If you get Mum her breakfast in bed with bacon and eggs, give a thought to the young pig who was slaughtered to produce the bacon. He or she was taken from their mother at an early age, causing stress to them both.

The mother spent much of her pregnancy in a concrete and metal indoor stall with barely room to move. She would have undergone about four artificial inseminations and pregnancies over two years until her yield of piglets dropped below the required number and she was slaughtered.

Then think about the hens who have laid the eggs. Not only did they never see their mothers, but their own innate "mother hen" behaviour was thwarted, their eggs being taken away immediately: no chance to nest, let alone raise a clutch of chicks.

The milk in Mum's cup of tea or coffee comes from a cow who had her calf removed a matter of hours after birth so that we could suck the milk from her for our own use. She has been artificially inseminated annually, involving a human arm being inserted into her, for a handful of years before the exhaustion caused by constant lactation and pregnancy means she will have no more value other than to be slaughtered for hamburger meat.

These farmed mothers have similar maternal instincts to our own mums, but instead of respecting them, we trample on them, all for foods we can do very well without.

Mike O'Shaughnessy, Spence, ACT.