A Question for Vegetarians

Hmmm ... Just found this thread ...

Used to be a strict vegetarian, but for ethical reasons. I had no problem with eating meat that had been killed humanely, such as venison or free-range chicken, but I had serious problems with the cruelty of the factory-farming industry, and so I avoided eating meat unless I could verify the source.

I’m less vegetarian than I used to be, but largely because I've worked out a balance. That, and I've gotten in touch with my spiritual side. I'm what's known as a "spiritual therianthrope". For a full definition, I recommend checking out the entry on therianthropy on wikipedia.org, but basically I've concluded (after several decades of experiences) that spiritually I'm a feral canine.

That, however, is not the point of this little posting, and I’m hoping it doesn’t sidetrack this whole thread. Instead, I wanted to say that there's a connection between killing an animal and eating it. If you just eat meat but it was killed by somebody else and you avoid experiencing its death and ripping the meat off its bones, it’s easy to be rather callous about the whole affair. And instead of treating an animal with respect, you allow them to become almost the almost inorganic equivalent of a Chicken McNugget, which hardly seems to have come from a once living creature.

I admit I live in the city and most of my food comes from the local Whole Foods organic grocer. However, I have done a few things to bring the experience a bit … closer to home, shall we say. For example, a couple of months ago, after seeing a squirrel hit and killed by a car, I took the body home and, after reading how to do it on the Internet and discussing it with my local butcher, I took an Exacto knife and processed the body in the back yard, preserving the pelt and keeping the meat for a tasty stew (using a recipe I also got from the Internet). I also greatly enjoy the taste of raw beef, which is actually quite healthy (more so than cooked beef) if bought fresh from a reputable source. Raw sirloin, I’ve found, makes a particularly enjoyable breakfast.

I have also taking a liking for grasshoppers (which I’ve found taste like a delicately flavored mild cheese) and crickets (which have a more tangy taste, which is quite flavorful although offset by a slight bitter aftertaste). I recommend both to anybody looking for an interesting afternoon summer snack that’s free for the picking -- assuming you're quick with your hands or a net. Just make sure they’re from an area that you’re familiar with (and therefore haven’t been subjected to insecticide).

As part of my therianthropic experiences, I’ve also eaten live mice three times. They weren’t live when I ate them, of course. Each time I purchased them at a pet store that sells mice for consumption by snakes. I would let them loose in my (quite private) office and, when lunchtime came, I would allow myself to mentally shift as deeply as possibly, leading me to stalk them, pounce on them, grab them by the neck with my teeth, shake them with my mouth while biting down hard, drop them and bat at them to make sure they were dead, then finally grabbing them back in my mouth and swallowing them whole. I did it at first with reluctance after months of craving mice, and even actively hunting them in woodpiles and grassy areas nearby. I knew that I would probably wind up eating a field mouse if I kept this up too long, and not knowing what kind of parasites and such I might find in a feral rodent, I decided to finally give into my instincts by buying a store-raised “feeder” mouse. The first time I did it the sensation was very nice, like I had eaten a revered cultural food from my childhood, and even though there wasn’t much taste from the experience (as I swallowed the mouse fur and all), it left a deep inner satisfaction. I wound up doing it two more times, both with the same enjoyment, but stopped after I found out that store-raised mice sometimes also carry diseases (such as salmonella), and health concerns made me decide that the experience of eating three mice would have to last me for the foreseeable future.

The only other time I’ve eaten uncooked wild meat was a few months ago. I was driving along a back road to a path I enjoy for rollerblading, and along the way birds kept landing right in front of my car or were refusing to fly away as I approached. I did everything I could to avoid them, including braking and swerving, which slowed my drive down considerably – to the apparently annoyance of a guy in a pickup truck behind me. He started tailgating me, and at one point, after I had swerved to avoid a bird, he revved up his engine and went straight – right over the bird. In my rearview mirror I watched and thought maybe the bird survived (the truck was pretty high up, with lots of room underneath), but the bird apparently tried to fly and hit the underside. When I went back to check, it was unfortunately quite dead – so, after meditating on the situation, I wrapped it up, put it in the car and took it to the path. As I continued to drive to the path, the more I looked at the bird, the more my inner desires came out, and the more the raw bird looked increasingly appetizing. After reaching the path, I walked to an appropriate spot with dense, tall bushes in a wilderness area off to the side, away from the eyes of passersby. I then took the bird – a blackbird – into the bushes, thanked his spirit for the sacrifice, and allowed my feral nature to release itself. I tore it open with my teeth and paws, revealing the inner organs and muscles. Breaking it apart, I pulled off the breast meat – the largest muscles in the bird’s body – and bit down on them, eating them raw and whole. To tell you the truth, I enjoyed the taste of raw beef more, but that wasn’t the point then – my canine hunger was satisfied, and I had experienced something I felt it was important for me to understand. And it’s something that I’ll never forget.

So I guess the point I’m making is if you’re serious about trying to defend your carnivorous desires, then I recommend taking it to the next step. Go beyond the fast-food hamburger and hot dogs. To truly experience what it is to be a meat eater, you need to get close to the source. If you do, then hopefully you’ll understand what it really means to be where you’re at on the food chain.

Bon appetit!

-- Eris Lobo

Nice post. Your post illustrated (by way of a positive example) one of the problems I have- many people do not have a real respect for animals and the deaths their meals represent because they have distanced themselves from the act of taking a life.

As an aside, reading about your love of raw beef, while much healthier for you (as raw meat doesn't produce the bucket of HCA's now associated with cancer), note that the onset of prion disease symptoms (2-8 years in cattle) typically exceeds the age of cattle (15 to 18 months) offered for slaughter. Prion diseases also are unaffected by sterilization in an autoclave (and therefore could likely cause infection after many methods of cooking) --and there is no cure, vaccine, or antibiotic (since prions are neither viral nor bacterial).

Might I recommend raising your own fish as an alternative?

Mushrooms are also mostly protein if you are ever in the woods and can't find an appropriate animal to bite.

I've ate raw flesh before (Fish, beef... never pork or chicken. Deer heart fresh from the kill, in a ritualistic fashion)... It's an aquired taste to be sure, but not bad. Beef tartare is excelent, though.

I am a predator. My species, if not me personally, is on top of the food chain. I have no problems ethicly eating that which is below me on the food chain... That's why it's there.

People are made out of meat too. Do you eat people? Let me clarify: do you eat dead people? How about cats? We choose to eat or not to eat lots of things based on many more reasons than whether or not the things are made of meat.

Not all meat is "yummy;" my grandpa was a rancher so we ate all kinds of cow bits when I was a kid and mostly they were tasteless and required lots and lots of chewing.

Why do we consider biological determinism important at this stage in human development? seems irrelevant to me. I wasn't born with wings, and yet I have managed to learn to board a plane. (Yay for evolution!)

Why do non-vegetarians preach more than vegetarians do about what one should be eating? the funny thing is that there is this stereotype that vegetarians are judgemental about carnivores when, in my experience the opposite is true. I never tell someone else what he should or shouldn't be eating, yet I experience pretty frequent questioning from carnivores about my dietary habits. I even once had in-laws (not particularly pleasant ones) who would pester me at virtually every meal we shared about my vegetarianism. Once a sister-in-law, in an 'AHA I Caught you" kind of voice said, as I ate my devilled egg, "You eat Eggs! Isn't that Meat?" It was really weird. I mean, here we are having thanksgiving and she's all concerned about trying to make me out to be a hypocrite. I never once asked her what she ate or why or tried to sway her to eat what I eat. Yet here she was (with the jubilant look on her face echoed by the other in-laws) all in my face about what I ate and didn't eat. I was so annoyed at this point that I didn't care if I put people off their food when I replied that in fact, an unfertilized egg would be more like eating a period. (a moment of vegetarian triumph!)

I recently went back to Texas and after meeting my friend's new girlfriend for the first time, she already knows about my dietary habits (I'm still trying to figure out WHY that would come up in conversation). Later she sees me eating dark chocolate and has an AHA! moment. "It's dark chocolate," I say, "See... 85% cacao. No milk." Then she ASKS TO SEE THE WRAPPER SO SHE CAN READ THE INGREDIENTS. Know what her next AHA moment was?

...

..

.

That's right....





"Cocoa butter! I thought you couldn't eat dairy!"

DER

(I feel dumbfounded just talking about it)

It was all I could do not to give her the smackdown and tell her I better lay off the peanut butter too.

Lactose intollerant?

I only ever get judgemental towards vegetarians when they try to tell me not to eat meat. I see nothing wrong with it. Speaking from the standpoint of someone who has killed the anima I've eaten(With a compound bow, not a gun. I dislike hunting with a firearm). I personally enjoy the taste of veal. I know exactly how it is made. I've researched it and I'm going to continue to eat it when I can afford it.

I never tell a vegetarian that they shouldn't be eating what they eat. My own daughter is a vegetarian and I cator to her when possible. Though she's tried telling that meat is murder. Ok yes it is. I happen to like the taste of murder.

Point is, any way you slice it, be it an animal or plant, you have to kill to eat. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just how life is.

Sweet. When I was young, I remember eating deer that my friend's family hunted (I went on a hunt with them too and helped gut a fresh kill, that was interesting). It tasted a lot better than beef.

Wow. That coloring took some time.

Sorry, didn't read the entire necro-thread

Its so lean though :/ We used to have to mix in beef or pork suet just to get ground venison to stay together long enough to make burgers out of it.

Yes

I love meat. But I have a hard time eating meat that doesn't look like the animal it came from.

Steaks, chicken pieces, pork chops, fish. All good.

Hamburger, hot dogs, sausage. Not good.

I don't know what it is but just meat without a frame of reference bothers me to much to eat.

Interesting. I've met people who were the exact opposite way, but never that way before.

I couldn't agree more. Deer is by far much tastier than beef. Far less fatty. Were it reasonably possible, I would replace the beef in my diet with deer.

Speaking from experience both as someone who's killed her own food, and who's killed so others can eat, I just simply see no moral problem with eating meat.

Yes. I know how veal is made. I'm still going to eat it. I wish they'd try that trick with other animals.

I long for a simpler time. Tuna fish always tasted better before it was dolphin safe.

Controls diatribe impulse. >_<

Because styrofoam is doesn't bend well and breaks into a million little foam pellets. Just imagine if you suddenly scared a heard of styro-bison. What a mess.

lol... but think of all the hot coffee they could hold.

Now how many people here would eat a person? I would, I guess. Meat is meat. And when you think about it- thousands of people disappear every year. So how do you know what (or who) is in that ground meat/hot dog/bologna/sausage you just ate?

Altho when you think about it, one reason we dont eat each other (besides morals, etc) is we really dont have a lot of meat. Thighs, buttocks, thats about it for large chunks o' meat compared to a cow or pig.

Not me.... too 'gamey'.

<tangent>
Styrofoam is actually quite strong, I think you are referring to "foam".
</tangent>

Chance,

I agree with you. Respecting where our food comes from and being educated about its processing, then being able to make the decision of what you want to eat, would be a better approach. Killing animals is about death, and some societies have a problem facing/coming to terms with death. If we had to kill our own animals for food, then I think we would appreciate them more and take more effort in producing a happy life for them and a better meat for us to eat.

Personally I do not eat anything that I could not kill myself, as I feel this is a more holistic and respectful approach to the food on this planet than being so disconnected from it all that we have to call pigs 'pork' and cows 'beef', and think that they come from the local supermarket and are nothing to do with a walking feeling animal.

Also I heard somewhere that some people do not require meat and can still maintain safe levels of iron and B12. Does anyone know anything further about this?

I myself eat no mammals, very little chicken and fish, and have been tested iron etc and am at safe levels. Other people I have heard however, will find it very difficult to reduce or cut out meat in their diet, as their health will suffer.

This is true. You can get iron from vegetables and certain fruits. I probably get most of mine from cacao and spinach. Many grain and cereal foods are also fortified with it.
You need so little B12 (talking mere micrograms here) that you wouldn't become anemic from it until after years of not having any at all- and that's in theory. B12 is largely produced by bacteria, bacteria that are often found in animal intestines. Many foods are nowdays fortified with b12, so you don't have to get it from animals if you don't want to.

On the subject of vitamins-- Go here to see how after the hassle your body goes through to digest milk, you only get as much calcium as from eating a cup of broccoli.

You don't need to eat animals to survive, all of that nonsense is marketing.

However, even if you decide not to eat them, we still need their bodies parts for certain specialized applications (such as turning their gristle into gelatin for photo emulsion) where nothing better has been discovered yet.

From my understanding of human dietary needs and the values of eating (and not eating) other animals ...

It appears that it's pretty difficult in our society (with its standard food preferences) to get all the vitamins and minerals you need from a purely vegan diet (unless you take artificial supplementary vitamin pills, and some might consider that to be cheating a bit. *grins*)

It seems that all changes if you include one meat source -- fish, which is not only better (to my understanding) than any other type of meat, but is actually very helpful in many ways, providing substances (such as the oils) that help you body immensely and provide benefits that are very difficult to find elsewhere.

I don't want to lead anybody down the wrong path by accident, however, so if I'm mistaken regarding this, I'm very open to correction. But when my family was avoiding most meat, we still ate fish and maintained our health quite easily.

Just my two woofs on the subject.

-- Eris