Children Need To Learn Where Meat Comes From

There has been a crazy news story on television this morning - about aprimary school that has reared several lambs, and is about to sendthem off to market to be (shock horror) turned into joints of meat.The meat is being raffled to the parents, and the proceeds will buymore animals. I thought it was a fantastic idea - so the children learn about thefood chain and farming. Here’s the predictable furore that’s been kicked up; “Row Over Plan to Kill School Lamb”http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8250000/newsid_8250300/8250365.stm When are some parents going to pull their head out of their arse? Thesame parents that are “horrified” are probably the same ones thatdisinfect their kitchen and bathrooms every day, in an attempt toprotect their precious little darlings from every bacteria in theknown world (which is actually doing them MORE harm than good, butthat’s another argument). Their children almost certainly have no ideathat sausages are ground up pig, or that fish fingers are - shockhorror - actually made from lovely pretty little fish. We have chickens in our garden. We have always had them while thegirls have been growing up. Foxes also patrol the neighbourhood, andon the rare occasions a fox has got at the chickens, our kids havelearned all about the way of the world. Yes, they were upset, but theygot over it quickly. A lot of it had to do with the way we handled it.The “crafty Mr Fox” from the story books became real for our children- they had no nightmares about him… they were just cross(hilariously so with our youngest). While eating chicken sandwiches, we often have the conversation overthe dinner table; Dad - “Do you like chicken?” Youngest - “Yep” Dad - “Shall we eat your chicken for dinner tomorrow?” Youngest - “No” Dad - “Why?” Youngest - “Because she’s mine.” Dad - “What about the others? Can I cook them?” Youngest - “No - they not yours”