Nor do I understand feminist meat-eaters feeling all upset when vegans/vegetarians criticize their meals. It’s not a right to kill an animal for your pleasure, just as it isn’t a right to watch porn of a girl forced into sexual slavery. One persun abstaining from the horror of these industries but keeping their mouth shut isn’t going to make the problems go away.

I happen to be One of Those who suffer from poor health when living a vegetarian lifestyle. It’s not just the anemia, it isn’t something that can be managed with the right supplements, food is complex! So, in effort to eat as ethically as I can, striving to avoid the global megameatyocracy, I moved to a farm so I could raise my own animals. Here is what I’ve learned:

- Here in the North, where the heating season is longer than the growing season, we can’t grow soybeans or many other popular legumes and nuts. Eating local (which is another priority altogether), makes eating vegan a damn hard proposition. The resources we do have available are well suited and efficiently used to raise animals.
- Animals are not people. They deserve proper housing, nutrition and access to exercise and socialization because they are living things of course. They do not think about the future or fear their deaths, on the other hand.
- Animals choose safety over freedom. Ready buckets full of grain are much more attractive than scrounging. Occasionally it happens that someone breaks free, choosing to be eaten by bears, coyotes or eagles instead of me, but as a whole, domestic animals are content with domesticity.
- On this farm, meat animals are the by-product of breeding for milk and eggs. Female animals are far more useful providing protein rich food in other ways. Because babies come in both kinds, something has to happen to the males, which leads me to –
- Individual animals may not want to be butchered, but, the flock or herd as a whole is MUCH happier to have excess males removed. Too many males in a population only causes hardship and stress, if you can imagine. Only the best males are kept for breeding, the rest are eaten (or castrated) to the general relief of everyone. This is what led me to finally take the first step and butcher a chicken. It became clear that it was the most humane thing to do.
- The best way for the animal to end its life is usually the hardest on the person and vice versa, what’s easy on the person is hardest on the animal. Handling this responsibility is the difficult part.

cheers.

if you’re looking for an excellent soy-free cookbook, check out Dino Sarma’s “The Alternative Vegan”.

http://www.amazon.com/Uncheese-Cookbook-Creating-Dairy-Free-Substitutes/dp/0913990426

it’s all veggies and good stuff, no over-processed fake meats or soy products.

I had not thought it possible that I could love this blog more than I already did. I stand corrected.

I’m not making excuses for what I eat and why, but I do think there’s unexplored class issues here. I don’t have kids. What if I did? Talk about fun, taking kids on a long bus trip, both ways. Or there’s cab fare. Or there’s being disabled. Basic groceries are out of range for poor people. Health food might as well be on the moon.