Modern Man Food Chain - Lee Patrick Wilson

We grow, we learn, we advance, technology is discovered and created that allows us to do things that would not of even been imaginable only 200 years ago, the precipice of mankind, making our lives easier, better, connecting the World, where do we go from here?

Trying to connect to nature, I walk the Wolds Way a trail through the heart of East Yorkshire, fields & tracks pass underfoot, the simple beauty of the natural world all around me, I enter a field full of Cows. I hesitantly walk through the herd that stand together in groups, I imagine an unseen and undetected line of communication goes on between the herd. Wearily I come close to these living breathing feeling lifeforms, they look at me peacefully, the young bulls daringly & curiously stare at me, the mother blind to the future they & their children face, they stand side by side in the peace, quiet & tranquility of the field and they look at me and I look at them, we make eye contact, deep inside me a sorrow churns, I imagine the horror they are to face on their final day, transported from the tranquil existence afforded by humanity, they fully trusting humans, humans having raised, fed & milked, cared for them, kept them safe from predators, until the slaughterhouse and the veil rises, the truth is revealed, the cold steel walls, the smell of death and slaughter, their eyes widen in horror as the sting of electricity passes through them, stunned & disorientated, in a dream like state at the horror of the situation, the field passes through their minds, the thought of home in the herd, the flesh slices without pain and the warm blood flows from their neck, they drop to the cold floor, life pours from them, their blood drains onto the floor, dripping to a tray for later use, dying on the floor of the factory they take their last breath and are gone. But they don't go, not fully, their offspring lives and the spiral continues and we do this for food, for taste, for abundance, the cruelty not seen on supermarket shelves or in burger buns, yet exists just behind the veil for us to see if we only look & think.

I eat the meat, I chew the flesh, but now I have seen into the eyes of the bounty, I don't eat without thought and guilt, the guilt grows and my thoughts do to and I realise there must be another way, without the blood, death & cruelty, we must evolve for the good of our souls, for the souls of our animals for the heart of the planet, for life itself.

Technology allows us to innovate, but have we advanced at all while we still slaughter our fellow lifeforms? Whilst we consume lives are we not just animals ourselves pretending to be an advanced species, with our innovation is it time to progress from our rudimentary animal appetite for flesh & meat and find alternative food sources that do not require the sacrifice of lives?