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So you love your meat and can't kick the
habit just yet? Well there are still a few steps you can take to
help stop the suffering.
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In your lifetime,
if you continue to eat meat regularly then you are more than
likely to consume nearly 2000 animals and half a tonne of
fish. If you can't give up your meat completely, then cut
down - you'll literally start saving lives.
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Why not make a few easy changes that aren't
big sacrifices: leave the ham off your pizza and have mushrooms
instead; try a salad and hummus sandwich instead of tuna and mayo;
swap your chicken tikka masala for a vegetable biriyani. Have one
veggie dinner a week and that's one chicken spared. Step it up to
one meat-free day a week, then perhaps two and then three - you
never know, you might even find you reach a stage where you're happy
to have had your last meaty meal.
The term free range suggests a farmyard full
of animals wandering around contentedly. But ‘free range’
animals are often still intensively reared. They are also slaughtered
at an early age, and in exactly the same way as factory farmed animals.
'Free range’ chickens are kept in crowded barns with barely
any room to move, there can be as many as 12 per m2. There might
be openings on one side of the barn only, so it is almost impossible
for the ones furthest away to get out: they are unable to push their
way through the thousands of other birds.
You may have seen the metal arks in fields
that the free range pigs are given for shelter. These get extremely
cold in the winter and swelteringly hot in the summer, so are of
little comfort.
Although free range farming is not cruelty-free,
it is slightly better. So if you’re not ready to go veggie
then taking some action, such as making sure you only buy free range
eggs and meat, is a step in the right direction.
Organic farming standards require farmers
to avoid using feed from crops that have been sprayed with pesticides,
and from pumping the animals full of antibiotics in an attempt to
fight off the spread of disease. Eating organic meat is therefore
slightly better for your body, as it contains less chemicals. Welfare
conditions on organic farms and during transport to slaughterhouses
should also be of a higher standard. But organically-reared animals
are still mass-produced and killed in exactly the same way as all
other farmed animals. If you continue to buy meat, then buying organic
is an improvement, but it is not a solution to ending the suffering.
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