COLUMN: Save a plant, eat a cow
I’ve done most things in reverse of norm either out of genetic predisposition or spite. I was a fundamentalist turned agnostic and wasted most of my youth on vegetarianism, discipline and celibacy.
My new motto is “Let’s get the cows off of public lands, let’s eat them all.”
I was an undercover vegetarian for eight years so I feel like I know these people intimately. I ate tofu and bean sprouts with the best of them. I was a falafel eating fool. And, I felt superior in doing it.
No, I was just plain rude, but I have repented.
I look back and realize that inviting a vegetarian to a pot luck party is like going to a time share presentation just to kill time.
The questions are unrelenting.
“Does that have any meat in it?” “Does the sauce have any meat in it?” “Has that pan had any meat in it?” “Is your home haunted by the spirits of decapitated chickens?” “Do you think that hell might be a place where you’re forever tormented by cows chasing you with really sharp steak knives?”
“I don’t know, could I get back to you on that the next time you’re, like, on this planet? Oh and by the way, about that vegetarian dish you brought. Is that tofu I tasted or did you accidentally stir fry a wash cloth?” I say.
At this point we ought to discuss exactly what “meat” is. Sounds elementary I know. Although Webster’s dictionary states that meat is simply “the flesh of animals used as food,” there is quite a bit of disagreement among the eating public.
Remember Catholics not eating “meat” on Fridays? Remember them having big fish fries and tuna casserole cook offs instead? Is not a fish an animal?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture routinely talks about food groups such as meat, fish and poultry. Since things that swim and have wings are animals, they are then also meat. So the USDA’s listing is not only redundant, but repetitive and superfluous.
There are people out there who call themselves vegetarians because they say they don’t eat meat red meat. They only eat the winged and finned varieties. So maybe if you could teach cows to swim or pigs to hang glide it would be OK to eat them?
Then there are the vegetarians who don’t eat the animal, but they do eat the animal products such as milk, eggs and cheese. They obviously have some romanticized notion that these happy hard working farm animals are somehow living more rewarding lives producing these products after which they then retire with a pension to a farm somewhere in Vermont.
OK, I know what all you veg-heads are thinking:
“That’s why your writing is so angry and bitter, man. You’re, like, ingesting all the bad vibes from eating all those dead animals, you know? If you just became a vegetarian again, you’d mellow out.”
“But what about broccoli’s feelings, man?” What about stir frying their little green heads in hot peanut oil? What about that leather seat on your mountain bike? What about the goose down in your pillow? What about the cow that gave its life for those Birkenstocks?”
“What about the ground beef I snuck into your tofu-nut burger last night?”
“Ooops, sorry dude, there goes your Karma.”
Dennis Hinkamp has discussed this issue with his dog and they have a mutual agreement to eat each other only as a last resort.