Why cheap meats costs the Earth | Life and style | The Guardian

Why cheap meats costs the Earth | Life and style | The Guardian: "In the rich world, each of us consumes or uses 30 or more animals a year (the bulk – 52 of the 59 billion – are chickens). We don't, in the nutritional sense, need these animals to feed us – certainly not in those numbers. Yet, in order to eat them at an acceptable price we have to imprison them, alter them genetically and chemically, and kill them. We have moved inexorably into ever greyer ethical territory. Any planning for a food future that still envisages using animal products and meat must debate the "moral cost".

I am not sentimental. I have killed and butchered many kinds of animals, and have been on prearranged visits to slaughterhouses in Britain and abroad. I have seen the job done carefully and kindly. It would have been better if I had just dropped in to those abattoirs, but the business of meat production is secretive; if it were public, it would lose customers. In some places, the meat trade is less shy: I've seen puppies blow-torched in tiny cages to remove their hair before butchering – a normal village practice in Vietnam."

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