Chew with an Open Mind
October 30, 2010 7 Comments
Six months ago I was making plans for my upcoming trip to Iceland. Included in those plans was to eat rotten shark fin…it was a “traditional” food in Iceland and I wanted to have an authentic experience while I was there. I told everyone I knew that I was going to eat shark fin, mostly just to see the shocked looks of disgust. “Rotten shark fin?” they’d say. I’d smile in affirmation.
I never did eat shark during my visit to Iceland.
I realize today that food, especially meat, isn’t some sort of novelty for my amusement. In order to eat meat, something had to sacrifice its life, whether it was a cow, a chicken, a fish or a shark, an animal had to die in order for me to eat it. I think that we omnivores often forget that reality because we’re disconnected from the farm and our meat comes from the grocery store wrapped in plastic. We see a steak, not a cow. We fail to recognize that that slab of flesh was once a living, breathing animal.
For the first time in my life, tonight I made the conscious decision to order a Vegan meal at my favorite restaurant. Standing in line waiting to order, I felt like I faced a very difficult choice: either get my burrito the same way I always do, with steak, or I try the alternative and skip any animal products; no meat, no cheese, no sour cream. Just beans, rice, tomatoes, lettuce and corn. I took a chance and it was delicious. I didn’t even miss any of the other ingredients.
The problem with meat isn’t that we’re eating it (some will argue this). The problem is that we’re eating it without giving it the respect it deserves. In the mornings we eat our bacon without concern for the pig that was killed for its spot next to our toast. At lunch, our turkey sandwich tastes good but we forget that an animal died for its place between those slices of bread. We don’t think about the living conditions that any of the animals are raised in. We don’t question the treatment they received during their life or the treatment they receive at slaughter. When’s the last time you were eating fish on a Friday night and asked yourself about the state of fish populations in our oceans?
When I was bragging to my friends about eating shark, my mind wasn’t thinking about the shark that would be caught, have its fins sliced off and then thrown back into the ocean to suffocate to death. Six months ago, I didn’t know about shark finning. And not too long ago I didn’t know about the dolphin slaughter in Taiji. Until I saw a video of what happens in slaughterhouses across the United States, I hadn’t given much thought about the meat that I love to barbecue on weekends.
Knowing is half the battle and educating the public is crucial if we’re ever going to change the world. This holds true in so many aspects of life besides meat; pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, peak oil…most people, if they even know these things are taking place, are unaware of how it might affect them. The reality is we’re all connected; the plants, the animals, the dirt and water. They’re the reason the human species is able to exist and if we continue exploiting our natural resources until they collapse, the human species will collapse as well.
Learn and educate others about what is happening in our world. Raise awareness and demand change from our leaders. This isn’t only about saving whales or dolphins, it is also about preserving our own species. It is about saving us from ourselves.
