The compost pile repulsed me, but what did that say? Beyond the stench in my nostrils (which, believe me, was not so easy to get beyond), the pile offered an inescapable reminder of all that eating chicken involves—the killing, the bleeding, the evisceration. And no matter how well it is masked or how far it is hidden away, this death smell—and the reality that gives rise to it—shadows the eating of any meat, industrial, organic, or whatever, is part and parcel of even this grassy pastoral food chain whose beauty had so impressed me. I wondered whether my disgust didn’t cover a certain shame I
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