methinks

Meeting the Meat

Most of us enjoy meat. We buy it by the pound, cook it by the grill-full, and eat it by the slab. As a culture, we've established meat as the cornerstone of a square meal; a supper without meat is a plate full of "sides". True, scientists have urged us to temper our carnivorous lust - saturated fat, cholesterol, all that bad stuff - so we ostensibly eschew beef and bacon and sausage and eat skinless chicken and fish, but secretly wish we lived in the culinary bliss of 1950. Imagine eating your favorite cardiac disasters - juicy steak, greasy bacon, piping hot huiguorou - guilt free. Fatty, moist, savory meat sates in a way produce never will.

Most of us know that the animals which provide us with the meat we enjoy live lives less than happy. Cows muck around in cramped excrement quagmires euphemistically called "feedlots" (nice to focus on the "in" instead of the "out"...shitlot doesn't roll off the tongue). Each species of animal has its own special brand of horror, but that's old news. It's a pity, but we need our meat.

Yes, there are alternatives; animals that grow up in the beautiful out-of-doors, that eat a healthy balanced diet, that aren't injected with hormones and antibiotics, that get their brains bashed in and heads cut off in a friendly, wholesome manner. Certainly the latter is more healthy for the end consumer, but a friendly headbashing is probably just as lethal as an impersonal one. Happy or sad, the animal is slated for death.

And we - in a distant, capitalist sense - are its executioners. Every time we buy a pack of chicken from the store, a live chicken must be killed to fill the void.

This is not meant as an accusation. No fingers are being pointed, no clothes being shed for the next PETA naked protest. I don't weep at the butchers nor do I expect you to. My point is that you and I and everyone else who has ever purchased meat have contributed to the death of an animal. There once was a cow living on a farm, and today that cow is dead because of you, because of me. In a way, we killed it.

What if that distant, impersonal, industrial "way" was replaced by a very first person slaughter? What if every time you wanted chicken, you had to physically slaughter a chicken? What if when you wanted beef, you had to slaughter a cow? Would you do it?

This is a hypothetical scenario, so let me fill in the details. At your local grocer, instead of packages of butchered meat, they have cages of live animals. You point to a chicken , which the butcher pulls out by legs and wings and fits its head into a groove exposing its neck. All you have to do is slit its throat and move on to the cereal aisle. Would you do it? All you have to do is plunge the pneumatic killing-rod into the skull of a cow then walk away. The butcher will do the rest. (And of course, in this scenario there is no other way to get meat. You can't go to the next store and buy prepackaged meat.)

If you had to meet that animal - see it move, breathe, live - would you kill it for its flesh?

Let me highlight a fact for the male readers who just answered in an offhand, macho tone "I'd kill any animal for my survival." In 13th century Serbia, animal flesh was most likely necessary for one's survival. In 21st century America, that is not the case. Untold thousands in this country eat a healthy, delicious, flesh free diet. You would not be killing for your survival, you'd be killing for your palate, for BBQ chicken wings.

I predict that the answers to this hypothetical will fall into three camps: 1) Those who certainly would not. They are either already vegetarians or comfortable with their hypocrisy. 2) Those who certainly would. They've either already killed animals or truly know they wouldn't hesitate. 3) Those who say they would, who think they would, but are secretly thankful it is impractical to test their honesty.

A week ago I was a Type 3, who's since become a Type 1 (vegetarian, not hypocrite) but with aspirations of being a Type 2.

If you laid a knife on the table before me and said, "The only way you'll ever eat meat again is by using this knife to slit the throat of an animal," I would be a vegetarian (again, with the assumption that I have access to modern American supermarkets; I'd kill any animal for my survival). If you gave me a gun, there is a distant, faint glimmer of a chance that I would use it, and I'm thinking hunting more than barnyard execution. At least that is sporting.

What about you? What type are you?