Ethics
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As you’re on this page it’s likely you’re as mindful of morals as we are.
This journey started with a true ethical dilemma. For many months a great deal of thought and research went into the ethical brainteaser that the concept of Veau Beau presented. I’ve read books and academic papers. I’ve consulted authoritative figures and attended lectures and conventions on the subject. I am now crystal clear on Veau Beau’s moral (and environmental) correctness.
I could write a doctorate on the subject but in the interests of being brief and informative, here are the basic thoughts and models that have lead me to this conclusion:
‘Ethical’ – Relating to moral principles or the branch of knowledge dealing with these.
1.1 Morally good or correct
1.2.Avoiding activities or organizations that do harm to people or the environment
‘Holistic’ - Relating to or concerned with complete systems rather than with individual parts.
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The general conclusion is that the length of an animal’s life is not as important as the quality of its life.
I recently attended the Third Annual Oxford Summer School on Animal Ethics at Oxford University run by the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and its Director the Revd. Professor Andrew Linzey. The theme was ‘The Ethics of Eating Animals’. Lectures were given by international academic experts in their field. I think all the attendees were vegans. It was consensus that killing young animals for meat was an ethically complex issue. It was consensus that there was institutionalised animal cruelty and exploitation in modern farming. There was general agreement that any movements away from the latter are progressive steps forward.
Veau Beau proposes a positive move away from disconnected & unethical farming practises. A holistic approach in a wasteful industry.
Rose veal is positively backed by Compassion in World Farming and they pronounce that
it’s actually ethically correct to use dairy bull calves for meat.
David Bowles, head of public affairs at the RSPCA, asks consumers to “please eat veal” and that
the industry should be doing more to encourage it.
The following applies more to the world of wildlife than farmed animals but it’s concept is thought provoking.
On this years Springwatch Unsprung, Chris Packham was in conversation with Dr Chris Van Tulleken about The Red Queen hypothesis and the Phycology of Cutism. The basis for the entire Red Queen theory is down to the ‘evolutionary arms race’ where prey and predator constantly evolve together to reach some sort of uneasy balance. With regard to our anthropomorphic tendency to ‘cutify’, they argue if we should we be more dispassionate about wildlife. Cuteness can misrepresent fragility in the food chain and often predators are the most fragile. Either way, everything is constantly in battle and that is how evolution moves forward.
As Janette Street-Porter has decreed, "If you actually think about it, it's crueler not to eat veal than it is to eat it."
Welfare
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We always want to be transparent and accountable.
We adhere to the The Five Freedoms of animal welfare as an obvious matter of course and view them as the most minimum of standards. The Five Freedoms are: Freedom from hunger & thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury & disease,
freedom to express normal behavior, freedom from fear & distress.
We remove the calf from the mother at birth because it removes the stress of breaking a bond formed over the suckling period.
The calves are reared together in close ‘family’ groups.
They are reared in a large airy barn (the seasons they are born into can be chilly and damp outside) with lots of space to gallop around in (like they love to) on masses of comfy straw that they can chew if they feel like it.
Rosie took great care choosing an abattoir she felt could provide the most stress free and humane ending possible.
The calves are walked in to a livestock trailer in the small group they have been reared with. They are driven straight to the abattoirs lairage in the late afternoon so that they settle over night. Early the next morning they are quietly given an electric shock to the back of their neck which stuns them and then killed instantly with a captive bolt gun.
