We’re stuffing ourselves with battery chicken. And it’s stuffing the souls of the workers, too

In 1950, we ate less than a kilo a year each. Now we stuff down on average 25 kilos each. Greed rules. Photograph: Alamy

Horribly depressing news – the poultry industry is to set its own guidance. It already sends in its own inspectors, and it hasn’t done very well policing itself in the past. Even if you don’t give a toss about chickens, it hasn’t done us much good either – remember salmonella, and campylobacter poisoning last year, which “cost the NHS nearly £900m”? And since when did self-regulation work? Think bankers.

Not that I would dream of asking people to not eat chicken, but couldn’t we eat just a tiny bit less? In 1950, we ate less than a kilo a year each. Now, on average, we stuff down 25 kilos per person. Greed rules.

Last year, Fielding visited the US and tried a small-town diner. He wanted to see the real America. Breakfast of pancakes, butter, maple syrup and bacon was available in small, regular and large portions. To Mr and Mrs Fielding, they seemed like huge, super-gigantic and eat-yourself-to-death portions. They managed to eat about a third of their colossal “small” portions. All around them sat morbidly obese diners, tucking in to – and finishing – their breakfasts, their bottoms lapping over the edges of their chairs. Dairy cattle, pigs and chickens had died so that they, too, could die early.

And before anyone starts moaning about me banging on about animal welfare while humans are homeless, dying, starving, drowning in search of asylum and fleeing wars, death and destruction, it seems to me that the way we treat animals is just a symptom of our brutish attitude towards all living beings. Imagine the fellow working in an intensive poultry farm, trampling on live chickens in the crowded sheds, flinging them about by one leg (it should be two legs, but he may not have to bother with that once the self-policing and new code on chickens starts). Is he likely to skip home from work like Fotherington-Thomas, with a bunch of flowers and tender words for the wife and children? I suspect not.

Have a look at his workplace conditions, and at those of the intensive pig-farm worker. Go on, I dare you. Then what will you fancy for dinner?