(Don't worry, this is just a plant.)
“Oh, yes, they are good chickens,” the girl answered. She had tattoos everywhere, even in places where you are not supposed to look too closely. Snakes and flowers and dead heads in many colors, and the name of a girl. I had taken Annelien on a date to Bar Tartine on Valencia, the new little sister of the famous eponymous bakery on Guerrero Street. We were sitting at the bar, feeling up the marble counter and looking at the trendy deer antler chandelier and the hip and stylish guests.
“Are you sure they are pasture-raised? Were they happy?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh, um, I am sorry, I forgot to ask. Is this dish gluten-free?”
Could I see a smirk there? If there wasn’t one, there should have been one. What am I doing, I thought by myself? Get over yourself. Just order and enjoy.
But I haven’t been myself lately. I told you that I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals.” To be honest, it has turned my world upside down. We can’t continue eating the way we eat. It’s bad. Actually, there is no good reason why we treat our pets like children and our farm animals like prisoners of war or much worse. What criteria do we use to distinguish farm animals from our own pets? It’s okay to stomp and molest a piglet in a factory farm and to make every minute of its life absolutely horrific but we all agree that it’s not okay to bash it when it’s a pet. But how is a farm animal different from a pet? If you think about it – and I invite you do to that – you can’t really come up with a good answer. Some people, when they can’t find a good criterion to differentiate between the two groups, say it’s natural to eat meat. They claim eating animals is fine because we’ve always eaten animals. Well, in that sense, it’s also natural for ferocious animals to kill each other or for children to bully other children because they look a little weird or for dictators to wrangle their people. Just to say that I am not too convinced by the normalcy argument.
But I haven’t been myself lately. I told you that I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals.” To be honest, it has turned my world upside down. We can’t continue eating the way we eat. It’s bad. Actually, there is no good reason why we treat our pets like children and our farm animals like prisoners of war or much worse. What criteria do we use to distinguish farm animals from our own pets? It’s okay to stomp and molest a piglet in a factory farm and to make every minute of its life absolutely horrific but we all agree that it’s not okay to bash it when it’s a pet. But how is a farm animal different from a pet? If you think about it – and I invite you do to that – you can’t really come up with a good answer. Some people, when they can’t find a good criterion to differentiate between the two groups, say it’s natural to eat meat. They claim eating animals is fine because we’ve always eaten animals. Well, in that sense, it’s also natural for ferocious animals to kill each other or for children to bully other children because they look a little weird or for dictators to wrangle their people. Just to say that I am not too convinced by the normalcy argument.
(One of the few happy cows that lives at a family farm - as opposed to a factory farm - on Point Reyes, California.)
Our dogs get flat screen TVs in the Wag Hotel, but our farm animals – and about 99% of the meat we eat in the US is from factory farms – are treated generally like machines. I won’t go into the details, but they are gruesome.
Considering that, it’s maybe not that weird that I started having a hard time eating animals. I guess my next blog post will be a nice vegan recipe.
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