Suuuure - and factory farming has nothing to do with desire? If anything it is an expression of what happens when unabated individual desire is scaled up across a society, when the individual’s desire’s for inexpensive meat meets a corporate desire to maximise profit by any means necessary (bearing in mind that a corporation is an aggregate of individuals).

Halacha forbids yoking an Ox and an Ass together. It forbids muzzling the ox that turns the mill. If it is not permissible to do these things, how is it permissible to keep animals in high density living conditions? If Shechita is about minimising the animal’s suffering, then what a cruel joke to say to the animal “I have not let you move your whole life, which you were compelled to spend wallowing in your filth, while being forced to eat food you would not choose by design, and filling your body with chemical to prevent the sickness the conditions would invite. But now, at the end of a life made miserable by greed, I will kill you kindly.”

It seems to me that giving food animals a dignified life is demanded by our tradition, to do otherwise is a poor repayment to them for the sustenance they give us, and an insult to the hkb”h who has given them to us for sustenance.

I do because we are commanded to as Jews. Does it mean I don’t miss those bacon double cheese burgers, or lobster? I do, but I don’t harp on it. If those around me aren’t kosher, it’s okay by me, it’s a free country, no matter how hard the DC folk try to hinder things.

For the most part, I have to be careful what I eat in order to avoid heart trouble, major problem in my family. Keeping kosher helps with that to some extent, as well as eating organic.

I have to be careful THERE because organic doesn’t necessarily mean Kosher, as I informed one chef who was miffed I wasn’t eating the repast at my company’s “holiday’ party. Sometimes I bring my own food to these affairs, the Labriute products always a good idea. My co workers think I’m either strange or really devout. I may agree with both those statements.

As a NASCAR racing fan, I even bring two sets of paper plates to the tailgating party at the track! That last one is a joke I use in my comedy act, but it is close to true. At home, I have two of dishes, but areas in the fridge set aside for meat and dairy. ( the apartment comes with one fridge and I don’t think it would be a good idea to tick off the complex manager by brining a second one in). Two of everything as best I can do as a single. I even have a “Kosher Cheat Sheet”. All the “how-to” in one nifty little poster.

I don’t eat fast food, and restaurants are limited. But I do try, and seem to be pretty good at it.