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Food, Gore, & Ethics
Nov. 29th, 2003 03:25 pmBefore our main feature I'm going to mention that I do feel better as long as I don't try to talk today. Though unless this totally clears up in the next few hours I think it would be a poor idea for me to inflict myself upon my friends at Freehold Thanksgiving.
The following is rated PG for blood and parts of animals that gross many people out. Don't read it right before you're going to sit down and have pot roast if you have a weak stomach.
A Pointless Story (Mostly)
A conversation sort of thing about meat and ethics has got me thinking about my own experience of adding and subtracting things from my diet. Like all kids I had things I didn't like to eat, e.g. Brussels sprouts. And on occasion, because my dad had a number of allergies as a kid, I would complain of an ailment and something my parents would try would be taking something out of usual fare. For example I went a week on rice milk when they suspected I might have a reaction to dairy. My sister is mildly allergic to chocolate so we had carob around the house for her and looking back I think I must be lucky to have not developed any noticeable allergies to food or pollens.
But sometimes I would be put off some foods for other reasons. I liked liver and then stopped eating it for a while when I learned what a liver is and saw some raw. I was totally grossed out one time when eating a piece of beef and I found a vein in it and I was forever nervous about eating pork after I learned of trichinosis.
I was really put off my feed by the first time I had to gut and clean a fish I caught up at Steamboat Reservoir. I got all grossed out by having to reach in with my hands and pull out the internal organs, though scaling it was not so bad. I really hated the whole slimy feeling and for whatever reason I felt horribly unclean reaching inside an animal where all those bodily functions happen. As I recall I could only manage to eat a little fish that day for lunch at my mom's insistence.
Another time my dad shot a deer in our yard with an arrow. Seeing at first I was doing okay but when I saw that mass of intestines and smelled it, that had me running into the trees to get away for a minute. I don't think I was that much help to my dad in the project.
But in the end doing things like this made me much less squeamish. I still get freaked out by bad things happening to eyes, but other than that I'm usually fairly blasé about things like cutting up a whole chicken.
But though it is no big deal I don't joke about it or throw away anything I can use. My feeling is that when a person goes about killing something living or destroying something inanimate it should be for a good reason. And the act should be done with respect for the life or the work that had to go into it. I don't demand it of everyone, since I’m hardly in a position to demand things. But I always try to encourage putting things to good use if possible.
Gah, that reminds me. I've got to figure out a better system to deal with aluminum cans. I don't produce enough, even at parties, to make it worth my while to recycle them. But I feel like I should figure out something to do with them.
The following is rated PG for blood and parts of animals that gross many people out. Don't read it right before you're going to sit down and have pot roast if you have a weak stomach.
A Pointless Story (Mostly)
A conversation sort of thing about meat and ethics has got me thinking about my own experience of adding and subtracting things from my diet. Like all kids I had things I didn't like to eat, e.g. Brussels sprouts. And on occasion, because my dad had a number of allergies as a kid, I would complain of an ailment and something my parents would try would be taking something out of usual fare. For example I went a week on rice milk when they suspected I might have a reaction to dairy. My sister is mildly allergic to chocolate so we had carob around the house for her and looking back I think I must be lucky to have not developed any noticeable allergies to food or pollens.
But sometimes I would be put off some foods for other reasons. I liked liver and then stopped eating it for a while when I learned what a liver is and saw some raw. I was totally grossed out one time when eating a piece of beef and I found a vein in it and I was forever nervous about eating pork after I learned of trichinosis.
I was really put off my feed by the first time I had to gut and clean a fish I caught up at Steamboat Reservoir. I got all grossed out by having to reach in with my hands and pull out the internal organs, though scaling it was not so bad. I really hated the whole slimy feeling and for whatever reason I felt horribly unclean reaching inside an animal where all those bodily functions happen. As I recall I could only manage to eat a little fish that day for lunch at my mom's insistence.
Another time my dad shot a deer in our yard with an arrow. Seeing at first I was doing okay but when I saw that mass of intestines and smelled it, that had me running into the trees to get away for a minute. I don't think I was that much help to my dad in the project.
But in the end doing things like this made me much less squeamish. I still get freaked out by bad things happening to eyes, but other than that I'm usually fairly blasé about things like cutting up a whole chicken.
But though it is no big deal I don't joke about it or throw away anything I can use. My feeling is that when a person goes about killing something living or destroying something inanimate it should be for a good reason. And the act should be done with respect for the life or the work that had to go into it. I don't demand it of everyone, since I’m hardly in a position to demand things. But I always try to encourage putting things to good use if possible.
Gah, that reminds me. I've got to figure out a better system to deal with aluminum cans. I don't produce enough, even at parties, to make it worth my while to recycle them. But I feel like I should figure out something to do with them.