This little piggy went to market
I had the best chips I have eaten since the last time I was in Superbites in Crossmaglen today. Does that sentence make sense? I am not sure.
Really. The best chips. Crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I ordered a large portion too, since it may well be some time before I am back that way again.
I even threatened to take Mrs M all that way to sample the chips as I extolled their virtues when I arrived home. Whether she holds me to this is another matter.
I needed those chips today as this morning I saw the ugly side of food production.
I saw some animal husbandry that was, as a colleague pointed out to me since I am ignorant of the facts, cleaner than average.
It was intensive pig farming.
An animal that is reputedly more intelligent than "man's best friend" the dog.
I saw stillborn piglets lying in a heap, I saw a dead sow with many more dead piglets and I saw into the eyes of pigs that were alive and what I saw made me shiver.
Maybe I was anthropomorphising, hard to tell. I can still see their eyes now.
I have been at other intensive animal rearing facilites and each time it just reinforces my feeling that it, as a practice, is inherently wrong.
Old style small holdings, the way things used to be before the industrialisation of agriculture, need to be brought back.
Really. The best chips. Crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I ordered a large portion too, since it may well be some time before I am back that way again.
I even threatened to take Mrs M all that way to sample the chips as I extolled their virtues when I arrived home. Whether she holds me to this is another matter.
I needed those chips today as this morning I saw the ugly side of food production.
I saw some animal husbandry that was, as a colleague pointed out to me since I am ignorant of the facts, cleaner than average.
It was intensive pig farming.
An animal that is reputedly more intelligent than "man's best friend" the dog.
I saw stillborn piglets lying in a heap, I saw a dead sow with many more dead piglets and I saw into the eyes of pigs that were alive and what I saw made me shiver.
Maybe I was anthropomorphising, hard to tell. I can still see their eyes now.
I have been at other intensive animal rearing facilites and each time it just reinforces my feeling that it, as a practice, is inherently wrong.
Old style small holdings, the way things used to be before the industrialisation of agriculture, need to be brought back.
posted by Mudflapgypsy at 12:09 AM
7 Comments:
Oh how I agree. But we still have one big problem. Even if pigs are reared free range, as ours were, we still had to bring them to the pig factory for killing. It's the law. And Bert said they knew. And that it was horrible. We need to get back to the old ways and that includes pigs being slaughtered at home. All the filthy diseases that government-regulated abattoir facilities are supposed to prevent were caused by intensive farming practices in the first place.
Nelly:I couldn't agree more.
If Bert kills the pigs, which is perfectly legal, only he can eat the meat! Utterly ludicrous.
As a vegetarian of course I can only feel for all those wretched animals so badly treated while they're being reared for indifferent humans to wolf them down. As Nelly says, even free range animals still have to be killed.
I love chips, but haven't yet found a really superior chippie. I love potato wedges too.
Oops, forgot the URL!
Nick: Crossmaglen is a long way to travel but they do have an adjoining takeaway. There is one chippy here in Ballymena that I rate but consistency isn't great and I think they get steamed by the time I get home sometimes.
The hunt for the best chip in Norn Iron is on !!
tuesday night......more4......10pm....our daily bread......needs watched....
I saw 2 mins of it and all I saw was a combine harvester and no narration.
Normally I have much more than the attention span of a gnat but, y'know, I turned over.
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