A recent survey revealed that nine out of 10 Brits do not know that beer is made from barley, and one in 10 believe that rice is grown in the United Kingdom.1 Exactly where they think the paddy fields are located was not recorded. This ignorance illustrates the growing disconnect between the city-dwelling majority and the countryside in terms of food production.
A further disconnect is revealed in the changing attitude toward animals in the United States. "I think there is an urban prism through which people now view animal life, and it has had the effect of raising the moral status of animals in the eyes of Americans," Franklin Loew, former dean of Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, North Grafton, Mass., has said.2 This cultural shift poses a threat to using animals for experimentation in the future.
It is but one of a number of factors that conspire ...
