I dunno whether to laugh or cry...
Posted by yabbitgirl on Feb 09, 2010 · Member since Apr 2006 · 14266 posts
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100202/tuk-children-believe-sheep-lay-eggs-6323e80.html
OK, they're little kids...but at that age I knew butterflies don't make cheese. Maybe in NYC they didn't...but still.
Yikes. Well, at least they mostly know how to identify vegetables...
I vote cry.
Now to this end, I wonder how many kids would be demanding to be veg if they knew the truth.
Wowwwwwwwwwww.
I have a friend who works teaching humane education (factory farming, food sources, animal abuses, child labor, etc.) and she tells us the same things! It is sad that children know so little about their food--but adults know shocking little too--sure they know "hamburgers"come from cows--but how that cow goes from a beautiful living creature to something dead and processed on their plate is a foreign concept.
I firmly believe that if animal/agriculture/food production processes was made public--for reals public not just leaked underground footage, actually having (forcing) the conglomerates to open up about every aspect of their operations, well a lot more people would be veg and a whole lot of people would be more outraged about what they are putting into their mouths.
Sorry for the rant--this stuff just really gets to me! :(
I have a family friend who teaches at UW, and they have a program there to learn about organic/sustainable agriculture... apparently some of the students - university students - they get in the program haven't ever realised that fruits and vegetables come from plants. No, really.
Similarly, my siblings were for the longest time of the opinion that meat did not grow on skeletons; it grew on styrofoam trays under a skin of plastic wrap. As a small child, when I was brought over to the dark side, I was the one who bluntly informed them that meat came from corpses.
My sister.... at age 15....honestly thought that turkey, like the meat, was part of a cow.
A year later, after having been throughly taught about the difference in turkeys and cows, she thought birds gave live birth.
I really...just... goodness education needs some work.
Fuf, it started back in the 60s, when my teachers taught us that animals and birds were...different. Like birds weren't animals. They were birds. Fish weren't animals either. I think they meant "mammals" but they used the word "animals." OK, so that was gradeschool, but stuff like that sticks in your head. And besides, they never said reptiles and amphibians weren't animals. Maybe they thought we couldn't say "amphibians" at that age.
BTW. did you realise that FFB (FuFuBerry) is BFF spelled backwards? You are so cool!
I have a friend who works teaching humane education (factory farming, food sources, animal abuses, child labor, etc.) and she tells us the same things! It is sad that children know so little about their food--but adults know shocking little too--sure they know "hamburgers"come from cows--but how that cow goes from a beautiful living creature to something dead and processed on their plate is a foreign concept.
I firmly believe that if animal/agriculture/food production processes was made public--for reals public not just leaked underground footage, actually having (forcing) the conglomerates to open up about every aspect of their operations, well a lot more people would be veg and a whole lot of people would be more outraged about what they are putting into their mouths.
Sorry for the rant--this stuff just really gets to me! :(
This is so true! I had a friend, that when he visited in TX, we were driving down the road and drove by a veal place, where they keep the baby cows tied to stakes, housed in tiny dog-house looking structures. He said "what is that for?" I told him that they do that to baby cows to keep them immobile so to keep their meat tender. He seemed to turn green for a moment and said, "I will never eat veal again" and as far as I am aware, he has been true to his word, he no longer eats veal.
Sad, so sad.