Because nothing comes of doing nothing, and because it's time I did something other than complain or mock others (no matter how pithily) on this blog, I've decided that I'm going to re-start this great book that I've been reading and keep a journal here.
Announcing, with great presumption and pretentiousness, the start of a blogging extravaganza about "The River Cottage MEAT Book" by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (HFW).
OK, so I love to eat meat, and it's a bit of a problem, if you will, because I'm also an environmentalist and a water specialist to boot. It's hard to combine a love of meat with a philosophy of respect for the Earth and its non-human inhabitants. I decided to read this book in its entirety because I started reading it months ago at some friends' ranch in Texas and I know that it offers a different philosophy about meat eating (also, because my wife bought it for me for Christmas).
You'll have to excuse the haphazard way in which this is going to go, because I'm not much good at book reports (never was, really). What I'm going to do is read a few paragraphs or pages a night and drop down a reaction here.
HFW and I agree that there's a major problem with the way most of the meat produced in the Western world reaches the plates of the people consuming it. There's a problem with quality, there's a problem with quantity, there's a problem with preparation. In addition, there's an ecological problem: the intensive production of meat is extremely bad for the environment, and a moral problem: intensively farmed animal live miserable, sick lives in inhumane (one should say in-animal) conditions.
While HFW is a bit of a megalomaniac, aiming to change the way millions of people consume meat (no less), he's got a very good point and one worth making at length and in detail, so that we can learn enough that we'll never have to finish our plate (of meat) and be sorry that "an animal had to die for that".
Announcing, with great presumption and pretentiousness, the start of a blogging extravaganza about "The River Cottage MEAT Book" by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (HFW).
OK, so I love to eat meat, and it's a bit of a problem, if you will, because I'm also an environmentalist and a water specialist to boot. It's hard to combine a love of meat with a philosophy of respect for the Earth and its non-human inhabitants. I decided to read this book in its entirety because I started reading it months ago at some friends' ranch in Texas and I know that it offers a different philosophy about meat eating (also, because my wife bought it for me for Christmas).
You'll have to excuse the haphazard way in which this is going to go, because I'm not much good at book reports (never was, really). What I'm going to do is read a few paragraphs or pages a night and drop down a reaction here.
HFW and I agree that there's a major problem with the way most of the meat produced in the Western world reaches the plates of the people consuming it. There's a problem with quality, there's a problem with quantity, there's a problem with preparation. In addition, there's an ecological problem: the intensive production of meat is extremely bad for the environment, and a moral problem: intensively farmed animal live miserable, sick lives in inhumane (one should say in-animal) conditions.
While HFW is a bit of a megalomaniac, aiming to change the way millions of people consume meat (no less), he's got a very good point and one worth making at length and in detail, so that we can learn enough that we'll never have to finish our plate (of meat) and be sorry that "an animal had to die for that".
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