Nevertheless, I did have a very nice veal cutlet.

I want to eat a big cutlet.

No, but never mind. Beans on the stove, veal in the cupboard!

Beef from Charollais, pork from Périgord lamb from Brittany, veal from Normandy.

Yet in Europe and North America, there is growing concern about the ethics of the way meat and eggs are produced. The consumption of veal has fallen sharply since it became widely known that to produce so called white actually pale pink veal, newborn calves are separated from their mothers, deliberately made anemic, denied roughage, and kept in stalls so narrow that they cannot walk or turn around.

To the surprise of many, it gained the approval of 55 of those voting. Last month in Arizona, despite well funded opposition from agribusiness, the ban on small cages for sows and veal calves also passed, with 62 support.

Yet, despite these well founded criticisms, over the last 20 years factory farming not only of chickens, but also of pigs, veal calves, dairy cows, and, in outdoor feedlots, cattle has spread rapidly in developing countries, especially in Asia. Now we are discovering that the consequences may be far more deadly than we ever imagined.

Veal calves are similarly confined for all their lives in individual stalls that do not permit them to turn around, lie down, or stretch their limbs. These methods are, essentially, labor saving devices they make management of the animals easier and enable units with thousands or tens of thousands of animals to employ fewer and less skilled workers.

In Arizona, citizens can, by gathering a sufficient number of signatures, put a proposed law to a direct popular vote. This year, one of the issues on the ballot was an act to prohibit tethering or confining a pregnant pig, or a calf raised for veal, in a manner that prevents the animal from turning around freely, lying down, and fully extending his or her limbs.