(P/B) EATING ANIMALS (A FORMAT)

Παρουσίαση

While the first-person research in this book took place in the United States, and many of die statistics refer to American agriculture, a remarkably similar story could be told about animal farming in the United Kingdom. There are some important differences: sow stalls (gestation crates) and veal crates are banned in the UK, whereas they are the norm in America; poultry slaughter is almost certainly less cruel. But there are far more, and more important, similarities. A British reader who cares about the issues raised in this book should not find any peace in being British. Approximately 800 million chickens, turkeys and pigs are factory farmed in the United Kingdom every year-more than ten animals for every human. (If this number were to include cows and fish- which are, for different reasons, difficult to quantify-it would be dramatically larger.) Approximately 95 percent of poultry and 60 percent of pigs are raised on factory farms. The techniques and outcomes are often identical to those that I describe. This book is the record of a very personal inquiry. Facing the prospect of fatherhood, I wanted to make informed decisions about what to feed my son. Late in the book, I note that in a different time or place, I might have made different decisions about eating animals. The United Kingdom is not the different place I was imagining. (from the publisher)