“We don’t give a shit about chickens,” say Tesco shareholders, “now give us all your money!”
It shouldn’t really come as a surprise that Tesco shareholders yesterday chose to reject Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s call for the company to adopt new and compassionate standards for rearing birds. They ignored the moral and ethical arguments in favour of what they presumably thought was the best way to keep the money rolling in. The fact that less than 10 per cent of the shareholders voted in favour of change simply goes to show that they’re a callous bunch of bastards who care about very little other than money. And let’s face it—Tesco does make them an awful lot of money, at least for the time being. But times change, and anyone with a conscience should now boycott the store chain and shop elsewhere.
I am so sick of hearing and reading arguments like the one put by the likes of ‘Sue, Tunbridge Wells’ on the BBC News website:
“I would love to pay more for food if it increased the quality of life for these animals but at the moment I can’t afford it.”
Well boo-fucking-hoo. If this woman and others think animal welfare depends on how much money they’ve got coming in, then how much money does it take before they start to care about anyone and anything other than themselves and their own little families? I mean, her income might increase by a hundred quid a month—but are we to seriously believe she would then rush out to start buying free-range birds, or would she instead spend the extra money on booze, or fags, or garden furniture, or a posh pair of shoes for one of the kids… and thus keep on buying those sad, bruised, thin little corpses from Tesco’s freezer section?
As one commentator on the BBC website put it quite brilliantly,
“…and yet you can afford a computer, an Internet connection, and leisure time to browse bbc.co.uk and post comments?”
When does that fucking awful moment, which these apologists for torture and 24-7 cruelty constantly reference in making their excuses, actually pass into history and give them the ability to grow a conscience? Let’s be blunt: the country is divided on the issue of chicken welfare between those who do give a shit, and those who don’t.
To people like this Sue character, I say: stop making your pathetic excuses. If you’re happy to eat these birds, bloody well say so. Don’t try to eat them and be nice at the same time, it doesn’t wash. You’re lazy, and cheap, and your hand-wringing makes me want to vomit all over your dinner table. You don’t care about food, you care about stuffing your face while spending as little as possible. It’s insane. Food is the most important thing. Education, jobs, global warming… Sure. But food maintains life. And only good food gives you any chance at all of living a long and healthy life.
Cut corners on food—and you do so by accepting intensive farming because of the pay-off allowing you to eat more than you otherwise would—and you cut corners on your own well-being. Perhaps, in the end, the chickens will have their revenge. Maybe it’s already happening. I mean, cheap chicken lover, have you seen your own backside in a mirror lately? What do you think is making it so big?
The average Brit eats his or her way through around 80 chickens a year, and when you expand that number to how many birds a family of four get through in those 12 months, and then think how many years they do the same over and over and over again, it’s not hard to conclude that it is unnatural and obscene to consume that much meat, and a price will be paid beyond the pennies being added to the supermarkets’ bank balances each and every time.
This greedy overconsumption can only be achieved through intensive farming practices that are promoted as ‘traditional’ while other approaches are labelled ‘radical’, and yet we’ve only been committing these mass atrocities since the 1950s. Add all the other supposed foodstuffs that people who don’t care where their food comes from, or what it contains, tend to shovel down their throats—high fat, high salt, high sugar, highly processed, chemically-enhanced, genetically-modified—and anyone who has their eyes open can see the cause of our epidemic of obesity, heart disease and other crippling and fatal conditions: people eat manufactured shit and, when they occasionally eat stuff that isn’t shit, they either reject it on the basis that they have acquired a perverse distaste for the natural, or they eat way too much of it.
These conditions have little to do with not getting enough exercise, though exercise is obviously important. But what good is exercise if you don’t eat healthy food? It’s like wallpapering over damp instead of installing a damp-proofing course. What’s more, you eat crap and you don’t want to exercise: bad food makes us lazy, depressed, and both physically and mentally sick. Don’t believe me? Well, what percentage of people addicted to daytime TV shows like Jeremy Kyle do you think eat healthily?
“Not a chance! No way would I want to pay for chickens to wander the fields, they all end up dead and are just meat. All taste the same.”
The above is an example of someone who I don’t think I’d invite round for a nice home-made dinner—I doubt he’d be able to tell the difference between that, and a packet of cheesy strings. Almost as terrifying as the advocacy of animal cruelty to get cheap meat on the table is the increasing body of evidence suggesting that food produced by intensive farming, both animal and vegetable, is dulling the palates of the nation. By this I mean millions of people can no longer tell the difference in taste between good and bad food. Bland, tasteless or artificially flavoured rubbish is preferred over the real thing. This, more than anything, is the ultimate triumph of industrialised agriculture and supermarkets over nature and the human body. What matter if people get fat and die early, so long as they bought into the lies with their wages while they were alive? The thinking is, there will always be more people—and, what’s more, the children growing up in the homes of these sheep will be even more compliant, pre-conditioned from infancy to continue in the legacy of their parents, eating rubbish and believing it good.
Tesco says its welfare standards are “amongst the best in the world”. Tesco fucking lies. Until we see a Tesco shareholder or executive spend 12 months standing up on a sheet of A4 paper in a cage with about ten of his or her colleagues, and emerge after that year publicly stating it’s a good way to live, a compassionate way of treating any living creature, and they just can’t wait to give it another go, I won’t believe a word this evil corporation has to say about anything. As for the shareholders, and the public who don’t care, they can all go to Hell if that’s where they’re happy to wind up—the only problem is, they’re dragging us all there with them through their unstoppable and unsustainable greed, because it has consequences for the planet as a whole.
I urge you, once again, if you care about yourself, if you don’t approve of animal cruelty, if you want to empower yourself against the giant corporations, do not shop at Tesco. I repeat: Do. Not. Shop. At. Tesco. You’re not being asked to cut off one of your arms, or remove all your teeth with a pair of pliers. There are other supermarkets. And wherever you shop, don’t buy cheap chicken or, for that matter, battery eggs. If you can’t afford the best, prepare something else that is within your price range, but still healthy and without compromise, instead. Tesco and its shareholders only understand and care about money—getting more and more of it—so please, don’t give them yours.
tags: animal cruelty, broiler hens, chickens, corporate greed, diet, excuses, fat, food, obesity, shareholders, supermarkets, Tesco
2 comments on ““We don’t give a shit about chickens,” say Tesco shareholders, “now give us all your money!””
June 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Had a battery hen conversation with my dad at quarter to 8 this morning … I was feeding him and my son bacon and egg butties before they went for a walk. I made some comment along the lines of enjoy the eggs, they’re organic, free range and from Lowther. His response … “You know you’re more likely to get salmonella from free range eggs don’t you?” and continued with “Their eggs sit in the muck and battery hens eggs go straight down the chute as soon as they’re laid” I made some comment about shells, solid, doesn’t matter what the eggs sit in/on to which he responded that when just laid the eggs can absorb (is that the right word?) well stuff inc salmonella can go through the shells. Oh and the best bit … “I know there are a lot of animal cruelty issues but it’s not as bad as it’s made out, only happy hens lay eggs, if they were miserable they wouldn’t lay and any way they’ve never known any different so it can’t bother them. Chickens aren’t known for being bright you know.”
Grrrrr family! With it being so early and him being my dad I just decided not to get into it, he knows my point of view, I now know his … just cos we’re related doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on things.
When I can afford to get free range eggs that’s what I get, if I can’t afford it I don’t get eggs and now I’ve found the Lowther eggs (£1.85 for 6) at Tebay service station on the M6 I’ll make a point of calling in there on the way home whenever I travel that way!
June 28th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
He’s talking rubbish, hon. Salmonella is something transmitted via the birds themselves, and far less likely in free-range birds than stressed-out battery ones; moreover, many breeds of chickens other than those hybrids in battery farms actually produce salmonella-free eggs, for reasons unknown–like, apparently, our Marans.
As for only happy hens lay eggs… Sorry, but he’s a damn fool. So women, by that definition, prior to menopause are incapable of getting depressed or upset… It’s a matter of biology, not choice, that determines the natural fact that hens lay eggs.
Tell him all that! But hey, so many people: why let facts get in the way of propagandist myths… Especially when they provide great excuses for condoning animal cruelty… As for not being bright, well, yes, they can be dumb. But so can people? Does this mean we can be cruel to those who espouse stupid ideas? x
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