Happy Meat
I was talking about it yesterday with my garden buddy Bruno, a professor of biology at a local university, and (as it turns out) a lapsed vegetarian. He warned me that, first of all, if I made the switch I'd lose a lot of weight.
"And it won't be fat you'll lose, it'll be muscle," he said disapprovingly.
I have more muscle than fat to lose, frankly, but the fact is I'm pretty happy with where I am, musclewise. And I'm right where I should be as for ideal body weight (even though, like IQ, I think it's a less than ideal way to measure it). I certainly wouldn't want to weigh any less than I do now.
I've been huskier (twenty or so pounds huskier at my peak), and I wouldn't mind actually putting on a few at this point. The only reason I haven't is I'm too lazy to go to the supermarket on a regular basis, and way too lazy to cook every night. Four or five times a week, I have dinner out with friends, but if I get home without having grabbed a bite already and there's nothing in the fridge, I just curl up with my gnawing hunger and a good book and call it a night.
Truth is I'm probably too lazy to be a vegetarian. Maybe I should investigate breatharianism.
Bruno seemed to think vegetarianism was easy enough. He said back in the day he had one simple rule: eat nothing with a face.
I was like, what kind of animal doesn't have a face? Even fish have little faces. Do snails? I tried to think. (I was talking with my favorite coworker, Elsie from Eastie, and we were trying to think of animals without faces, when she had a eureka moment: "steak!" she shouted out, her eyes lighting up. "Steak doesn't have a face!")
No such luck.
"Clams," he said. "Eggs."
Oh. Hmm.
I was already finding facelessarianism a little daunting.
I said, "frankly, I don't mind eating animals with faces (and even some animal's faces) — just, they should be happy faces. Only animals with happy faces."
It says something about the real depths of my naiveté that I thought this was a clever way around the omnivore's dilemma.
Bruno's not a scold. He offered me a wan smile and wished me luck with it.
But even the most cursory research into "happy meat" shows that vegetarians, and especially vegans, find happy-facerians more contemptible than even committed carnivores. They're sort of the bisexuals of the food world.
The problem seems to be that happy-facerians actually think about their food choices, and yet still come up with the wrong answer, whereas your run-of-the-mill carnivore can at least claim ignorance.
But even though I'm skeptical about humane methods in an age of factory farming, you've got to start somewhere. And free-range is a step in the right direction.
I mean, obviously no one would be happy if they knew they were being raised and cared for only because they taste good with barbecue sauce. We all want to be loved for who we are on the inside, but not literally on the inside. Luckily most animals don't know, and if they're allowed to go about their business as if nothing were amiss, I don't see the harm in the subterfuge.
But even I'll admit it's hard to smile when you're beak's burnt off.
When I was teaching in rural Hungary, I discovered February was pig-killing time. The whole family gets together for the slaughter, and each plays a role in the process. The fact that people still raise livestock in their little gardens in the villages of the plains, and that they participate in the butchering and disemboweling, the preservation of the meat and sausage-making with the blood, mitigates the evil for some.
Of course, it simply magnifies it for others.
Which highlights the problem with thinking about your food too much, especially in a society where it's faceless by design: it opens up a whole can of worms. (Mmm, worms... they don't have faces, do they?) I mean, why should we feel entitled to eat anything?
And, yeah, I'm talking to you, too, vegans.
25 Random Things About Meat here.
Bizarre plush meat toys here.
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