Over at The Elegant Sufficiency, Stephanie has drawn our attention to a grave ethical problem in the eating habits of human beings. Miss Eagle is a great lover of Chinese culture and food. Chinese cuisine is the pinnacle for Miss E. But Miss E deplores the depredation of whole species to meet Chinese demands for exotic foods and traditional medicinal ingredients. Miss Eagle's health has not been the best in recent times and she has considered resorting to traditional Chinese medicine - but there is a major hurdle. The impact of Chinese medicine on animal life. Read here and here to add to your understanding, dear Reader.

However, while one can recoil in horror at these tales, one also has to question our own Australian ethics in regard to our Standard Australian Diet.

We are wrecking our land. None of us question that anymore. Part of the wrecking of our ancient and fragile soils has been the importation of hard hooved animals. Sheep and cattle undergird the carnivorous diet favoured by most Australians. Goats and camels run wild in large numbers in the inland of Australia far from the eyes of the comfortable congregating in the urban fringes. The Northern Territory sends more cattle overseas in the inhumane live export trade than find their way to Australian slaughter houses.

What are the ethics involved in supporting the diet of most Australians?

For information about beef, cattle, sheepmeat, sheep, and goats go here. If you want to know more about live animal export, please go here.

As Jim Mason and Peter Singer point out (see sidebar), ask questions about your food - where it comes from, the means of its production - and ask questions about the treatment of animals and survival of animal species. Animals share this planet with us. We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves.