E-book: Do we have a choice?

"Do we have a choice" e-book is written by a flexitarian Dr Chan Kah Yein, and this book is geared towards people who would like to eat less meat.

If you plan to go vegan, set it as your ultimate goal. Don't set a flexitarian diet as your goal first and leave the decision to go vegan or not later. Because chances are, you will feel satisfied with eating less meat, thus not move on to stage 2: eating no meat. Don't worry too much about inconveniences, these things are flexible and as long as you are determined enough you will find a way around them. Life and death of animals are not flexible, unless we give up meat up totally.

I don't really agree with all the author's views, because I encourage people to go into a full-fledge vegetarian diet on the very least, gradually or not. However, for those who have sworn by a meatarian diet their whole lives, this would be something useful for them.

The book has some interesting true stories on chapter 5. I thought I will share one of them here.  

The Aged Loyal Cow
This is a story from my colleague, Jas. Jas grew up in Sarawak. Her parents were dairy farmers. They kept cows to provide milk for the family and also to generate income. Their cows lived a long life and, even when they could not provide anymore milk, Jas’ parents continued looking after them until they passed on.

One day, many years after having served the family, one cow developed a bad infection on her front hoof. Apparently, such an infection is very hard to heal and would cause great pain. Many farmers would sell these cows to the butcher rather than nurse them.

One such opportunist-butcher came to know about this cow with the infected hoof and offered Jas’ parents a fair price to purchase the cow. Jas’ parents, despite being in need of the money, flatly refused to sell the cow. They told the butcher, “This cow has served my family and provided milk for my children for so many years. How can we sell her now that she is old and injured?”

After the butcher went away, the cow walked towards Jas’ parents.

She held up her injured hoof.

And she cried.

I would like to believe these were tears of gratitude.

The cow lived on until she finally passed on peacefully at a ripe old age.

You can download the e-book free from here