Dani Allen
Staff Reporter
It’s been 16 days since my last written account about my journey to the land of no meat. I have not read a single page of Eating Animals in that time. Yes, I’ve been extremely busy with schoolwork and work work and club work, but that isn’t the only reason I haven’t been reading. The truth is that I’m a big chicken who wants to continue eating chicken. I know that avoiding the truth about factory farming isn’t going to make the truth cease to exist, but it does make it easy to pretend it doesn’t exist. I told myself that giving up meat would be difficult and unpleasant, but that I’d be capable of doing it. Now I’m not so sure. Meat is just so clucking good!
Bemoaning the fact that I might not be able to taste meat ever again seems a bit immature when I think about one point Jonathan Safran Foer makes. He questions whether a person can use the argument of taste against the realities of factory farm abuse and its detrimental effects on our society. For example, I shouldn’t eat someone’s face just because I like the taste of human flesh. There are other factors to consider, like the fact that people generally want to keep their faces and my desire for something tasty doesn’t trump their desire to not get their face eaten. (This is by no means an analogous example, but you get the point.)
Eventually, Foer’s unbelievably exceptional writing and my own curiosity will draw me back in, but for now, at least for a little bit longer, I’m going to indulge in ignorant, meaty bliss.
…Or so I thought. It’s now 28 days since I’ve read from Eating Animals and I have no excuse. What I’m worried about is the fact that I’ve stopped noticing when I’m eating meat. When I first began to consider vegetarianism I was hyperaware of what I was eating, especially if it contained meat. Now it seems that I’m falling back into my old, careless eating habits. I’ll eat a chicken sandwich in Glar and not even notice it’s meat or if I do notice, I just don’t care. I think the truth is that I know if I start to think about it or care I’ll feel obligated to take it to it’s natural conclusion-vegetarianism. Am I secretly and quietly trying to give up behind my own back? Apparently my subconscious doesn’t think I can pull off my quest to deny meat and I’m not sure that I disagree.
