RE – Defining Cruelty

A while ago I created the black image of animal cruelty and then a few days later I needed to purge the images from my heart and mind with images of humane husbandry you see in the second offering  because there is hope and that hope is US EOMers and our food choices. Remember death by definition is not cruelty.. the potential cruelty that leads up to it is.. and a cruel and traumatic death is ... but not death itself.

Be a proud and ethical omnivore because what you do is the best option out there.. even better than an animal free diet because we give our food animals the only life they would ever have. I don’t know about you but if I had only two choices… never to exist at all or to exist a short time but live a wonderful, natural life, surrounded by friends and given food and shelter and safely until a death I had no idea was swiftly and painlessly coming.. I KNOW I would choose life…ever so brief as it was. I think even people with the hardest imaginable lives would chose to live those lives again rather than nothing at all. Ethical omnivore? or food animal extinction?… and some would have pet and working animal extinction as well thrown into the mix. I really see the choice to be quite an easy one.

I am going to take this a step further to make my point. First off… one thing I will stress is this. I NEED meat. I am a recovering vegan and with a holistic health and fitness background.. trust me I did everything RIGHT.. better than most who attempt the diet. No doubt about it I LIKE meat but I know I NEED it for optimal health, otherwise I would probably still be vegan… even vegetarian didn’t work well enough for me. I loathe that comment “You only eat meat for your taste buds” Well for one who eats stuff they hate so yes we all eat for our taste buds for the love of all things logical! But it is not my driving force by a long shot. And for anyone on this EOM path you can attest to the fact it is not an easy one. Vegans have a FAR easier time eating out or buying commercially.. especially if there is no concern for organics.. which a good EOMer is also very concerned about because let’s face it the ethical knife AND fork doesn’t stop at protein in our lives. So sorry no this is not an easy, taste bud driven path… and I won’t even get into the financial issues.

Ok having said that. I sit here writing to you and watch my beloved Pug Oliver sleep and snore and my heart swells with deep love for him. I ask myself if I were starving would I eat my pet? BEFORE you get your undies in bunch…truthfully I do not know and hopefully never will. Sophie I am not. What I do know is that if I decided to take my dog out on the balcony,  kiss his adorable face and shoot him in the head my heart would break for ME… not him. He has lived a life second to none. Truly and completely loved. Wanting for nothing and dare I say cared for better than I was as a child. He would have lived and died loved, his last moment would be one of love and trust for me. His end quick and painless. That is not ideal.. but that is not cruelty. That is love to the.. untimely but sudden and cruelty free end.

cru·el
Willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.
Synonym: brutal, savage, inhuman, barbaric, barbarous, brutish, bloodthirsty, murderous, vicious, sadistic, wicked, evil, fiendish, diabolical, monstrous, abominable, callous, ruthless, merciless, pitiless, remorseless, uncaring, heartless, stony-hearted, hard-hearted, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, unfeeling, unkind, inhumane.

Now speaking of death. Death is unavoidable in order for life to exist. The natural world is based on death. Even plants compete viciously for sunlight, water, resources. I challenge ANYONE to show me a death free diet. Just because you don’t consciously slay does not mean slaying does not take place for you to have your din din. Do not the rodents displaced, poisoned and rototilled in veggie patches count for anything? How about the foxes, birds and bugs and the destruction of the ecosystem that is the soil??  .

Our EOM bear most recently got poked on our Facebook page with the comment “Talk is cheap.. How exactly do we convince ourselves that killing is ethical? Herein lies the problem that cannot be solved”

Here is how our admin Kelley the owner of South Texas Heritage Pork answered: “How do you assume that because we eat meat we don’t feel? Have you ever taken the life of an animal for the purpose of feeding yourself or others? Have you ever raised meat for yourself or others? If not, you simply cannot know how or if we feel about it. The hardest part of a farmer or ranchers job is to harvest the animals he/she has loved and cared for. If you don’t know what that is like you cannot judge those that do.

There’s an ass load of propaganda as to why we need animals. That they are part of our nutrition is also well documented. Killing them in a humane part of a naturally occurring ecosystem. Ask your grandparents and great grandparents.”

Here is what another of our admins (Lisa) had to say: “Mother nature kills constantly. She kills in brutal, indiscriminate ways. Particularly picking on the young and the old. They die by predation, starvation, and diseases. Death is either very slow or very violent and sometimes it is both. Yet it is all done in a way that keeps that ecosystem vibrant, sharing nutrients up and down the food chain. Nothing is wasted, but she cares not for sparing any animal pain and suffering. So yes, humane slaughter is ethical. It is a far kinder death than mother nature would ever provide. We as humans are terrified of death and we project that fear onto animals, we cause ourselves emotional suffering over what we think the animals might experience. That’s not a logical or ethical reason to not eat animals, but if it is your reason I can understand it. I struggled with it too until I started participating in hunting/fishing/slaughter of my own food. Participating in slaughter creates within in me a profound sense of gratitude for the animal and the person who raised it to live a happy, stress-free life. If that animal had had to survive in the wild, it would have known stress every day of it’s life.”

Here is how I (Lana) answered: ‘”The comment “talk is cheap” alone is worthy of our EOM scorn. Does THIS freakin page look like all we do is TALK… does it look like our hard working ranchers sit around the ranch and TALK all the live long day?? NO they are working hard against almost impossible odds up against the factory farm paradigm to give animals good lives, swift painless deaths and feed their families and communities. It is the poster here who’s talk is cheap.”

If you are an ethical omnivore for real, you are in my opinion the best humanity has to offer. I am making a stand against those who call our choices cruel. Is it not an act of cruelty to deny yourself and those in your care optimal nourishment as nature, biology, evolution and for some.. God intended? Anything aside from this is.. yes cruel and/or insane. Because I believe cruelty and insanity lies in the extremes of our food choice spectrum. Factory farms being at one end and veganism at the other. As well I am sick of the word cruel being bastardized and the word ethical being stolen.

Thank you.

HUGE thanks to Circle B Ranch and Mangalitza Breed “Page” for these amazing photos and your contribution to our movement.. for you ARE our movement.

Lana Salant