[throwaway8941]

I think this statement could only have come from someone who haven't spent much time outside of big cities. At least where I am from, people in more rural settings don't care about bovine or porcine feelings. This certainly doesn't mean that we torture animals, but when their time comes, the knife goes in, and meat goes on the table. "Everyone" most certainly would not become vegetarian.

[brnt]

Countryside dwellers dont know any more about the particulars of slaughter. I find that even farmers tend to be surprisingly ignorant outside of their narrow slice of expertise. Remember, argiculture is a highly specialized and thus compartmentalized industry, so there is usually no need to know anything about other links in de chain.

[johnchristopher]

> I find that even farmers tend to be surprisingly ignorant outside of their narrow slice of expertise.

In recent years I came to the conclusion that this statement is true for the majority of us.

[brnt]

I think many people, 'countrysiders' and farmers included, mistakenly attribute some sort of natural mysticism, simplicity to farming. There is absolutely nothing 'natural' or simple about industrial (western) farming. From mining minerals, producing fertilizers, landscape management, crop engineering, cropfeed engineering, butching techniques, disease control and then foodtech which has it's own universe of methods and companies.

It takes an interested mind to put all that in perspective. Whether or not you do that has nothing to do with where you live or what you do (well, maybe some agritech types have this in their job description).

[captainredbeard]

Plenty of interested minds put that together and don’t come to the same conclusion as you, my friend.