This uproar arises from time to time – about cruelty to animals, about the giant fast food companies indulging in genetic mutation to produce plumper animals – with more meat, less fat, more fat, less hair, what have you – all designed to deliver the perfect meal to you. Animal rights activists rise up in arms, chain emails do the rounds and we are all wide-eyed in shock! Is this really what’s going on???
What’s the big deal? We were never supposed to domesticate and breed animals in the first place. And we have been doing so for 10,000 years – at least!
Early humans, alone among other mammals & predators, were the only ones who actually stored food for consumption later. We had a good excuse. It was our bigger brains, longer pregnancies & childhoods and hence anchored to child-rearing female populations that required the male to hunt, kill and bring food back to home base. Blame it on evolution.
Over time the hunter-gatherers evolved into the nomads and agriculturists. Somewhere along the way, we figured how to domesticate animals. Domesticate – the word has many connotations – but in this context, it is really about enslaving large numbers of a particular animal species and then herding them to their slaughter. There is nothing benign about this. And nothing natural either.
To get some facts straight – the natural order has some underlying principles. Survival of fittest, hunt when you’re hungry, eat what you kill. The natural world has no concept of slavery. Might is right, but no examples of organized mass enslavement.
When humankind discovered – or invented – domestication, it was classic human ingenuity. We first managed to mass-produce giant volumes of valuable protein without expending the attendant time & energy, and then managed to store & share it with the larger group without requiring them to be directly involved in the act of food gathering. This was an incredible achievement. It freed humankind for other intellectual pursuits and took us up the food chain, and in effect, left the chicken at the bottom of the food chain.
Today, when a major MNC figures even more advanced methods to produce genetically transformed animals – that may not even resemble the original chicken anymore – it is just the latest in a long line of human achievements in safeguarding our food supply and ensuring the survival of our species
Is this cruel? Turn vegetarian. Though one could argue that agriculture is the same mass enslavement – you just don’t hear the plants scream!
Is this right? There is no option. If we are to survive, it will be at the expense of other life-forms, one way or the other. At least in the short-term…
SAMEER NAIR 