Meat is Yummy

It may surprise my good regular readers to discover that I am vegan.

Ok, I’m not vegan.

Neither am I vegetarian.

I am a healthy meat eater who also enjoys fruit and vegetables.  Yes, I do eat vegetables despite them still being alive as I am eating them.  The bits that make up a modern day salad can actually be registered ‘screaming’ as they are chewed upon, poor things.

A live Boris apologises to a live carrot about to be eaten alive

That’s why it’s always been far more humane to eat meat, about which I don’t have any feeling of guilt compared to when I rip a vegetable into pieces and digest it alive.  Meat comes from animals that are usually instantly killed and so aren’t suffering or in distress as they are being eaten.

So, it was fascinating the other day to stumble upon a large butcher’s shop in, more or less, the middle of nowhere as we were wasting time cruising through countryside.  It was very large.  A lady seemed to be serving, whilst the huge space behind her seemed crowded with mainly men hacking, and chopping away at dead animals.

It turns out that even further back, probably as part of a huge shed looking building, but out of view is an actual abattoir, within which the animals are slaughtered.

So, in other words, the journey from being a freshly slaughtered animal to being presented as, say, steaks, or chops or bacon in a huge glass protected display is, literally, no more than 100 metres.

It seems to me that our modern day habits of buying everything pre-packaged in supermarkets, leaves us somewhat removed and remote from the process involved in getting it from being a fluffy little lamb frolicking in the meadow into being a tender roast sitting invitingly on our dinner plate.

For some townies, so completely divorced from the entire process of what meat is, the reaction is to think it’s all disgusting and to follow a trend of not being able to deal with it and to become vegetarian.  To vegetarians barbarism is acceptable if the victim doesn’t have eyes.  For other townies, as long as it’s all cleanly pre-packaged and ready to cook, and, most importantly, doesn’t resemble the original animal in any way, then that’s ok.

There is, however, a stark reality when in a modern world one actually comes face to face with the sight of whole animals being butchered and made ready as cuts of meat to be cooked.  And, this is what I faced, once we decided to pull-over and take a look inside.

I realised how shamefully distant from the process I actually am on a day to day basis.  But, there it was in front of me.  How did I feel?

Well, I just felt more aware.  Obviously, from a meat eating point of view, it wouldn’t be possible to get anything fresher and cleaner.  Who knows what unseen processes meat goes through before finally hitting the supermarket shelves.  On taking advice from the serving lady, we parted with a large sum of cash for a good few bags of very heavy meat to head home with.  But, from a perspective of facing what it actually was I was seeing, it became far more real.  It was a reality that I had no problem with, yet realised I’d spent most of my life sheltered from.

I could see, however, that different folks might have different reactions, because it was so real.  It might turn the younger into vegetarians.  It might make others more respectful, more thoughtful, more mindful of the process.

I’ve always said that as I eat meat, I should have no problem capturing and killing the animal in the first place. Well, obviously, I would, I’ve never had to. It’s always been done for me and nicely packaged.  But, in principle, if I am happy to eat meat, I should be happy to catch the animal, kill it and strip it down.  The same goes with pulling a carrot from its place in the ground, preparing it and cooking it.

So, although it wasn’t being done by me, and although the whole process wasn’t in view, I felt closer to it in this huge Butcher’s, instead of being protected from it by a supermaket, and that was a very good thing.