Hypocrisy 101.1 - Having my cake, and eating it too.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about issues that bother me, and things that I really give a damn about. Since I have so many of these issues that worry me, I’m going to split these posts up, since writing is rather cathartic and it’ll be a book long if I do it all in one go.

My newest source of confusion and guilt. I have been a vegetarian before. Not for the purpose of saving animals, but just because I lived with a bunch of vegans who made it impossible for me to eat meat. For 2 years I didn’t eat it, and I didn’t really miss it that much.

My confusion stems from this: if I can argue so strongly against things like jump racing or be so opposed to them, how can I eat meat? Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? I think it is, yet I don’t really want to stop eating meat. I’ve also just started eating fish, and I don’t really want to stop doing that either. I feel guilty however.

I imagine that to die as a fish does, would be horrible. They basically asphyxiate to death, and then along I come and cook it up for dinner. I suppose it would be okay if I just found a dead fish (that had died of natural causes) and ate it, but I don’t. My buying and eating fish supports an industry that goes out and mass murders fish.

Cows, and sheep, and baby sheep and chickens, they all get slaughtered too. Not necessarily humanely. I recently bought my self a copy of “skinny bitch” by those two rather horrible frightening ladies called Trinny and Susannah. I was interested in reading this book that had caused quite a stir in nutrition circles. Little did I know, the reason it causes a stir is because they describe graphically the horrible ways in which animals are killed for our consumption. It’s also a sort of expose on the food industry in America in general. It really was horrifying stuff. I had to shove it away and (since I was on a plane at the time) wish I had pre-ordered the vegetarian meal. But it stuck with me. The images of animals being killed are burned into my mind. There are quotes from people who worked in abattoirs commenting on some of the animal treatment, and truly some people really are sick. To make a sweeping total over-generalisation (which I can do, this is my blog after all), people who work in abattoirs and are not completely repulsed by their jobs have deep seated mental health issues and should be screened for mental disorders on a weekly basis.

BUT, does this mean that I should be too? I wonder if they had school excursions to abattoirs if we would all be vegetarian?

So, can you see my conundrum? I find myself disgusted by animal cruelty, yet I eat meat. And I like it. I enjoy a lamb roast. I love a pork chop. Hell, I’ve even eaten camel for Christ’s sake! How do I come to terms with loving animals and wanting them to have nice long lives where they aren’t forced into human slavery, and then also supporting an animal killing industry that fits in with my lifestyle?
I have a friend, Sarah, who gave up eating meat until she had been a vegetarian for the length of time she estimated it would have taken her to eat a whole cow, and thereby saving the life of one cow. 2 or 3 years I think it was, and she has just recently begun to eat meat again, although I don’t think very much of it. At first I thought this really really weird. But now I think it’s amazing! Not that I didn’t before, but now I’m not so “hmm, how strange” and dismissive. (Sarah if you are reading this, then please I would love to discuss more how you came to doing this). However, I’m not sure that I can find that kind of dedication to the cause. I want to eat meat, and I want to not feel like a hypocrite for doing so. I want to eat my chops AND be able to argue about animal cruelty while I stuff them down.

It’s very easy to ignore this subject, and not think about abattoirs and go on eating meat like a chop is just something you buy at the shop and wasn’t once part of an animals flank, but it is. And I think if we all sat down to dinner and looked at our plates and said “that’s daisy the cow I’m eating, I used to go and pat her every day on my way home from school” then maybe we wouldn’t be eating it so readily.

I know that there is the argument of “it’s us or them” or “survival of the fittest” or, “we’re the top of the food chain” but that doesn’t work for me. We breed these animals for food. And let’s face it; a cow is not going to eat us. It’s not going to see us, run over and then bite a big chunk off and swallow it. (Well they might, but only if some sicko human trains them too, like in “Hannibal rising” with the pigs).

Is there a way for me to do both things? Or do I just need to come to terms with being a hypocrite? My only consolation is that at least I’m not being determinedly ignorant of my actions.