Image courtesy of Watershed Post via Creative Commons.

For my blog today, I wanted to share Mark Bittman’s recent essay in The New York Times.

Bittman quotes political science doctoral candidate, Timothy Pachirat, who took a job in a slaughterhouse and worked there for five months: “’I didn’t get into this to focus on animal issues,’ he told me, ‘but my own relationship to eating meat has been transformed, and I now forgo it altogether. It’s just not worth the pleasure when you know the system.’”

I especially appreciate Pachirat’s use of the word “pleasure.” Words matter. With that simple word choice, Pachirat reminds us that we eat animals to please our tastebuds, not because we have to.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: critical thinking, Cultural Issues, food and diet | Tagged: animal agriculture, animal suffering, animal welfare, eating meat, industrial agriculture, Mark Bittman, slaughterhouses, violence | Comments Off