Oh no. Not me! Shit. I feel so guilty and as though I have betrayed my fellow American omnivores, nearly the entire population. By now you have probably noticed that I am an "omnivorian chef" but I have recently had a divine intervention with my eating habits.
At school I was required to take a writing class that just so happened to be about animal ethics. This semester's other classes turned out to be an unbearable bore, but my writing class was the only stimulating and insightful class I had. I went into the class being the country girl that I thought I was, and had the ”know-it-all” omnivore attitude. I thought I knew all there was to know about food, these were things I was taught in my youth. I didn't have the absent reference that many Americans do. I knew that I was eating cow not just beef. This may sound somewhat silly but you would be surprised how many people just don't think of what they're actually putting into their bodies. I bought "organic" I preferred to buy "free-range eggs” and I didn't approve of factory farming. But what was I actually doing to change any of it? I was a walking contradiction. I cared but not enough? "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us.”
In my class I was assigned to read Jonathan Safran Foer's new book entitled "Eating Animals", pretty straightforward, right? I went into this book being not necessarily expecting any life changing experiences to occur but just hoping to reaffirm my own lifestyle. Eating meat and not giving it a second thought. This is not what happened. Foer uses an interesting approach to reach out to any eater, pointing out that he’s not trying to change anything about your lifestyle just giving the facts. And the facts are literally horrifying.
Food is probably the biggest part of my life. When I think about, food is there for me more so then anything. Food bring me together with my friends, food gave me a job at a restaurant, cooking food is therapeutic for me, and being a “foodie” has been one of the most interesting parts of my life. The day I started reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s book “Eating Animals” I started to feel shameful, disgusted and guilty about eating meat. Reading that “millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors, or skin conditions are shipped for sale to consumers” (134) doesn’t exactly make me want to go grill a chicken breast.
As Foer explains, “the power brokers of factory farming know that their business model depends on consumers not being able to see (or hear about) what they do.” Didn’t I know? I grew up in a country town, I had 12 chickens, I held those chickens, I collected their eggs every day. Wasn’t that what the eggs at the supermarket were? David DeGrazia explains in his journal “Meat-Eating” how common bullet caged hens (all 99% of them) lay their eggs, my heart began to sink.
“For hours before laying an egg, Hen X paces anxiously among the crowd, instinctively seeking a nest that she will not find. At egg-laying time, she stands on a sloped, uncomfortable wire floor that precludes such instinctual behaviors as pecking for food, dust bathing, and scratching.”(220)
I felt as though I was a child who had been betrayed by their parents because they just found out that Santa didn’t exist. They had lied to me. The labels had lied to me. I was never buying “free-range eggs” they were never “happy chickens” it was all simply put. Bull shit. As Foer agrees “It should provide no more peace of mind than “all natural, “fresh”, or “magical.”
I had never given that much thought into what me being an omnivore actually meant. It affects everything and everyone. Did I really love meat so much that I would ruin the environment to have to available at low prices? In Foer’s chapter “Hiding/Seeking” he shares intimate stories from a factory farmer. This old farmer gives some insight into today’s modern factory farm:
“The price of food hasn’t increased in the past 30 years…the economic squeeze is that you gotta make an animal that produces more of the product at a lower cost. So you breed faster growth and improve feed conversion…” (95)
When reading about this farmer from Wisconsin, it’s hard to blame the farmer. They are a victim of the system that we as Americans have ultimately demanded. It’s honestly not surprising that these animals are treated the way they are. In the past 30 years, everything in our society from homes and cars have inflated dramatically (over 1300 percent) except our food.
I won't ruin the informational journey you will encounter when reading the book, but the fact that this book changed my entire view of how I eat, came as a shock not only to my friends, but to me.
I will full-heartedly admit that I was not only just skeptical to the vegetarian lifestyle but also simply ignorant to what it actually entailed. My opinion of vegetarians was to say the least lacking (yes I understand you don't eat meat but fuck off?) I unconsciously made jokes and even belittled them, even though I am a friend to many. I had never really given much thought to their dietary choice, and found it mostly inane and pesky. Being the communal cook that I am, it was always a bit bewildering to have someone coming to your home for dinner and say, "sorry, I don't eat meat" so much so that I started to just cook vegetarian and have meat that someone could add if they pleased. I have never really contemplated why these once unintentionally troublesome people would choice such a lifestyle and also saw myself thinking that it was such a "big deal", where as many a vegetarian will tell you, they don't really think that its that big of deal. It's just something they do that they probably won't give two thoughts that you don't and honestly shouldn't be that big of a deal to anyone but the vegetarian.
Contemplating what this book meant to me was honestly one of the weirdest arguments I have ever had with myself. Changing the way I eat I felt would be a roller coaster of events. How would my parents feel? How would my friends feel? Would grandma be upset if I didn't eat turkey on Thanksgiving? Would I really be able to give up meat? Did I really care about the battery cage chicken, whom literally only have 67sq. inches of space? Was that something I really wanted to do? The social taboo of the vegetarian is probably the most difficult part of actually being a vegetarian. Then I realized I didn't have to give up meat. I didn't have to tag the negative label of "vegetarian" on what I was doing, all I wanted to do was to basically eat vegetarian, but when it wasn't socially acceptable or I simply wanted to eat meat, I would. I like to think of it as a "modified omnivore", if I really had to label it. I just had to be conscious and informed about what I was eating. I didn't have to eat meat at breakfast lunch and dinner. I didn't have to give up turkey tacos, or chicken stir fry, things I love to cook and eat, I just had to be aware of what I was buying, what I was consuming and how much of it. It is not nutritionally necessary for any person to eat a diet so packed full of meat as we Americans do. Does meat mean so much to you that you would destroy everything around you to get it? For me the answer is no, and I am willing to cut most of it out of my diet. I realized that eating meat was more out of habit than anything else. I love the way it tastes but I am willing to try to eat another way.
