Skip to main content

Eating - or not eating - animals

I finished Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer this week. A quick read if you find factory farming interesting. Or horrifying. This is the latest attempt to better educate myself about the journey food takes in getting to my stomach.

Gory details aside, Foer lays it out there. You do not want to know how a chicken breast becomes juicy or the actual amount of waste that is produced on a factory farm and what’s done with it. (Maybe a fecal fountain to go with a side of asthma?)

No judgment is being passed, since I have eaten meat in the past month. The occasions are few, but it’s easy to fall back to the “I eat it because it tastes good” mentality. Or when my dad grills steak because he still thinks it’s my favorite meal. (I loved steak so much as a kid I would eat the leftover fat.) Clearly my convictions are not stronger that the desire to please my father.

My journey to vegetarianism is obviously not complete, but is getting close. The more I learn the less meat I eat. It’s becoming harder to ignore the terrible treatment of the animals, appalling factory working conditions, massive environmental effects and resulting health issues. (Read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell.)

But not everyone wants to know. It’s easier to stick fingers in one’s ears and sing la-la-la. (My dad did this when my sisters and I discussed the movie Food, Inc.) At 73, no way is he giving up pork products.

So I’m on a farewell to meat tour, which should wrap up by 2011. On the schedule: filet at Capital Grille, Kobe burger at Blanc, Paco shrimp at JJ’s, chicken at Stroud’s and maybe even a few Taco Bell Tacos. (I’ve been told their meat comes in boxes stamped “Grade D Edible,” but maybe that’s a myth.) And I’ll wrap the whole thing up with bacon ice cream.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I love Russell Brand, even in skinny jeans

Training is about a B- right now. Running has been minimal due to some calf issues. I blame the feet shoes. Boyfriend and I saw Get Him to the Greek last night and found it surprisingly good. (Unlike Hot Tub Time Machine , which we had high hopes for and was only ho-hum.) Laughed to the point of tears several times. Russell Brand can actually act and P Diddy is hilarious. If you like Superbad type humor, you will like this. I ranked it above The Hangover , though Boyfriend didn’t quite agree with that assessment. Followed movie with a scoop of chocolate-peanut butter from Baskin-Robbins. Perfect summer night.

Get This Party Started

So what do you do when you're reclining in a hospital bed, Olympic beach volleyball on the TV and watching petocin slowly drip through an IV into your arm? You blog. As of 3:32pm, all is manageable. Ask me in an hour or two and the tune will most likely be different. Petocin scares the crap out me, but as long as it gets the baby out of me, I'm trying to not freak out. I woke up this morning and greeted the day as a normal Monday. After walking Trudy a few miles and spending 40 minutes on the elliptical, it dawned on me I felt a little crampy, for lack of a better term. And without getting too graphic, I started to wonder if my water had broken. (It was nothing like it's portrayed on television.) So I called a handful of friends and my sister to get some feedback. All signs pointed to yes, so I called my doctor's office which said just go to the hospital. I took Trudy for a second walk while waiting for Husband to get home and try not to overreact. At the hospi...

Bumper Cars

I hate bumper cars. Hated them the first time I ever tried them. I got in the little car, excited to get to steer. The signal goes off and all these people I don’t know are out to get me. One second I’m facing one way and the next I’ve been blindsided by some bratty ten-year-old, my car has done a 180 and the back of my head hurts. My life has been a bit bumper car-ish lately. If you’ve read any of my previous entries, you get the gist I’m a control freak, so quick directional changes are not my thing. But sometimes you don’t have a choice. Yes, this all sounds a little vague. Some of the changes I can put on my blog, others aren’t as appropriate. Appropriate changes: I’ve started in a new position at the college as a project manager. It’s challenging and fun, but the learning curve is steep and I still sit in many meetings taking notes about things I completely don’t understand. (PeopleSoft, anyone?) Secondly, I lasted through two sessions of my first grad school class. I’m em...