by ELIZABETH KIRKWOOD
EK: How do respond to some of the negative press you’ve had here? Jay Rayner in the Guardian, for example, accusing you of taking a sentimental view of animals.
JSF: Well, I think they’re sentimental. Sentimentality is when our feelings influence us more than our brains and our reason. It is an engagement with the facts, to say, “I don’t want to eat a food that is the worst thing for the environment,” and: “I don’t want to eat a food that abuses animals in ways that I wouldn’t abuse my dog.” That’s not sentimental, that’s just being a decent human being. I have no desire to let a chicken crawl into bed with me, I just don’t want to treat it like a block of wood.
It’s curious, these strange and very sentimental divisions we create. To treat a dog one way and to treat a pig another way is sentimental. And I’ve never heard a good—rational—explanation for why we draw such lines, other than: “we’ve always done it.” Which is not an explanation, as that would justify all kinds of behaviour that we would never do today.
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