Stoneballs Jackson

Customer: "No veal, thanks. I know what happens to the calves." Butcher: "So do I. Which bit do you know?" Customer: "Crates. Taken off the mother, kept in the dark, can't turn round." Butcher: "Banned here in 1990. This one had straw, a shed, and other calves to annoy for eight months. Rose veal, we call it. Pink, not white." Customer: "It's still a baby cow." Butcher: "It's a dairy bull calf. Where do you think they went before people bought veal?" Customer: "Reared for beef?" Butcher: "A Holstein bull doesn't make beef worth the feed. For years the answer was a bolt in the head at a day old. Tens of thousands a year, in this country, shot in the pen because nobody would eat them. The industry only promised to stop that a couple of years ago." Customer: "That's horrific." Butcher: "That's the price of a latte. Every pint of milk needs a cow in calf every year, and half the calves are boys." Customer: "So eating the veal..." Butcher: "Gives him eight months in a shed instead of eight minutes. The customer who won't touch veal and buys a flat white has made a choice. She just didn't get told what it was." Customer: "I'll take a kilo." Butcher: "Good. And the next person who tells you veal is cruel, ask them what they take in their coffee."