A Rainbow Of Possibilities
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Time Magazine reports:
It’s weird how hard you have to try to not eat a lot of meat. Your French toast comes with a side of bacon; chicken is dumped on your salad; protein is the first dinner item you consider when shopping and the only one when pairing wine.
It’s such a burden to avoid eating animals that it’s the number one excuse why people don’t go vegetarian or vegan: “It’s too hard!”
But think about it. Why is it hard to avoid dead animals? Why are dead animals so ubiquitous? That’s weird, right?
Time author, Joel Stein, continues:
Raising, slaughtering and butchering animals might be a lot of work, but eating meat is supereasy these days. According to one academic’s crunching of U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the average American over a lifetime consumes 21,000 animals — many, I presume, kind of by accident.
OK, let’s forget the ones people eat “by accident” and just focus on the animals people eat on purpose. You can’t be blamed for eating animals by accident. Heck, even I’ve eaten animals on accident (Shame on you, Taco Bell, for serving me a beef burrito when I ordered a bean burrito).
We can’t be blamed for a bite of flesh consumed in a hungry state of confusion (new rule: always open the burrito and check before eating). But we are responsible for the animals we eat on purpose. We should feel the moral duty to respect life, protect the environment, and prevent disease more strongly than we feel the desire to do what’s easy.
Some parts of the article are really weird. Like this ludicrous example given by one of the meat-pushing chefs, José Andrés:
“Our brain, our body craves fat. We cannot help it. That’s why a kid will eat a hot dog quicker than a piece of broccoli.”
Right… it’s soooo “natural” to eat animals that the best example a master chef can come up with is one of the most highly processed (read: UNnatural) meat products available: a hot dog. Now, that’s weird.
For the record, I’ve served die-hard meat-eating ten-year-olds soy hot dogs and they gulp those down, no problem. It’s not the dead animal flesh that they want; they want fat and flavor in a familiar package. Want to get kids to eat vegan foods? It’s easy. Use the three F’s. Make it fun, fatty, and familiar.
Luckily, the chef makes up for his hot dog comment:
Andrés, however, wants to help American palates grow up. “Pure flavor to pure flavor, I’m sorry, but brussels sprouts, white asparagus, a clementine, a pineapple, a good peach, the flavor in the mouth, the smell — it’s unbeatable,” he says. “It’s a rainbow of possibilities. It’s more interesting than any meat.“
Indeed.
I, too, have had the upsetting experience of eating pieces of meat by accident in “omni” restaurant food. This is one of the reasons I am SO appreciative of vegetarian restaurants, and so glad we have a number of them in our area! I am SO VERY THANKFUL that we live in a big city, where there ARE vegetarian restaurants, and where there are very vegetarian-friendly markets such as Whole Foods!