(source: www.sunsuiwah.com/about/e-about.html)"...the baby is eaten before it ever has a chance to spread its tiny wings."
This is a line I happened upon while looking back through "Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga Of The World's Most Revered And Reviled Bird" by Andrew D. Blechman. This was in my opinion a great book, and it being a gift from cousin Morgan made it all the better, for any book given to you by a good person has something special about it. That is, if it's a good book, of course. As luck would have it, such was the case.
Ah yes, the strikingly eerie line (taken obnoxiously out of context) below the picture of an adorably-crispy baby pigeon (a.k.a. 'squab'). Well, five minutes ago that was the exact quote in the book my eyes fell upon at random. But even in context, it's still an image of killing a baby pigeon, a.k.a. squab, before its little wings can even move. It just so happens that this makes the juiciest meat of all, which has been known by people since the beginning; apparently the Big Guy In the Sky specifically asked for some tasty squab sacrifices (information I learned from this good book, not The Good Book). But I digress.
Seeing that quote tonight made me actually think about the act of raising animals for food. It also made me reflect on the fact that I feel worse for (but still eat on occasion) baby animals than I do for fully grown animals, which I eat unabashedly. If anything, the little tykes have it easy. They plop out. They eat. They poop. They die. The whole thing is over before they know what snapped their cute little spines.
The grownup Bessie's and Gordy's, unlike their blessed young, have to mature and grow in a prison. Yet I could not care about anything less in the world when I'm holding tenderly in my hands a junior bacon cheeseburger, which actually kills two animals with one stone. (Side note: Pigs are highly intelligent animals who can perform more advanced tasks than dogs. But dogs are cute and pigs are smelly, filthy swine. At least that's what most people have been lead to think). So from now on, I'm going to make a conscious effort to think of the cow, if only for a second, whenever I'm devouring its juicy flesh. (Clarification: by 'make a conscious effort' I mean 'I will be eating beef tomorrow without thinking about the cow at all'). As funny as I may find it that I enjoy eating slaughtered animals, I really have no ethical argument to defend this.
How could I possibly say that I found it completely moral and ethical to raise animals (who don't think like we do but still think and, more importantly, feel pain and discomfort) in dismal conditions for the sole purpose of slaughtering them, which does not always end so quickly? It might seem contradictory to note that I don't really have much of a problem with hunting, as long as it's to eat. At least they're honest to themselves and have to see, skin, gut, and clean the dead animal they're going to eat. I press a button on the microwave and two minutes later I'm ripping into one scalding hot philly cheese steak hot pocket. They don't have a picture of a cow on meat products, and I'm glad they don't, because I don't like mixing guilt and food.
Yet I have no good reason to not feel guilty. Sure, mankind has been raising animals for slaughter since biblical times. But mankind has also been slaughtering mankind since then, yet that doesn't justify killing and mistreating people. Tradition doesn't automatically bring with it morality. Then there's the protein argument, that it's not as healthy to be a vegetarian. Well, the many vegetarians I've known have been quite healthy; in fact, I don't think I've ever seen a fat vegetarian. With soy, nuts, legumes (man do I love that word), dairy (I know, there are ethical problems with that too) and dietary supplements, it seems the modern vegetarian has a variety of options for protein intake.
One possible reason why more men don't give up meat is that doing so would make them feel un-masculine and wimpy. We want slabs of bloody meat slammed onto our plates, the kind of manly food that requires the use of large, manly steak knifes that came right out of Assassin's Monthly magazine. I must admit feeling a primal rush of manhood every time I grab a chicken wing and savagely rip the buffalo-soaked meat from the bone, tossing the remnants into a pile like trophies of my masculinity.
Maybe there is some primal urge programmed into humans that drives us to eat meat. If so, then this primal urge has some serious consequences. We've all heard of the problems involving cholesterol, fat, heart disease, and colon cancer associated with heavy red meat consumption. But there are other less talked-about problems, including the enormous environmental impact of massive commercial meat ranches that contaminate surrounding air and water with tons of cow and pig shit. Plus, "the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization... estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation" (New York Times, 1/27/08). Add to this the fact that the majority of grain and soy produced in the world feeds livestock, not humans, of which 800 million suffer from hunger or malnutrition. That's right, instead of feeding starving people, we'd rather feed pigs, cows and chickens...which then feed fat, lazy Westerners.
But as long as meat continues to be so juicy, savory and tender, and until it stops providing good proteins and amino acids, we will continue to raise and kill cow, chicken and pig, and I shall eat them until someone convinces me of a better alternative.
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