important.

Christianity is not kind to the non-human world, Catholicism in particular, despite the Catechism.   Catholic countries have a terrible history of cruelty.  Malta slaughters 3 million wild birds as they migrate over the island every spring and summer.  Spain does unspeakably cruel things to bulls, dogs and donkeys and so does Brazil.  I won't show pictures or go into details but this type of cruelty is unacceptable.  Bull fighting is appalling. Yet the Catholic world is silent.  Here is the Catechism on animals.  This entirely human centred view does not allow cruelty, but seems to be ignored:

Respect for the integrity of creation

2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity.¹⁹⁵Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.¹⁹⁶

2416 Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.¹⁹⁷ Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.

2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.¹⁹⁸ Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.

2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.

Strange that we can be so kind to our pets yet so mindlessly ignorant of the treatment of pigs, chickens and cows.  Is it to do with ownership?  We give our pets names and feel responsibility for them.  Farm animals are nameless, ownerless and mass produced.  It is much easier then to treat them harshly and with little sympathy for their suffering.

 I am more convinced than ever that unless kindness is at the heart of everyday life we will never have equality and peace.  Kindness springs from pure goodness and does not depend on obeying laws, it is unrequested, freely given and non-reciprocal.  Kindness is a beautiful trait to find in anyone and all of us have experienced the emotion of being on the receiving end of an unsolicited act of kindness. 

How does kindness apply to the slaughter of animals?  Eat less meat, eat it with respect, only eat meat that has not travelled far and is killed in small, humane abattoirs.  Mass produced, cheap meat is cruelty in a packet.

We have to live kinder, simpler lives whether we are religious or not. That has to include re-thinking how much meat we eat and how we produce it.