I just finished reading the “Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan and I highly recommend it!
Michael’s book takes you through our current food chain and he personally travels to farms all over The United States to learn how things end up on his dinner plate. He interviews commercial farmers and compares them to small independent, often organic farmers.
The book touches on a lot of ethical issues but at the same time is not preachy as Pollan himself often conflicted battling the omnivore’s dilemma. This book essentially went onto become the movie “Food Inc” which is also fantastic.
I often come across individual’s who do not want to read books like this or watch documentaries on how the food industry grows our food and treats the animals. In this case, I have to say ignorance is not bliss. It’s just ignorant. It’s this attitude of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that has allowed our food industry to become what it has; a mass production of animals who have no room to move around and are pumped full of hormones to get them to the slaughter house faster
I am not a vegetarian but I do like to know that the animals I eat were treated with respect and were given access to the outdoors. For health reasons, I like to know that the animals were fed well too (and not “grain fed” with corn because it’s highly available and a cheap solution) because they in turn will be healthier for me to consume. And yes, it does cost more to eat organic, free range meat. However, I just eat less of it as a result and this is fine by me. We eat too much meat as a society anyways, but that topic is for another time.
So do yourself and your household a favor and pick up this book or watch “Food Inc” and you will begin to eat better food and make a small change in the mass farming of animals by taking your business elsewhere!