The (free range) elephant in the room

So I've been in Singapore for around a month now, and have been eating food all that time, amazingly. I'm not a vegetarian and in the UK I always tried to eat free range meat, that has been raised in a more humane way. I've been trying to avoid thinking about the conditions the animals have been raised in whilst tucking into my chicken and rice, but having seen a few items on the local news, it's an issue that I can't ignore much longer. And boy, is it a big issue!

I was going to start by looking at chickens and eggs, although I couldn't make my mind which to look at first - chicken or egg ;) but one issue rose from the deep at attacked my attention - Shark's Fin Soup. First, this week's 8 Days magazine has a special feature about two local celebrities - Glenn Ong and Jean Danker - who won't be serving the soup at their wedding. Further celebrities then give their opinions on eating the soup - some for, some against. Plus there's a list of hotels that don't serve it anymore and the options the offer instead (although one of them does offer cod - which is also endangered, but I'll look at fish in more detail soon).

8 Days Issue No. 1120 Apr 5, 2012 - Special Feature about Shark's Fin Soup - Pages 28 to 47

I then read about my company's pledge not to serve or order shark's fin soup. They've signed up to the WWF campaign.

As a westerner, shark's fin soup wasn't something that I'd really come across, but I saw some on a trip to Hong Kong and it seems to be served at most weddings in Singapore. It's not something that I'd eat and I've signed the WWF pledge not to eat it. Why don't you?