I occasionally watch the TLC show Jon & Kate Plus 8. Why I watch the show at all even perplexes myself as I am not one to oo and aah over children and in fact I do not want any of my own. Then add to that the fact that these children came from fertility treatment, which I am against since there are so many children in this world needing homes already, and it becomes ever so much more perplexing! I was ever so intrigured while watching an older episode when the family headed to an organic farm about an hour from them. I believe the name of the farm was Natural Acres Farm, but don’t quote me on that!
While the family was at the farm they were able to feed chickens, see cows and calves and horses. I was fairly surprised to see that the chickens were able to be running around in fairly open pastures, however the conditions inside the barn were not shown on camera. As a vegan I am always skeptical…… Whether the chickens were in open pastures or crowded in the barn(s) I am in no way legitimizing the eating of chickens. My main drive to write this blog about the show was the way the family acted with the cows and calves. They were very excited and thought the calves were absolutely adorable. Kate especially found the calves endearing and couldn’t get over how cute they were. Yes, I certainly agree that the cows/calves/chickens/horses and so on were absolutely adorable, its one of a plethora of reasons I do not consume them! However, the events that followed the family visiting the animals is what alarmed me so much.
Before the family was set to leave to head back to their home, they stopped at the shop at the farm to buy organic foods and get this, half of a cow. Yes, I said half of a cow. Even in the summary of the show it stated that Jon and Kate buy half a cow. Mind you it wasn’t a deal to have half ownership of a cow with someone else, no no no. This was in fact Jon and Kate purchasing box after box of organic beef from the farmer. This is where they lost me. How, after seeing the cows and calves in the fields and ooing and awing them, can you turn around not more than a few hours later, and buy one of the cows’ dead and mutilated cousin/brother/sister/mother/father etc?!?!!?!?! This epitomizes the disconnect most people have between their food and the animals it comes from. Sure, its quite possible that Jon and Kate see it for what its worth and do not mind, but it seems that in more cases than not that most people just don’t see a baby cow and think “oh thats beef”. I guarantee if the children knew they would not wish to eat the beef after visiting with the cows. It seems as though children are much more in tune with nature than we as adults are. Perhaps it is the lack of stress or knowledge of all the pressures of this world that make them able to possess closeness to nature.
All I know for sure is that in the moment that Kate paid for “half a cow” I saw glaring in my face a majority of the world’s disconnect between what is on the dinner plate and how it got there.
Samuel Jean said,
May 2, 2009 at 10:36 am
it’s food….it’s meat…..it comes from animals. You call it a disconnect, but I say you’re disconnected. You consider them insensitive but before people could just hop in a car, grab a “box” open it and out comes “meat.” They didn’t just see the animals….they RAISED and CARED for them before what?….EATING them. So I see the luxuries of your lifetime have disconnected YOU with where food comes from and if you have DECIDED not to eat meat don’t knock someone else and make it seem like they’re ignorant or disillusioned.
veganverve said,
May 4, 2009 at 2:14 pm
The “luxuries of my lifetime” have not made me disconnected, how am I at all disconnected if I know in fact WHERE the food comes from and how it is obtained? That makes me anything but disconnected. Millions of people, however, who DECIDE to gorge themselves on fast food and other sickening foods don’t frequently think of what they put in their bodies. Not only do they not consider the health impacts (or they simply do not care and to them I say have a nice heart attack), but they don’t have an iota of knowledge of how that slab of beef came to be on their $1 burger.
Those people who used to and those who continue to raise food and “care” for them (unless they are family farms it is unlikely that the animals ever saw any TRUE caring) frequently purposely DISCONNECT themselves from being attached or seeing the animals as anything but food. If you choose to see me as “disconnected” then so be it as in ways I am. I have CHOSEN to disconnect myself from the cycle of torture, enslavement and perpetuation of violence on this planet with animals. Clearly my greater appreciation for the creatures of this planet make you and others like you uncomfortable with your own lack of conscience, for that I feel no guilt. In addition, I do not feel the need to add obnoxious comments to pro-meat websites, so I see no reason other than your own sense of inferiority to comment on here.
Sara said,
May 4, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Samuel Jean, the disillusion vegans view meat-eaters have is the disconnect between the sentient being that has been enslaved (at birth) to be slaughtered for the sake of our taste buds. It’s been proven many times over how harmful meat products are to human health, as well as been proven that the consumption of meat is not necessary for human survival. Therefore, humans perpetuate the disillusion that ‘we need meat to live’ and the disconnect that these living beings are nothing more than food for our unnecessary gastronomic whims. The disconnect, in fact, began on those farms that “raised and cared” for these mammals. They had to, otherwise nobody with a conscience would be able to bring themselves to slaughter a loved one – regardless of their species. (People who kill or condone the killing of another being without remorse, we have a word for..murderer). I know I wouldn’t be able to slaughter a loved one, let alone follow the slaughter by eating a loved one. I would have to disconnect in my mind that the being is only “food.” Some people are, in fact, ignorant to all the practices that go on in bringing animal “food” to the table because they fail to educate themselves. Others, who know the atrocities that go on in a slaughterhouse or factory farm disconnect the thoughts when it comes to dinnertime. Personally, I haven’t known anyone to sit down to a table, and give thanks by saying “Let us bless this meal by thanking the slaughterhouse workers who slashed the throat of this cow that sits before us on our plates, and the farm workers who jammed the cows into muddy pastures beyond capacity and/or jabbed, poked, prodded a downed cow that has been turned into our delicious hamburgers we will soon enjoy, and let us be thankful for the thousands of trees that were cleared to provide land to these cows without worrying that it is harming our own environment. These are necessary evils that must be endured for our nourishment, which we understand fully based on information provided by the meat and dairy industry. Enjoy your former cow, my family.”