AR-News: (MY)The real cost of steak

[Animalconcerns]

IF God meant us to be vegetarian why did he make meat taste so good?” a
friend once said to me. This was during the year I abstained from eating
meat. It was a decision based on my fondness for animals, which is still
at odds with my love for pork chops, fried chicken and Ramly burgers. 

At the end of that year, my baser desires got the better of me and I went
back to my old murderous ways. Twenty years have passed and I am still a
meat-eater, but an extremely guilty one. Hardly a day goes by when I do
not think of turning vegetarian again. And whenever I read an article or
watch a documentary about animal husbandry and/or the meat industry I am
racked by guilt over my complicity in the ill-treatment and brutal murder
of animals. 

There are many who would accuse me of over-reacting, but although eating
meat is as natural to most of us as breathing, I believe there are few who
would be able to witness the slaughter of an animal and then happily make
a meal of it. 

The fact is, what we eat has little relation to the living, breathing
creatures we’ve come across in petting zoos, movies (think Babe!) and
books. Our meat often comes vacuum-packed, free of the feathers, fur and
even bones that would identify it as what it actually is – a carcass. That
sounds extreme but it is the truth. 
...
 It was such a situation that led Peter Lovenheim to write Portrait of a
Burger as a Young Calf: The Story of One Man, Two Cows, and the Feeding of
a Nation. The author took his daughter to McDonald’s and watched,
fascinated, as she played with the free Beanie baby cow that came with her
burger. It was then that he realised how disconnected food has become from
its source. 

full story:
http://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/2/22/features/7300115&sec=features

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