michelat's blog: "reality needs revisiting..."

> > > A restaurant in Tampa Florida, is proudly offering lion meat from South Africa to attract gluttonous gourmands. Under a heading which gushes “A Taste of Untamed Delights” a food journalist from the local newspaper writes: > > “the lion is farm raised in South Africa and processed in Colorado….the meat was less tender than the others and came with part of the bone, making it difficult to cut. The taste is difficult to describe, sort of a cross between pork chops and ribs.” > > > > The article focuses on the taste of the dish, and makes no mention of any other relevant considerations. Such as when the patrons of this Tampa restaurant order lion meat they are supporting one of the most vicious and destructive industries in the world. Such as their money goes back along the commercial food chain until it reaches the canned lion breeder in South Africa, enriching him and encouraging him to continue his grisly trade. Such as that South Africa is the world capital of canned lion breeding and hunting; that captive predators are reared under cruel conditions and then shot for sport, often with bow and arrow; that packs of dogs are often used to tree a tame hand reared lion or lioness so that bow hunters can have fun shooting arrows into their helpless victim. > > Is this an industry which Florida restaurant-goers would wish to support? > > > > To focus on the taste of the dish under these circumstance is rather like the sick old joke: “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the performance” > > Treating lions as alternative livestock like this is transparently cruel. Unlike cattle and sheep, who are mostly raised on the open range and have some natural contentment before they are penned, fattened and slaughtered, lions are predators and therefore bred in enclosures. Should lions be imprisoned like battery chickens? > > It is not natural and perhaps even unhealthy to eat the flesh of predators. There must be good reasons why predators do not eat other predators. Lions do not eat other lions even if they fight and kill each other and we human predators refrain from cannibalism. > > As for the ethics involved, just look how far society has evolved. Two thousand years ago we used to throw Christians to the lions. Now we are so civilised that we throw lions to the Christians. > > let these bastards know of your outrage: > > http://www.spotossteakjoint2.com/contacts.html > > http://www.sptimes.com/letters/ > > tel-khoury@sptimes.com > > >