It's official.
After 12 years as a vegetarian, I am, today, declaring myself omnivorous. Unlike the mousey, I-just-kind-of-don't-like-meat vegetarians I come across, I've always been in it for the animal welfare. When I was 13 and discovering the world and falling in love with many things I still adore, I went to my first punk show. I don't remember the bands. They had the obligatory haircuts and t-shirts and music and it was awesome. I picked up some vegan literature explaining the confinement of chickens and cows in factory farms. It was not news to me and since I grew up on a small scale dairy farm I also knew it wasn't the only option. As I looked into it, though, it seemed like the most prevalent option and I didn't feel right about supporting it.
It wasn't hard for me to give up eating meat, although my dairy farm family understandably hated my year long vegan stage. My reasons never strayed into the realms of health or taste, but they did broaden to include all manors of environmental benefit, which is where my concerns still lye. For a long time I have told myself that the concept of eating meat from free-range animals seemed o.k. to me. Life is death, inescapably. At least I could support the practice of giving animals a real life before they are killed for meat. Yet I've been comfortable enough as a vegetarian not to bother changing.
But here I am in 2008, married to a notoriously fast-food loving man, in grad school, trying to save money, too busy to cook everyday, and thinking about the possibility of appreciation and connection to the earth and to each other through sharing a meal. Eric and I have spent many evenings side by side at the stovetop, one of us making stir-fry and one of us making a hot dog, usually failing to time it so we actually consume the respective results in unison. I'd love to eat together, eating the same thing, but there's so little overlap.
This Christmas, my friend, Melisa, gave me the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver about her family's experience of eating only locally for one year. Of all the amazing stories, I was struck by the chapter about rare breeds of turkeys, like the Bourbon Red, that have been almost completely replaced by the 400 million Broad-Breasted White turkeys bred for industrial farming, which are very sadly so top-heavy and dumb (not to mention infertile) they couldn't live anywhere else. The poor things aught to be allowed to die off. The brilliant minds over at Slow Food USA had a plan.
"Slow Food has employed the paradox of saving rare breeds by getting more people to eat them, and that's exactly what happened in it's 2003 Ark of Taste turkey project. So many people signed up in the spring for heirloom Thanksgiving turkeys instead of the standard Butterball, an unprecedented number of U.S. farmers were called upon the raise them."
That does it for me. I want to share a meal with the person I live with, and in the tightly woven relationship of economy to environment to spiritual connection, I want the Bourbon Red to exist. Therefor I will eat him.
It wasn't hard for me to give up eating meat, although my dairy farm family understandably hated my year long vegan stage. My reasons never strayed into the realms of health or taste, but they did broaden to include all manors of environmental benefit, which is where my concerns still lye. For a long time I have told myself that the concept of eating meat from free-range animals seemed o.k. to me. Life is death, inescapably. At least I could support the practice of giving animals a real life before they are killed for meat. Yet I've been comfortable enough as a vegetarian not to bother changing.
But here I am in 2008, married to a notoriously fast-food loving man, in grad school, trying to save money, too busy to cook everyday, and thinking about the possibility of appreciation and connection to the earth and to each other through sharing a meal. Eric and I have spent many evenings side by side at the stovetop, one of us making stir-fry and one of us making a hot dog, usually failing to time it so we actually consume the respective results in unison. I'd love to eat together, eating the same thing, but there's so little overlap.
This Christmas, my friend, Melisa, gave me the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver about her family's experience of eating only locally for one year. Of all the amazing stories, I was struck by the chapter about rare breeds of turkeys, like the Bourbon Red, that have been almost completely replaced by the 400 million Broad-Breasted White turkeys bred for industrial farming, which are very sadly so top-heavy and dumb (not to mention infertile) they couldn't live anywhere else. The poor things aught to be allowed to die off. The brilliant minds over at Slow Food USA had a plan.
"Slow Food has employed the paradox of saving rare breeds by getting more people to eat them, and that's exactly what happened in it's 2003 Ark of Taste turkey project. So many people signed up in the spring for heirloom Thanksgiving turkeys instead of the standard Butterball, an unprecedented number of U.S. farmers were called upon the raise them."
That does it for me. I want to share a meal with the person I live with, and in the tightly woven relationship of economy to environment to spiritual connection, I want the Bourbon Red to exist. Therefor I will eat him.
posted by Skye Naomi at
5:41 PM
6 Comments:
what a delightful post. To the Bourbon Red Turkeys!
I've been writing a story set on a farm and so I got a book on raising chickens. Inquiring minds want to know. Oh dear. Someday, I must have me some chickens. They sound too delightful (and though stupid, full of personality). Would I be able to kill one of these personal chickens and eat her/him? We shall see.
But here's to poultry and Barbara Kingsolver.
My mom remembers being pecked by chickens while gathering eggs as a little girl, so we never had any. I've always thought raising city chickens would be a fun project though. Maybe some day when we're not renting anymore.
I wonder, too, if I would be able to kill an animal that I had raised. Kingsolver uses a quote from a pioneer woman's diary that addresses the conundrum beautifully. This farm wife is putting off killing the last of the chickens even though her family is hungry:
"We need the food badly, but I will miss the company."
My sister has egg-laying chickens. Sometimes they run up to her, because they want her to pet them. She says that she could never eat them.
I think the reason that I don't eat much meat is because I don't participate in the process of raising the animal, killing it, and preparing it. I don't think I would want to eat it after all that. Maybe a person should go through the process in order to be justified in eating it. But modern society is based on the division of labor. If someone needs a cornea transplant, they should be able to get one, even if they can't handle blood and and cadavers. Food isn't that much different I guess.
I'm taking a class on microbial pathogenesis. It makes me want to stop eating meat, because of all the diseases that animals carry. Mad cow disease, salmonella, brucellosis... It also makes me nervous about produce from places in Mexico and further south where the water is often contaminated with hepatitis A and pathogenic E. coli. Eating local makes sense for the environment and for our health and economy as well. It's just too bad that we can't grow more in Minnesota. It would be hard to give up bananas, chocolate, and Italian wine.
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There will be no giving up of dark chocolate for me. Cindy, Have you tried Vosges? The Red Fire candy bar will change your life.
The division of labor thing is a good point. New methods of efficiency are these amazing advantages, but I always get excited when people question their use. In the documentary about Amish life, The Devil's Playground, an Amish man explained their attitude about technology. It wasn't just this across-the-board Luddite attitude. He said that with every invention that they might want to utilize, they first ask themselves if it would be good for the community, like, would it help or hurt the strength of communication and family.
I think it's really exciting when people (or companies/cultures) examine what is gained and what is lost in efficiency.
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