Why We Shouldn’t Celebrate the Connection Between Farming and Eating
I visited the beautiful Blue Hill Farm at Stone Barns restaurant the other day with my family for my sister’s birthday for a picnic.
I have been to this restaurant once before as a vegetarian. It was maybe the most amazing dinner I’d ever had.
The food was so creative and whimisically magical.
For example, this was an appetizer.
The restaurant and grounds were an old Rockefeller house that has been converted into a farm and restaurant.
However I knew this farm was not a sanctuary. I knew they had animals there which they killed.
As we drove up and I saw a cow grazing in a fenced-in field…
And I saw a sign that said something like Welcome to Blue Hill at Stone Farms or something…
I honestly had a vision of this:
The entrance to a concentration camp.
Funny. I used to love farms.
I wikipediaed and found this famous sign means “Labor Makes You Free” and was the sign at the entrance to a number of concentration camps most notably Auschwitz. I noted this to my family and they laughed, not having Seen The Ghosts yet (read my post from yesterday about what it means to see the ghosts)
Labor Makes You Free…. what a chilling and haunting statement. Brilliant really, in how twisted it is.
At the farm, I did some investigating. I read their plaques and their descriptions about the philosophy of the farm.
At first glance their philosophy of celebrating “year round farm to table agriculture” and promoting the “connection between farming and eating” sounds lovely, doesn’t it.
I’m sure back in the day I would have skimmed over this assuming I loved the message. After all, it was on a farm! There are animals! Nature!
In fact, my junior year in high school I even spent a semester ON A FARM exactly like this one that had this same mission.
A working farm. Everything they ate came from the farm. Including the turkeys I was in charge of taking care of. The pigs, the cows, the chickens, who all added such beauty to the farm, were all raised for meat. They sent them away to slaughter when we were all away on our “solo”, a 3 day spiritual journey we spent alone camping in the woods. How convenient.
The Mountain School, where I did a semester program my junior year
Luckily, now my thinking has changed.
I see things more clearly now.
It is messed up to celebrate and promote the connection between farming and eating….
Ok fine, I am all for celebrating the connection between plants and eating.
But animals are not plants.
We walked around the grounds and saw the pigs.
They make it seem like the animals have a wonderful life. I read a plaque saying that the pigs are “raised in the woods until they are 4 months old when they are brought back onto the farm for finishing, “farm speak” for fattening.”
I saw the pigs in the woods…they were raised in a small electric fenced wired enclosure in the woods. Though they were raised “in the woods” so to speak, they did not have free reign of the woods.
A far cry from The Pig Preserve that I learned about through Anita Krajnc’s pig sanctuary tour, where they allow pigs free reign of a large piece of rural undeveloped property they bought.
As I walked through the beautiful, gorgeous trails in the woods around the estate, I was disturbed and quiet thinking of the pigs who would have loved to root around this forest, freely.
We approached a pond, and there were two ducks with a little gosling. I said out loud to my sisters how unfair it was that these little guys were free, while the pigs were not. Why love one, but eat the other, the signs say. My sisters all laughed.
Even to myself my views seem to have become a bit extreme. Comparing a farm to a concentration camp?
I think the connection though that I have made recently and that my friends and family have not made though is this:
I saw a slaughter. I saw the whole thing happen.
Even if the pigs do have a relatively nice life in their enclosure in the woods, which reminded me of a small cage at a zoo, when the day comes when they get slaughtered…they will die a tragic death.
I watch 48 hours all the time. Can’t stop watching it. It’s always about murders. It is always haunting. That’s how all pigs die!
Every animal I saw in a fenced off enclosure…I felt bad that I was free and they weren’t. They don’t deserve this. 4 month old pigs don’t deserve this kind of life.
My sisters said “they have a great life here!”
So what? If your whole life is a lie, because you are raised as a slave to be murdered by someone one day…
It reminds me of the book Never Let Me Go, which I have never read but I know is about a school of kids raised to be organ donors for their clones in the outside world when they reach 18.
Messed up! But this is exactly what we do to animals.
The bookstore had all these cookbooks glorifying butchery.
Think about the word people!
Have you ever heard about The Butcher of Auschwitz? Also known as the Angel of Death.
another butcher played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s list. I heard that one survivor who was invited to the set of Schindler’s List started shaking unctrollably when she saw him because he looked so much like the real guy.
Why do we celebrate books called like, Butcher?
I think Anita Krajnc is totally right…
Do you want to See The Ghosts?
You need to bear witness. Watch slaughterhouse transport and footage…check out Toronto Pig Save’s youtube channel.
And is it any better if they are butchered with a knife on a beautiful farm with an amazing restaurant like Blue Hill? No.
Although Blue Hill thinks it is.
Don’t be tricked by the whole LOCAL organic thing.
So it was locally murdered. Who cares. So it was fed organic vegan food. Who cares.
The fact is they are not free. They do not have the rights to their own life. They are slaughtered as babies. And they FEEL and SEE it coming. Then they are murdered.
Intense, no?
What do you guys think? Are you on board or are you more moderate?
(I think that’s Ralph Fiennes, not Liam Neeson, but that’s not important.) Thought-provoking post. I’ve been struggling with this issue. I experimented with veganism last year because my brain agrees with you. Why eat animal products if we don’t have to? How horribly arrogant it is to exploit, use, and kill animals just because we think they taste good! I started off with enthusiasm, but I eventually lapsed and finally just gave up, and I’m currently an omnivore. It just took so much damned effort to be vegan. I’d get into huge philosophical and logical arguments with myself over what we are and aren’t supposed to do in relation to animals. I can use my husband and family as an excuse, or I can use my rural shopping options as a (weak) excuse, or even peer pressure, living among hunters and ranchers, and getting mocked at barbecues, but really what it comes down to is I just lacked conviction and haven’t found the determination to try again. Right now I’m seriously considering giving it another try.
What does it mean, though, when we know what we’re doing to animals, and know it doesn’t have to be that way, yet still are able to block it out and wolf down that steak or that cheese omelette? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with most of the people I know, who think my struggles are just crazy hippie BS?
DOH! you’re right! (about ralph fiennes)…
Thanks for sharing this with me. I definitely understand the struggle to be vegan. I was vegan for about a year a couple years back then gave it up because I didn’t have the conviction to back it up, exactly like you say. I only became vegan last year in like September I think. Before that I was definitely trying and failing for possibly years. I couldn’t give up cheese. I am going to try to write a post about what I think helped me. I think it was two things…1 getting more into animal rights by reading books like The Lucky Ones by Jenny Brown where she gives a really great explanation of why one should be vegan and not just vegetarian…also this book Free The Animals about the ALF by Ingrid Newkirk (peta head) which is more about animal experimentation in labs but really opened up my eyes. After those two books I was like OK I really want to become vegan! The other thing I think that was going on simultaneously that really helped was my interest in eating more healthy as a result of seeing my ex vegan bf juicing tons of fruits and vegetables every day. I started reading more about raw food and reading all these books and blogs about raw veganism…and suddenly i realized not only is veganism ethical it is also convincingly argued as the healthiest possible diet (well high carb raw veganism as outlined in the book 80/10/10 by dr doug graham). Suddenly I was actually wanting to eat only vegan foods as they were the most healthful and improved my looks and changed a lot of bodily functions for the better! Also I think the thing that solidified my conviction was talking to Anita Krajnc and watching her videos (the whole bearing witness thing). That was the thing that gave me first hand knowledge of what animals go through at the time of their death and stopped all my abstract philosophizing. I totally agree that it is VERY DIFFICULT to become vegan without some key pieces….like a code in yourself you need to crack….don’t feel bad. One day you will get there! I was vegetarian for like 17 years and was constantly thinking about going vegan and failing. I appreciate you commenting as it made me remember that I was not always so convicted–definitely not. Thanks Amber!!
Thank YOU! :)
I’m not sure how I feel about the concentration camp comparison. I totally get where you’re coming from but I can’t figure out if I feel it’s overly extreme or not. Other than that though I pretty much agree with you. I feel if meat is going to be eaten I would prefer it be raised in the conditions you describe than factory farming but I don’t feel like it should be celebrated, the animal is still being raised to die.
That said I feel because eating meat and animal products is normalized if we tell those who do eat them and feel they way they go about it worth celebration that they are wrong, even if that is what we believe, it does nothing but further alienate people from our cause. I think there is nothing wrong with expressing our views or challenging others but I feel at the end of the day, if you’ve presented your argument as best as possible in a respectable way and whoever you’re talking to disagrees with you then you just have to respect their choices as move on.I’m not saying you don’t do this I just feel a lot of people within the vegan community take such a self-righteous militant approach they turn people against the cause who may previously have been somewhat interested. Also I want people to respect my choices and my vegan lifestyle and, as much as I may dislikes the choices and lifestyles of others, I feel if they respect mine it is only fair I respect theirs.
This post started off relevant and then just suddenly turned into something completely unrelated so sorry about that. Once again great post, I completely agree.
Harriett, thanks so much for the comment. About the holocaust…I do agree there is something that feels extreme and wrong about the comparison. After I wrote this post I looked up the wikipedia page for the Butcher of Auschwitz who I mention in this post, and read about the horrific things he did to children. It made me want to almost delete the post I wrote thinking, ok–what was I thinking comparing it to the holocaust. I left it up though because I did think about that at the time. But check out this project http://davidsztybel.info/16.html (the holocaust comparison project). Not to say they are the same, but there are 99 similar patterns of violence. It is a fascinating photo essay–I highly recommend. That said, it does feel wrong to even talk about the holocaust like you can fathom what it was like…but if you can’t talk about it, you can’t learn from it is one of the things I picked up from this excellent youtube vid discussing angry reactions to comparing animal expolitation to the holocaust http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6_ZPcx1WV4&list=FLMB7akbrFVYXzJOc7JHMX-Q&index=2
I agree that saying things like this is one of the things that seems to set off non vegans and alienate them–like people always talk about how PETA is anti-semitic, racist, and sexist, because they have compared animal exploitation to slavery, the holocaust, and use scantily clad women in their ads lol. It does alienate people…but I feel like those people are just DYING for a way to write PETA off and continue eating meat.
Also I know what you mean…vegans can be so extreme and I used to find it really hard to understand before I learned so much more about animal rights and animals in general. I think it is so hard for people who “get” it to deal with people who don’t “get” it. I know it is becoming more and more hard for me to be tolerant. It is amazing how easy it is NOT to understand that animals have rights and personalities. So there is this huge divide…between people who can’t believe how blind everyone else is and people who just can’t for the life of them see it.
It is all very very interesting. Thanks so much for your thoughts…loved it.
This is a very good post. All those that don’t see the twisted unethical practice of “caring” for animals via slavery, followed by murder and ingestion of their flesh, are simply ignorant. All the excuses and so-called justifications for the slavery and murder of other sentient animals for food are bunk, I’ve heard them all, and address some of the most common here: https://colindonoghue.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/do-we-need-to-eat-animal-products-for-optimum-health/
Peace.
Thanks Colin!!! I appreciate your compliment. Also I agree! And also…what a GREAT takedown of all arguments and objections to being vegan. You have such a total understanding of the issues. Very impressive and clear. I love it.