Eating

[botias]

diachrony's rec of Michael Pollan's essay has reminded me that I highly recommend his book The Omnivore's Dilemma to anyone who eats. Or who eats and reads; nothing better than a good book, a sunny lunch hour and patio table at a good restaurant. *wistful sigh*

I became a vegetarian, more or less, 7 or 8 years ago, give or take. Ever since, I've become more interested in what I eat, and gradually gotten more 'health foody' reaching a peak of boorish dietary righteousness a few years back and thankfully now on the downhill side. Since I've often wondered how 'free range' my extra-expensive eggs actually are, I was thrilled when one of my fav authors decided to find out for me. He also looks at fast food, processed food, foraged food, and the ethics and consequences of each.

I was particularly excited about this book because I read an essay by Pollan on vegetarianism before the book was released. I began this essay with a weary cynicism that persisted as he cited all the standard questions about the ethics of killing an animal. Does being smarter than they make it right? Does being another species than they make it right? Does an animal's own lack of complex ethical behavior make it ethical to behave toward them unethically? I had no doubt that he would say yes to all of the above. He's a smart, educated guy, I thought perhaps he would put a new twist on the old refutations, or perhaps concede the point, but say it just didn't matter, 'Sure killing animals is wrong I guess, but they taste so darn good!'.

Imagine my surprise when he ended by resolving to quit eating meat until he'd looked into it further. I would only be slightly less shocked to read a creationist tract that ended: 'You know, those evolutionist types bring up some really good points. I better look into this some more.' The 'looking into it' is part of what this book is about.

That was enjoyable enough, and the free-range question was answered. But the most memorable part of this book was the chapter on hunting. I have this thing, where I try to understand people, especially the people I just can't understand. One of those 'can't understand' things is people that joyfully turn a perfectly good critter into a bloody mess, apparently the more magnificent the animal the greater the fun. This liberal city boy went hunting, and he became one of those people that poses grinning with their bloody mess, and he took me with him. I understood. In the middle of this investigative book about food was something intimate and humbling and awful. How strange it was to to turn the last page of that chapter and have him continue on about hunting mushrooms as though it had never happened.

Comments

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

I was a vegetarian for several years and finally stopped because it was expensive (at least the way I was doing it), antisocial (particularly if you're also trying to avoid dairy & sugar) and I was getting concerned by all the dire news about soy, which was my main source of protein at the time.

But I don't eat a lot of meat anyway. Also, reading his NY Times essay (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=a18a7f35515014c7&ex=1327640400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss) is reminding me how I relied too much on highly-processed soy "meat analog" type products ~ edamame or black soybeans ought to be perfectly safe and healthy.

I cringe at the thought of hunting for fun but I perhaps can understand it theoretically. It will be an adventure to read of his experience (and as close to the real thing as I'd ever want to get, perhaps).

[botias.livejournal.com]

His work also made me take a closer look at my 'meat analogs' :) I tend to exempt them from the heading of 'processed food' because of my good intentions, but that's obviously silly.

We substituted tofu for chicken in most of our recipes and just kind of carried on pretty much the same. I think organic tofu cost about the same per pound as the boneless, skinless chicken breast we had been eating.

Nowadays I think I would feel comfortable eating humanely raised animals, and really I think occasional meat eating is the healthiest way (assuming that the animal was healthy which lets out almost all American meat), but meat is now filed under 'dead body' in my brain rather than 'food' so it would be about the same amount of work to go back than it was to change my habits in the first place. The idea of eating body fat or muscle or skin or tendons has kind of a ?! ick thing for me now.

It's not PC to say so, but to some extent the hunting thing may be a bit of a guy thing. There was some kind of social thing at work there that I don't think would work on me or most females the same way, but it was still very interesting.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. I've done various forms of the vegetarian thing several times, but I tend to come back to "carnivore light" ie I eat meat, but not all that often.

I'm curious about the hunting chapter. My dad is an avid hunter, and I occasionally go with him. Based on both your and diachrony's posts I'm clearly going to have to check this book out!

[botias.livejournal.com]

I would be interested to know what you think of it. I've found all his books interesting, but I might be weird. :P

I can get why hunting would be exciting, but... But!

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Heh-- I actually tend to agree. I mostly tag along because its one of the few times I get my dad all to myself. I dont do mammals, just upland game birds-- grouse, pheasants, chuckers-- and frankly I often dont even carry a gun. For the record we do eat them. I dont have a lot of respect for people who kill things to put them on the wall! I dont have a lot a qualms about fishing (Im from a fishing town on the Oregon coast) and we go fishing quite a bit too! BTW I apologize for the weird lack of punctuation-- Im staying at a B&B in the mountains and using their public computer to check email. It seems to lack random punctuation keys. Very odd!