I think that the whole issue of animal cruelty is a bit overblown, anyway. It just doesn't make economic sense. If you treat an animal cruelly...nothing that you harvest from that animal will be optimal.

I'm not saying that mink, chickens, etc., live lives of unbridled hedonistic pleasure but I think, from what I've seen, most animals that are raised for human consumption are treated reasonably...they are not subject to parasites, predators, or pestilence. They are fed and watered regularly. This is a life that is free of stress. Would that we all had it so good.

And again, I think it bears repeating and consideration...these are individual animal that are raised for harvest--they are, in the general scheme of things and given available resources, surplus population. To kill and utilize them may offend the tender sensibilities of some but that is the way the world is. God, chance, evolution made it/us that way. Substituting petro-chemicals threatens whole ecologies and by association, all the free roaming members of multiple species.

But whether you want to flog me for that position now or not it still misses the point...make your choice to live as you will, adhering closely to whatever philosophy you believe in. Pray to whatever gods you wish. But having made the choice...and having made it with intense consideration and a desire to live with integrity...don't make up excuses, or rationales to worship at other shrines.

It seems to me that there is a disturbing cognitive dissonance in smörgåsbording these issues. But then we are living in strange times...See: Jacoby, The American Age of Unreason