My Opinion on Meat.

My opinion on meat is wholly hypocritical and laughable. On the one hand I fully believe that animals deserve the same respect as humans. They deserve to live and then die of whatever kills them in the natural world - sickness, disaster, accident or old age. They don't deserve to be viewed for various reasons as a food source to humans.

"Truely man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! ... the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men." ~Leonardo da Vinci.

I guess part of the question is the concept of consciousness. How can we deem it unlawful, immoral and abhorrent to kill another human being, based on the inherent values we beleive present in them, when we deem it normal, mundane and necessary to kill animals? Is it because we value our own consciousness as more superior, more important and more real than an animals? How arrogant are we to presume that we are the only species on this planet to be part of consciousness? How arrogant are we to presume that what we call emotion, thought and compassion - definitively human attributes by most peoples assumtions - are purely the domain of the human mind?

On the other hand - I have been brought up to consider meat a staple part of my diet to such an extent that I cannot picture my life without it. Sure, I don't actually eat meat that often if you look at my current week's diet. But that isn't because of the moral considerations I mentioned above, but more to do with my restricted budget and inability to cook well. My Dad introduced me to a love of steak. I am proud that I eat steak no less than rare. I can't stand it if it is cooked "medium" -even worse if its "well done"! Horror! It is grey and tastes like ... well, grey! Bleh. I love chicken. I love love ham, or even more prosciutto! mmmm...

But this is mostly because I have divorced the concept of meat from the concept of animal, and this is something I think that most people have been taught to do. We love our animals, and most people I know have pets, or have had pets that they love as much as they love any person. Yet, we don't see "cute Daisy the cow from the nursery book" when we look at a piece of meat - we see steak.

This is something I think I might try to address in my own life. I want to slowly ween myself off meat. I know my Dad will think I am crazy ... I know my boyfriend will complain that I'm not eating proper meals ... but I think I have to do it.

I can no longer ignore the fact that my belief systems, and my moral stance don't allign with my actual everyday life and practice. I cannot go on about consciousness and the interconnectedness of all life forms, matter, etc., if I am happy to allow animals to be cruelly killed.

If I'm craving steak, chicken, ham etc., I should watch "Meet your Meat" again and remember that the meat I want to enjoy is procured via horrific means, that do not in any way grant the respect I believe entitled to animals.

So if I'm that desperate for a steak, I really should go out, find a cow and see if I can bring myself to kill it. And lets face it - that's never going to happen. My cat once caught a bird and played with it for a while before leaving it dying on the porch for me to find. No one else was home so I called Mum and asked what she thought I should do. She told me to do the right thing and put it out of its misery rather than leave it dying, waiting for death or the cat to come back and torture it some more. She told me to just find a brick and drop it on the bird... But I couldn't even do that. Even when it would have benefitted the bird... I couldn't. Mum had to come home and do it for me...

So... that, my friends, is my long winded discussion on my opinion on meat... Want to know what got me thinking about it? A lovely chap from Durham in England by the name of Johnny. Watch his video here.

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