PerSonAl sTateMent please halp Forum

[Anonymous User]

Please advise-

One day last November, I found myself swabbing a large black pig with a blow torch, taking orders from a Swiss butcher named Francois Vecchio. I had come to his slaughter and sausage workshop to research my novel, but I was quickly drawn into Vecchio’s spiritual crisis. Days earlier, this master craftsman and impassioned critic of commodified meat had been asked by Tyson Foods, one of the largest commodity meat producers in the world, to develop a line of European-style salami.

If Vecchio says yes—he still hasn’t made a decision—he risks muddying the distinction between slow food and fast. Commercial pork stands at the end of an agro-industrial supply chain built on unsustainable practices, including monocropping and heavy use of environmental toxins. No matter how Tyson produces its European salami, and no matter what standards it foists on its suppliers, the company is unlikely to free itself from that supply chain. Vecchio might help Tyson beard all the unethical and unsustainable practices that happen upstream, which could hurt boutique producers.

Nevertheless, I think Vecchio should work with Tyson. The company processes well over three hundred thousand pigs every week. If he can convince it to raise some pigs even a little more humanely, or less carbon intensively, the good to the world will probably outweigh the harm. This, I think, is what progress will have to look like: uncertain, incremental, and a little bit icky.

[cavalier1138]

Is this a personal statement, or a Yale 250?

[UVA2B]

This isn't a personal statement.

[Anonymous User]

Is this a personal statement, or a Yale 250?

yale 250

[cavalier1138]

Is this a personal statement, or a Yale 250?

yale 250

You should probably call it that in the topic line next time. I was very confused.

Anyway, it's a bit dull. And it seems to be wobbling between a neat vignette (more interesting) and a boring screed on humanely raising animals that I can read on any second-rate blog (less interesting). In case you can't tell, I have a preference for which way you take it.