I just finished Eating Animals, an extraordinarily well-written book about the factoring farming industry in America. As informative as it is, it leaves me searching for many more answers than it provides, such as (in no particular order):
1. Which countries have no factory farms and still practice small-scale animal husbandry?
2. Why don't any animal welfare organizations merge so that they can gain from an increased presence?
3. There is clearly a market for humanely raised meat, so why aren't there more vendors of field-harvest wild game?
4. Why do so many meat-eaters become so defensive about their actions; why don't people just say, "I know I am contributing to extreme suffering, and I really don't care."
At this time, I don't consider myself a vegetarian, though I tend to eat like one. I prefer not to contribute to the conditions found in factory farms if I can help it, so my wife (who is a vegetarian) and I end up eating a lot of rice and beans. I have no qualms with death or with the fact that meat is flesh. I do, however, have an issue with prolonged and immeasurable suffering. If I had easy access to field-harvested wild game, then I'd be a regular customer (one such vendor is
Broken Arrow Ranch). But I live in the middle of Easter Europe now, where I don't speak the language or know how to get what. So for the time-being, rice and beans it is.
"Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do." p226.