Give the Cows a Voice

I saw the movie Food, Inc. during a special enviro event at Patagonia Boston earlier this year. I found it difficult to watch the scenes inside the meat factories and it was difficult even though I am a vegan who generally does not go near the beef counter at the grocery store.

As a critical thinker, I wonder about the validity of the claims in the movie. However, I — as an individual — ask how am I to go up against a whole industry and a whole industrial society that is behind the industry? Furthermore, I do not want to go up against anything. I want to be positive. Gandhi says, Be the change. Radiant Bunny says, Be the cow. To exercise my philosophy, I adopt multiple perspectives. So, I say, Moo!

Here, I think of the story that Bill Mollison tells in the preface of Introduction to Permaculture in which he protested "against the political and industrial systems [he] saw were killing us and the world around us." Mollison was concerned was that fish stocks had started to collapse and large patches of the forest had begun to die.

In my eyes, these concerns are closely related to my concern here for the cows. Mollison eventually settled on a more "positivistic" approach (permaculture design). Radiant Bunny subscribes to this approach. Saying Moo! and considering the concerns of the cow for a moment may be a humble start of being positive.

Yet, I wonder about the cows in the "meadows" of industrial food production. I hope that no cow is being treated cruelly. As a Singerian inquier I admit my responsibilities as the designer of my meals.