Vacillating Vegetarian

I am nominally a vegetarian. I've rejected meat partly because of the misery of animals confined to unnatural conditions--highly concentrated in feeding factories, fed grain--not the grass they were engineered for--and pumped full of chemicals to counteract the stress of their misery. Then there are the chemically laced pools of poo that poison water tables. Then there are the slaughterhouse workers who are expendable, non-English speaking immigrants who are less abused than the slaughtered animals, but not much.

In Ireland, this is how cows live:


I half expect them to toddle over to that gothic mansion for tea. Of course, I don't know how slaughterhouse workers are treated or the degree of fear and panic the animals experience as they approach their death. I assume the system is more humane here for animal and human, but I haven't looked closely. Still, I felt slightly less guilty when I fell off the veg wagon and went to McDonalds (!) for lunch the other day. It was 4 p.m.--I was well past lunch--and I needed calories quickly, so a chocolate shake and cheeseburger kept me going. Of course I felt ill an hour later.
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