All creatures fried and broiled

Our house is a little divided on the pig issue. I have not been overly concerned about animal rights during my life and I tend to consider that the human species are at the top of the food chain, which means that everything else further down the chain is available for consuming.

I am not one to be deliberately cruel to animals, and never have been, and I wouldn't be too keen on eating personally-named kittens or puppies, but I'm not totally opposed to the idea.

Thomas Brunner, the famous explorer of the South Island's West Coast, was faced with this tricky decision when supplies ran low during his arduous journey.

After making affectionate diary entries about his dog he eventually had to barbecue Rover, which led to the Maori naming him Kai-kuri - Dog- eater.

The notion of animals being caged and killed for my food is not abhorrent to me at all.

I do remember being mortified when my father wounded a little rabbit and got me, retriever like, to collect the injured bunny and bring it back to him.

It was shot through the hind parts and was squealing and kicking its back legs around when I passed it to dad. I don't really know what I thought was supposed to happen next - maybe a mercy dash to the animal hospital or some good old home-applied first aid.

Instead, my father pulled the little rabbit up by the hind legs and smashed its head in with the butt of the rifle. I was a speechless seven-year-old boy and I was quite distressed on the way home.

It was a revelation to me about the act of killing something. I had pulled dead possums out of traps, watched dad chop chickens' heads off and the ensuing calamity that comes with headless poultry, but I wasn't prepared for that gruesome coup de grace which was delivered to the bleeding bunny.

I had seen it living but injured, it was desperate and upset like it needed me as I carried it to dad, and then he killed it in front of me.

Although this was a lesson it didn't enlarge my empathy for any creatures of the wild kingdom.

Monkeys were still cool and everything else was for eating. I loved going eeling and, after, spearing them mercilessly. You have to give the tail a good clubbing to stop them writhing about.

I spent some time as a maintenance fitter at a freezing works and I certainly got to see my share of killing there.

Sure, sheep get to run around in the open air and graze on pasture but then they are herded into sheep trucks and they pee and poop all over each other while dogs are barking at them.

They are pushed into yards and then, in my day anyway, they were electrocuted unconscious before their throats were cut while the lamb assassin faced Mecca.

The cows were nailed, literally, by a shotgun with attachments very similar to that pneumatic killing stick wielded by Javier Bardem's character in No Country For Old Men.

It ended things very quickly before they were splayed and filleted.

The pigs, though, were in a league of their own. They knew that their time was up in the morning and they chose to live their last few hours like a human being might. It was actually an excuse for a big porcine orgy with all sorts of squealing and screeching and corkscrew appendages coming from every angle.

If they had the same ability as Orwell's pigs then they would have been staggering around knocking back the farmer's whisky and smoking his cigars and then sleeping with as many other pigs as they could before they were blindfolded and executed at dawn. So they are a pretty debauched species anyway - just like us.

I know Mike King has turned over a new leaf (silverbeet or spinach by the looks of it), but I must say a feed of pork bones and puha is pretty miserable without the pork bones.

It was only about five generations ago that Mike's Nga Puhi ancestors would have been eating each other.

To be honest I just can't get into emotional debates about meat and where it comes from.

I don't think it's cool to kill endangered species because I value biodiversity, but if there were plenty of whales in the ocean I wouldn't mind eating one.

Someone that eats something about to become extinct is a jerk. But apart from that I say be nice to your livestock while you fatten it for my plate.

Bring home the bacon. I'll turn a blind eye.