Mummy, Where Does Long Pig Come From?

"Eat it with love". This was the advice given by a perpetually smiling self help guru gave when an audience member nervously queried whether eating animals could be squared with his injunction to love all living things. As advice goes it probably wasn't bad. To my mind it certainly beats having a sense of moral superiority based on sparing animal lives by killing more vegetables. Still I'm not sure I want to love the things I eat although, if pressed, I will admit to being rather fond of lamb.

That reminds me, I have to go shopping. Among my other purchases will definitely be lamb. Or, to be more accurate, small red parcels of something which the supermarket assures me was cut from a lamb. It's difficult to develop much of an emotional attachment to bits. Some people are worried that children, particularly in the cities, have no real idea of where their food comes from. Apart from the fact that on general principles I think knowing things is better than ignorance I really can't see the problem. If a child lives on a farm then it may well be helpful for them to know that, at a pinch, they can get a lamb chop by taking a rifle out to the paddock. For a city child it is infinitely more practical for them to know that they can achieve the same result by trotting down to the butchers with a handful of money.

Practical knowledge differs depending on the circumstances. The fact that I cannot milk a cow (and would be too scared to even try) is of less practical value to me than my knowledge of conflict searches which earns me the money I use to buy milk. Of course if civilisation collapses tomorrow my survival chances would be slim but then so would everyone elses. In such a case possibly the best piece of practical knowledge city children might possess is the realisation that under certain circumstances cannibalism is a valid lifestyle choice.