from Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall, The River Cottage

"It seems obvious to me that the morality of meat eating lies in the factual details of our relationships with the animals we kill for food. It is what we do to them that counts. There is the simple fact that we plan and carrry out their slaughter. And, in the case of farmed animals, there are the more complex interactions through which we manage and control almost every aspect of the lives, from birth to death. From where do we draw the moral authority to bring about their deaths? And what is the moral status of the means and methods we use to run their lives?" 

from "The River Cottage Meat Book" by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall, 2004 and 2007.