Page 327 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

the summer sun. Yet many cattle never see those fragrant

pastures. Some dairy cows are kept permanently in

stalls, their engorged udders rubbed raw by the milking
machine. The white flesh of veal is the flesh of calves

that are deliberately weakened and kept in cages their

entire short lives, calves that never rise on unsteady

legs to follow their mothers through the clover. These

animals live their lives behind barn doors, where no one
can see their plight.

Finally, consider the lobster, perhaps the worst-

treated of all our food. Once caught, it is doomed to

spend the rest of its life in a small fish tank in the
fluorescent-lit seafood department of a grocery store.

Its claws are closed with heavy rubber bands, and it is

crowded together with its fellows at the bottom of the

tank. Is it fed, I wonder, or does it slowly starve as

it waits to be eaten? Peered at by children, ignored by
adults until it is finally bought, it ends its miserable

life being boiled alive. Isn’t there a more humane way

to keep it and to cook it?

After the hunt, the Cherokee had a custom of thanking
an animal for its sacrifice. They did not forget that it

was a fellow creature, that it had the right to walk the

earth and roam the forests. We, too, owe a debt to the

animals we raise for food. At the very least, we can

treat them like creatures and not like crops.