How Now, Brown Cow?

After finishing a truly bad novel by Kathy Reichs from which one of my favorite shows, Bones, is based I picked up something completely different. Having previously been a vegetarian for nearly 12 years and having lately been keenly aware of environmental, animal and sustainability issues, I decided to pick up the highly-controversial Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Long story short, he decided to become a vegetarian after having a child and worrying about what to feed him. What he found in his research turned him off meat.

I cant lie, this book has been bringing tears to my eyes for the last few nights I have been reading it. Sure, some of it is the typical shock and awe, but I think the public in general may be used to the PETA-style shock and awe campaign, which in fact, REALLY should shock and awe us – and not in a good way. Ive realized that all the reasons I became a vegetarian when I was younger still hold true. I still love animals. I still feel badly when Im eating a factory-farmed burger. I still think about what all the methane and raw sewage we are dumping from these factories into the environment is doing for our future.

One thing that I really hadn’t considered before, which now weighs on me heavily is the issue of seafood. When I was younger I didn’t eat seafood, so it wasn’t an issue I confronted. Now, I crave sushi daily. Until recently I had been one of those people who believed that being a vegetarian, but still eating fish may be the best choice. I figured the true evil was red meat and cattle slaughter houses. Chicken plants weren’t at the top of my list either. It wasn’t until very recently that I have realized that mass production fishing is probably the worst of the food evils. The author puts it best when referring to “bycatch”, the unintentional animals caught when fishing for one particular species:

“The average shrimp-trawling operation throws 80 to 90 percent of the sea animals it captures overboard, dead or dying, as bycatch… What if there were labeling on our food letting us know how many animals were killed to bring our desired animal to our plate? So, with trawled shrimp from Indonesia, for example, the label might read: 26 POUNDS OF OTHER SEA ANIMALS WERE KILLED AND TOSSED BACK INTO THE OCEAN FOR EVERY 1 POUND OF THIS SHRIMP.”

So, the question is: can I justify killing 145 other species as bycatch so that I can have tuna in my sushi hand roll? For me, the answer is simply, no. My claims to be a lover of the sea, the waves, its creatures, diving, and the underwater world cant really hold true if I am simultaneously encouraging companies to dredge the sea floor, killing everything in their path, so I can have a nice shrimp cocktail. Its just not acceptable and I am opening my eyes and become aware of my own contradictions. I might miss my salmon sashimi, but Ill miss the animals when Im diving in an empty ocean even more.

I am reading this book with a renewed passion for changing myself and the things around me in which I have influence. When I was younger I took a hard stance. I refused any meat or meat product at friends’ house, was ridiculed by my cattle-raising, meat-loving family, and stood outside KFC in a chicken suit. I really had beliefs, but those went by the wayside as I grew older, busier, let the reality fade away of what my craving for a cheeseburger means for the suffering, terrible life of that factory-farm cow. So, I think. Im looking into the possibilities of small local, truly farm-raised and humanely-treated animals for my meat source. Those are getting harder and harder to find, though. If so I will return to the creative life of a vegetarian.

There really aren’t anymore excuses left for any of us. I encourage you to look into it for yourself.