I love meat, it's an important and delicious part of the human omnivorous diet.
That being said, I wouldn't object to the periods wasted on home economics in middle school being turned into a "sources of food" education class that included trips to farms, food processors, factories, sausage-makers and slaughterhouses. It should be on par with "sex education" in terms of parental consent, but should be a necessary and important part of every child's education. It should include information on nutrition, vitamin and mineral sources, discussions on food chain contamination and concentrations of heavy metals and contaminants in the upper ends of the food chain and what that means (and why we as a species tend not to eat animals like apex hunters). Oddball foods that kids wouldn't normally eat at home like yeast paste, soy products and seaweed/kelp/sea vegetables should be included.
I grew up pretty rural in my teens so a class like this would have been a bit superfluous -- there's a cattle farm not 10 minutes from my parent's house. Growing up around farms, you get to know the birth-to-dinner plate process for food stock animals pretty quick. Many of my neighbors were too poor to buy meat, but filled a couple chest freezers every year with meat during deer season. It's not unusual to see a deer being processed in somebody's yard where I grew up. Deer are very good eating.
But before that I was a city kid (until my parents fled to the boondocks), and had I finished growing up in the city, would have needed an education like this to understand better what I'm eating and why.
I wouldn't even object to two films being shown as part of the curriculum, industry standard humane practices for food stock animal handling, and PETA style shock videos of unethical and deplorable conditions...leaving it open for the students to reach their own conclusions about what it means and what to do about it.
economics in middle school being turned into a "sources of food" education class that included trips to farms
As someone who grown up on farms, I would be quite worried in how such trips would work. The difference between a small farm (< 50 animals), is day and night. I could also easy see how kids without good guidance could imagine a sterile environment to be a "good farm", while a well kept farm to be "bad" because it has stray of hay laying on the floor.
To take a more specific example, a chicken population of 6, 30, and 300 is each radical different in design.
Your argument skips over some very important subtleties that the film elaborates on. In fact, there is little in your argument to disagree with.
The bigger issue is about the widespread view of animals by the public. Most people don't know what kinds of techniques are used by factory farms, animal trainers, etc., so it's not possible to really think rationally when dipping your McNuggets in barbecue sauce about the situation you are consenting to.
Just as war is sterilized for public consumption ("smart" bombs, etc.) animal abuse in entertainment and food production is hidden from view and stories about the farm down the street are substituted for reality.
This is a class on agriculture in our local high schools. They teach exactly what you list. But it's elective. It was very instructive for my daughter and she gave up hotdogs as a result. (She gave them up because of the "random junk" ingredients.)
Comments
I love meat, it's an important and delicious part of the human omnivorous diet.
That being said, I wouldn't object to the periods wasted on home economics in middle school being turned into a "sources of food" education class that included trips to farms, food processors, factories, sausage-makers and slaughterhouses. It should be on par with "sex education" in terms of parental consent, but should be a necessary and important part of every child's education. It should include information on nutrition, vitamin and mineral sources, discussions on food chain contamination and concentrations of heavy metals and contaminants in the upper ends of the food chain and what that means (and why we as a species tend not to eat animals like apex hunters). Oddball foods that kids wouldn't normally eat at home like yeast paste, soy products and seaweed/kelp/sea vegetables should be included.
I grew up pretty rural in my teens so a class like this would have been a bit superfluous -- there's a cattle farm not 10 minutes from my parent's house. Growing up around farms, you get to know the birth-to-dinner plate process for food stock animals pretty quick. Many of my neighbors were too poor to buy meat, but filled a couple chest freezers every year with meat during deer season. It's not unusual to see a deer being processed in somebody's yard where I grew up. Deer are very good eating.
But before that I was a city kid (until my parents fled to the boondocks), and had I finished growing up in the city, would have needed an education like this to understand better what I'm eating and why.
I wouldn't even object to two films being shown as part of the curriculum, industry standard humane practices for food stock animal handling, and PETA style shock videos of unethical and deplorable conditions...leaving it open for the students to reach their own conclusions about what it means and what to do about it.
As someone who grown up on farms, I would be quite worried in how such trips would work. The difference between a small farm (< 50 animals), is day and night. I could also easy see how kids without good guidance could imagine a sterile environment to be a "good farm", while a well kept farm to be "bad" because it has stray of hay laying on the floor.
To take a more specific example, a chicken population of 6, 30, and 300 is each radical different in design.
Probably true. I could also see farm field trips becoming a nice source of regular revenue for some struggling farms.
Your argument skips over some very important subtleties that the film elaborates on. In fact, there is little in your argument to disagree with.
The bigger issue is about the widespread view of animals by the public. Most people don't know what kinds of techniques are used by factory farms, animal trainers, etc., so it's not possible to really think rationally when dipping your McNuggets in barbecue sauce about the situation you are consenting to.
Just as war is sterilized for public consumption ("smart" bombs, etc.) animal abuse in entertainment and food production is hidden from view and stories about the farm down the street are substituted for reality.
This is a class on agriculture in our local high schools. They teach exactly what you list. But it's elective. It was very instructive for my daughter and she gave up hotdogs as a result. (She gave them up because of the "random junk" ingredients.)