john robbins & industrial farming

i didn't know how ignorant i was about industrial farming till i listened to john robbins. john robbins was the son of the founder of basket robbins. he could have all the wealth; yet he walked away from it.

he wanted to live in a world of sufficiency instead of scarcity. by being sufficient, you don't need to have everything. you don't need to have a lot of things. it's actually those who feel they don't have enough need to have a lot of possessions - money and food. it's the insecure feeling that drives us to have more. at the end we are consumed by our insecurity. the more money we have, the more scared we are if we lose them all.

when it comes down the food, we want to have good delicious food and cheap food. we do not get educated of how food (esp meat) is produced. industrial farming is a word that i learned about only in the last 10 years of my life. i previously thought that meat was produced in a pasture where happy california cows came from. then, i learned a little bit about industrial farming of animal.

farming was never a word that i would use for animal. i always thought it's a word only associated to plants. it shocked me. then came veals. i loved it for its tenderness and its taste. when i listened to john robbins, i was shocked even more. i was shocked to learn that calves are separated from their mother at birth. they are kept in a confined stall as wide as their shoulder. they are chained to their neck. they are kept in such a way that movement is restricted as much as possible. it's where the tender and the lighter color meat comes from.

the industry changes a little per wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veal). however, that method of raising calves for veal is only outlawed in 5 states with california being one of the them. however, the law is not effective 2013 in california.

it's depressing to know how we treat those animals for our consumption. everybody wants to save a few dollars here and there for something we think it's more important. i m having the same struggle. as a middle class american, i m richer than 95% of the people in the world. yet my greed and my insecurity still push me to want more. i want everything. yet i might lose the most important thing of my life - conscience.