Thursday, March 16, 2006

My relationship with meat

Sometimes I think I sound like a heartless person when I talk about my views on the consumption of meat. But no one ever asks me to explain my die-hard meat love.

I have no problem eating the muscle of an animal. I know exactly what I'm eating. It does not bother me. Telling me how the animal died won't bother me either. Garth, you were in art with me. Violence does not bother me. Blood is not a problem, nor is blood flying in all directions (as you would see if you looked at the dragons I drew last year, which were ripping people apart in bursts in blood. It was quite lovely). So stop telling me that they stick cows and chickens and pigs in little boxes their whole lives, don't feed them, kick them and then butcher them while they're still alive. Bah! Stop being dramatic! Why would they (being the human) put so much strain on their animal? The strain would tamper with the muscle. The cows and pigs and chickens live lives outside with grass and excellent food because the humans want their muscles to be developed and strong and prime for EATING. And when they kill them, all they do is hit the animal on the back of the head and it's over. No gas chamber or decapitation or dismemberment. You guys just like making a fuss.

Oh, I'm sure there are people who stuff our lovely cows into boxes their whole lives. But see, THEY'RE inhumane and we don't eat their meat because it's low quality and low grade and nasty gross. It's like buying a puppy. Some people have puppy mills where the puppies live in crates with other puppies. They all get sick because they're never let out and aren't fed too much. Then they sell these puppies to pet stores. A lot of the puppies die on the way to the pet store because they are sick. People buy these adorable puppies, if they make it to the store, because they wiggle and bark and lick and are so soft! Aww! They take puppy home and buy it toys and a collar and good food and a few months later the puppy DIES BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAVE A GOOD LIFE IN THE PUPPY MILL. Now then, is this going to stop you from buying an adorable puppy to love and enjoy until it goes away? Of course not. You just won't buy the puppy from a pet store because that's supporting puppy mills. You'll buy from the humane society or a private breeder. Why? Because only SOME (see this WORD YOU'RE looking at? Ok, go up 10 lines and see where I wrote "some people," just for reiteration) people breed the puppies in tiny confined spaces.

And the same goes for meat. Not all the meat is bred in boxes because it's bad for the meat! They want the meat in good shape. So they give the animal a good life.

That's my worldly view on my meat consuming ways. Now on to my personal views. (Yes, you may stop if you are too much offended by my words. Sometimes, the subject of meat offends people’s souls. Weird, but it happens)

I am under the personal opinion that animals are here for us to love, take care of and eat (if we like to). We don't eat them as they come out the womb (just roll the calf into the barbeque sauce, Phil, we'll grill her up right here!). We let them live and have a fairly good life and then we kill them humanely and eat them and use most of their body for something. In fact, we do that with most living things, save ourselves (and some people even eat other people. But not me). Unless the thing is a danger to our bodies, we have eaten it and probably will eat it again. And if the animal starts becoming extinct, we stop eating it (we learned this after the do-do's died off) and we take care of it until it's been restored (which hardly ever really happens, which is why cows are good because there are so many).

I know this is hard for you and sounds mean if you want to hear it as such, but these animals are not equal to us. They don't have brains the size of ours. They don't want on two feet and use tools and speak. They grunt, stumble around, repeat their mistakes and without us, most of them would end up having a fatal accident. That does not mean we can be mean to them as they live. As I said before, we take care of them. But it isn't only so the meat will be good. It's also because we do want them to enjoy what life they'll have. Green fields, soft hay, brushing them down, good slop, mud, corn, clean nests, we give it to them. Some people, like my mom, have them as pets until the day the animal dies. And my mom still eats meat and all the good things that come from them. Animals deserve rights, but they don't deserve our rights. If they did, we'd worship them and that's worshipping false gods and that's wrong.

I know that one, hardly a soul will read this and two, and it won't change any of those souls' minds. But I've made my peace with meat and those who fight for the right of cows instead of their own.

I'm going back to bed.

1 comment:

kt said...

I eat meat, too!!