Sunday, May 6, 2012

The ethics of food


I did all my schooling in Jamshedpur. I used to visit my ancestral home in Palakkad, every couple of years during the summer vacations.  My grandparents used to keep a couple of  cows for milk and I used to enquire before every trip whether there was a new calf I could play with. I wasn't too concerned about whether there were other kids with whom I could play. Apparently, I had once asked why we couldn't take a calf back with us in a suitcase!

I am telling you all these stories to let you know that I like being with farm animals. So  I was horrified to see the video in this post. The picture of the sow suckling its young has been giving me nightmares. I could watch only part of the video in another link in that post because the way the animals were being treated was sickening. (I had uncomfortable reminders of the short story about meat.)

Before my stroke, I  used to occasionally eat non-veg. food.If I had seen these videos then, I would have stopped eating them. I would not have been able to get the images out of  my mind.

PS: Rabbi defends animal sacrifice.

PPS:  There was a series of articles in NYT some years back on The Food Chain.

PPPS: A talk on critical thinking.

3 comments:

  1. Good to know that you did schooling in Jamshedpur. I studied in Netarhat School not very far off from there.

    - Prabhat Ranjan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Prof. Ranjan,

    Where is Netarhat School?

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is about 2000 feet higher than Ranchi and distance by road from Ranchi is about 156 kms. This has produced many brilliant alumni and continues to do so. After separation of Bihar and Jharkhand now it is being administered by Jharkhand Govt. Today in the 10th board School has 13 students occupy top 10 positions. Only 2 more students find mention in that list, who are not from that school.You can see some information here :

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netarhat_Residential_School

    Thanks,
    - Prabhat Ranjan

    ReplyDelete