to meat or not to meat

Last late April/early May (forgive my faulty memory) I lost three of my fairly young hens due to -- dare I take the blame -- lousy mom skills. I forgot to close them up in the coop. Their pen was shut, but not animal proof, and somewhere in the night, or early morning three of my four were unfortunately slaughtered, and one was carried away. It was pretty fucking devastating. I cried relentlessly for hours and felt horrific and couldn't even work that night. Zach, raised with a myriad of birds and farm animals, dutifully buried (after having to finish killing a suffering bird) the remaining two. We found the survivor, the sole Camilla, in an abandoned trailer clucking about next door.

After that incident, I silently vowed to stop eating meat, for -- though it's hard to explain -- seeing my hens I had raised since they were little yellow chics, wounded, dying, bloody, slaughtered and knowing it was my fault allowed me to view my personal responsibility in the food chain somehow. The connection probably doesn't really make sense, but then again, it's right on point. Being around my own birds, my own livestock, foul, pets, what have you, instilled in me a connection to them, yes. But before their deaths I did not cease to eat meat. It was only upon seeing them (far more persuasive and effective than reading about it) dead and slaughtered and indeed suffering which woke me up to the senseless suffering and slaughter of animals raised on factory farms.

Now, before you shirk me off as some sort of self-righteous vegan/vegetarian who is going to lecture you about eating meat-- I mean we're omnivores, for goodness sake, you'll say-- hear me out. I actually really do like meat (good, choice cuts of, that is). Being a cook, or because of being one, I especially genuinely enjoy the taste and smell and even cooking of many dead animals. I long ago desensitized myself to the emotionality of viewing my meat as a once lived thing. No, the meat on my plate never had a name, or even a head or skin, it was a steak, a sausage, a drumstick. Of course, that's American gastronomy for you-- meat's meat, nothing more, nothing less. Of course, after a mild, self served, education about organic food, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and of course the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, I came to understand that organic meat was better, without really understanding why.

To jump ahead, I now study about factory farming, organic farming, health effects on humans, health effects on the animals, effects on the environment, quite frankly the outright absurdity of it all, and it has only enforced and strengthened my morals on meat eating.

But, in my now near 8 month stint of experimental vegetarianism (pescatarianism actually, because I will and do eat wild caught fish) I must admit I faltered in my stance several times and did indeed ingest several different kinds of meat. Usually I was in a position where I was simply hungry and there was little else and, I justified, I hadn't purchased it, it was already purchased and the harm, therefore, already done. What was eating it going to do or undo? Plus, I was hungry. Those were times when I ate pizza with meat on it. And, I didn't really like it.

I've been tempted by, and gave into, pork twice. Once was a free-range, slop (?) fed, organic, fat-ass, happy, farm raised pig, whose farm did not raise animals for slaughter-- rather they practiced, I'm not sure what it would be called, ritual slaughter? The slaughter of animals infrequently, to feed the farm, or perhaps to sell to families. I was volunteering for a local farm-based organization (Food Works) as a caterer. Several days of intense kitchen labor, I thought I deserved a fucking pork chop (happy pig!).

Another time a friend made chili with grass-fed, free-range Bison meat-- which, I mostly agree with. I know too little to make a sound judgment, but for the most part it's all very sustainable-- or so I know. I also caved on both Thanksgiving and Christmas where families had prepared some (very delicious) turkeys and ham, respectively. I simply couldn't stop myself. It was like putting a Mai-Tai in front of a recovering alcoholic Sorority girl-- and no one who cared was looking! In fact, everyone was drunk off turkey and/or ham. And, let me tell you, that was the best damned ham I might have ever had.

And the most recently, which held the most regret for me, was after New Years Eve, when all the leftovers were at my house, and my house was otherwise devoid of food, being broke and hungry I turned to the chicken I had cooked for the others the night before. It was, at least, Amish raised with no antibiotics/hormones. Yet, still factory meat.

After eating it (and prior to eating it, mind you, I said a little prayer to the foul that suffered for my hungover stomach to get full) I felt pretty sick-- like emotionally. It was the one meat I didn't want to re-taste. However, it also reinstated my original discontent for meat somehow. It made me realize, when I was starting to question my pescatarianism's strength, that I really do have issues with eating meat.

So, you see, I am not going to lord non-meat eating over anyone's head. In fact, I still have my own moral dilemmas with it. I feel ok about game meat. First, it is generally far healthier for you-- living in its natural environment, eating what it has evolved to eat ((the opposite of factory meat which is either forced (like cows) to eat corn (and who become routinely sick from it which is why they must be fed daily antibiotics) or like salmon (which they are trying to genetically modify so they can digest corn)). Game meat is generally full of the "good" fats, and though the animal may not have lived a full, productive life, but it was at least happy, "normal" if you will, and not raised in a pen or cement floored, tin roofed football sized pole barn with fecal dust in its eyes (cows).

This understanding and belief leads me to want to approve myself to consume free-range, grass fed, etc, etc, other types of animals.... But the idea of slaughter day is still sad and sickening, as well as the knowledge that their only kept around til a certain age (certain poundage, is more like it) then sent on their way to die for your dinner plate. (This, however, is far better than factory meat, specifically cows, who are weaned and then sent to the factory farm to learn to eat corn and then systematically pumped with hormones and antibiotics to fatten up in a matter of months before it's slaughtered.)

I read today that if every American ate meat-free one day out of seven, we'd save the same amount of carbon dioxide as taking more than eight million cars off the road (delicious living magazine). I have several thoughts on this. One is I can't believe people eat meat seven days a week. Even when I did eat meat, I didn't eat it every day-- hell I couldn't afford it! Two, while the aim is admirable of this alleged statistic, it is only a small, small way to reduce, and the things vegans and vegetarians still buy, the trash they still produce, the capitalism they still participate in, still produces and wastes tons and tons of energy.

Well, I think that about covers my meat rant. I appreciate a vegetarian lifestyle, even if one does eat meat every now and then. As a culinary freak, I believe one should be eating tons of veggies, fruits, nuts, oils, and combining them in ridiculous ways-- if meat floats your boat, just try to think about where it comes from and if it's going to contribute to you having breast cancer or your wife/mother/daughter's breast cancer, or your dick and ball cancer in the future. Think about how much energy is wasted because we're forcing animals who did not evolve to eat corn to eat our surplus corn (which is putting farmers out of their homes and farms, and which is lurking in nearly every product your have in your kitchen). Think about diabetes, heart disease, and being a total fat ass because of one very simple, very easily changeable lifestyle decision.

So, it does actually come down to the original version of this mock-Shakespearean title: To be, or not to be, because essentially, making a choice to eat meat (or the choice of how much meat you eat) can lead to your own demise, as well as the planets.