oh, you ARE out there!

[urbpan]

Thanks to all of you various omnivores and others to contributing to what turned out to be a really really interesting discussion! I almost didn't post that last entry, because I thought it was too confrontational. Of course, I was being a bit nasty when I said "how come you don't have to think about what you eat and I do," but it was to make a point, and I think it was heard. No one HAS to think about what they eat, but by and large you all do. If everyone thought about what they ate (and acted and legislated accordingly) factory farms would be illegal, most meat would cost more than most not-meat, and normal meals would consist of mostly plant matter with a little bit of animal on there--the way they did between the last ice age and the mid-20th century, when a huge slab of meat became first a status meal and then an obligation.

I don't believe in absolutes. I can't live all one way. Even when I was vegetarian, I ate cheese and eggs, and I didn't agonize over rennet or gelatin (I did scan labels for carmine, but I don't bother with that any more either). Drumlin Farm sausage broke me of my 15 year stretch of vegetarianism--hey, I know how those pigs were treated, I even knew some of their names. That led to a slope that had me trying humanely raised this and that, and sometimes just eating what I wanted because I liked it and it tasted good. Yes, there is guilt (thus, in part, the last post) but there is also "life goes on." I haven't brought myself to the point of eating meat outside the house (my comfort zone?) and there are some friends who, if they find out, are going to try to ram meat down my throat (and it is so easy to play the veg card in those times).

I discovered that I don't really like meat, unless it's seasoned within an inch of its life. (Spicy wings, sausages, bacon, sausages...) I could get by another several lifetimes without eating beef of any kind. Its heavy and bland, and sorry, I don't appreciate steak enough to warrant eating it. Chicken is the most boring kind of meat, that's why exotic game is always compared to it, but some day I'll own some (gotta get the eggs). Pork, the most eschewed of the main modern meat types, is the best tasting to me. I may tell people that I'm a porkatarian, see how that goes over. Or maybe I'll just be who I am, and not attach an -arian to my identity.

Again, thanks for your thoughts, that was awesome. Next time I post something provocative like that, I'll make commenting conditional on a nickel donation to bowling for rhinos! ;)

Comments

[morgi.livejournal.com]

I have a pair of anthropologist friends who only eat meat outside the US because they know it'll probably be healthier there.

My favorite status-meal story is my grandmother telling me that when she was a kid, lobster was a poor man's food because do you know what lobsters EAT? You could go down to the shore and pick them up off the rocks... and nowadays even in Maine they're expensive.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

I'm a foodie, so I'll pretty much try anything once. I draw the line at endangered species.

Have you tried lamb? It still weirds me out that lamb isn't regularly eaten in the U.S. In Australia it's one of the most eaten meats. And slow cooked it is divine - in my opinion at least. ;)

[arturus.livejournal.com]

Really? In my house growing up (in the US), we always had lamb for easter. Never had it any other time, but I was fond of it when we did have it.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

lamb is probably my least favorite meat, i find the texture to be really gross for some reason.

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

Lamb is strange like that. If it's not done well, it's just not good. But done right, it can be marvelous.

But still, I know a lot of people that just aren't into it. It's a different taste too than most are used to.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

i don't mind the flavor at all, it's the grainy-ness. bleh!

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

Was this a one-time experience, or multiple occurances?

I've never had grainy lamb before, or at least it's never struck me a such.

Which is not to say "EAT THE LAMB!Eat the lamb and LIKE IT!" I'm just curious. :)

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I might eat more lamb if it were a bit more forgiving. The window between "done" and "burnt beyond consumption" is too narrow for me, and I hate wasting meat above any other food.

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's an odd thing in the US. If it's not beef, pork or chicken people say "ewww" at the mention of it. Lamb is borderline with a lt of people I know.

Whenever I mention buffalo/bison to people, their gut reaction is to reject it. Venison, same thing. *shrug*

I'll try anything once :)

[morgi.livejournal.com]

I miss venison--my father went deer hunting when I was a kid, and I haven't had venison now for many years. Our grocery stores sells bison burgers, though.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

And most are horrified when I tell them I eat kangaroo regularly.

It's healthy and possibly the most ecologically sound meat available in Australia.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

most Australians, or others?

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Overseas folk generally.

"Do you really eat kangaroo!?" *astonishment*

Hey, I can hear the local grey butcherbird singing outside. :) (yes, that was irrelevant).

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've never had the opportunity to try 'roo. I imagine it must be good since you eat it regularly.

Can you reasonably compare it to something more familiar?

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Taste - Sweet, and vaguely metallic due to the iron content (similar to the flavour of kidney).

Texture - like that of a good cut of beef.

It has no fat and is a game meat, so it's better on the rare side, if it's overcooked it goes like an old boot.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I have tried it exactly once (lamb chops) and I found it similar to but vastly inferior to pork. That said, Drumlin Farm does produce lamb, and I would not be adverse to trying it again.

It was amusing to me when visitors to Drumlin Farm would learn why the farm raised lambs. Many of them simply didn't think all the way through the process, I think: we breed all these lambs every spring...then there's all this lamb for sale in the freezer...

Americans do not see sheep as meat animals. Strange but true. We're addicted to cattle.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Next time get a shank or something and slow cook it. The meat is tender as anything and falls off the bone. *drools*

[mandy-moon.livejournal.com]

Thank you for referring to humans who eat meat, among other things, as "omnivores." I still hear people call non-vegetarians "carnivores" and think they're being clever.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

you're welcome. Even when i was a vegetarian, i was actually omnivorous. Cheese and eggs are not plants.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I didn't comment on your Post of Many Comments, but I tend to be omnivorous myself. For some reason it confuses people when you genuinely like to eat both veggie burgers and lamb.

When I first moved in here, a vegetarian housemate accidentally opened and ate a bag of my frozen peas. Since I didn't identify myself as a vegetarian, he honestly thought he was still the only person using that refrigerator who ate lots of frozen vegetables. It was strange. Poor guy eventually learned about my love of carrots and broccoli, though.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

i'm really glad that you posted that question.

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you posted it. It's always an interesting topic of discussion.

I actually thought you still were a vegetarian, so some of my response may be a bit off now.

Anyway, I think you make a lot of good points above. Nutritionally speaking, yes a meal should not involve a huge slab of meat. Even I, with my love of meat, have tended to scale it back considerably over the past few years. Though I do still enjoy my rare moo :)

As for factory farming, I fear in our society it's something of a necessary evil. In an ideal world, we'd still all be subsistence unters, but our society has grow far to large for nature to support that anymore. Which brings us to humanely raised meat. Firstly, farm-fresh sausages? I'm jealous. :) But that's beside the point right now.

It's great when I can get it and worse yet AFFORD it, but sadly practicality forces the less desirable option. Now if only Costco started selling free-range meat! But as time moves on, more and more humanely grown food is becoming available and the prices are coming down slowly. I think the growth of stores like Whole Foods really speaks to that point. We ARE becoming more conscious of this, and in time it might actually change. I think the shift is beginning to happen.

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

oooh. thanks for the reminder on your donation-thing. i'll do that within the next 24.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Thanks. :)

[hhw]

related discussion on other blogs:

Living Small posted a link to another post about stress and meat quality and smaller slaughter plants that don't have the resources for animal stress-reduction that the industrial plants can implement.

Living Small also posted previously about hunting, killing, and butchering an antelope for herself (she lives in Montana).

[smallerdemon.livejournal.com]

The question was much appreciated. It certainly seems that there's a new generation of people that ARE thinking about what they eat a lot more than they ever did before. Of course, frankly, it was more MY generation (people in their 40s now) that probably spent most of their lives not thinking about it and now we have to. The generation just after us will be thinking about it a lot more. I certainly think my own parents and their parents thought a LOT more about it strictly because, well, they had too. There wasn't factory farming in the 20s and 30s in the same way it came to exist throughout the 1950s to handle the US population growth.

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

To me chicken is the best tasting meat...maybe it's because it's lighter than beef, and healthier, but I just love it. I could eat it everyday, and I actually do.
I am the same way, I could never give up cheese and eggs...they are too good.
I however never liked pork, so giving that up is no issue...I also don't like beef so I haven't eaten that in almost a year...
I too like seasoned meat better, not "spicy" but flavorful. I also love love love seafood, but I make sure it was farm raised...I don't want to contribute to overfishing the ocean...
I definitely think of what I eat and do avoid gelatin and rennet, mostly because the thought grosses me out...

[greenminions.livejournal.com]

For me, disliking meat started as a taste thing. My mom is not a very good cook, so the meat we had was never that good. And really I still just don't like the way most meat tastes. I eat fish religiously. But other than that, when I'm not following a pescetarian diet, the only guilty pleasures are the occassional hamburger and bacon. And it has to have seasoning or a lot of fixings in the case of the burger.