A pig of a Problem

Forward: This is a brief insight into the struggle between what is considered natural and modern food sources

..the entrance to the devils arse

Amongst the many varied attributes that us Humans are blessed with, one of our most important (I believe anyway) is the conscious mind; which affords us with the necessary tools that have helped shape and create the world that we inhabit today (for the purposes of this point please ignore all the huge failures, global warming, famine, nuclear weapons, socialism etc that have also been created!) It also provides most of us with the ability to make up our own minds and develop opinions that can, and usually are different to others. Now Let me repeat that because it’s very important… different to others, e.g. my opinion is different to yours and I am big and stupid enough to change it without your help!! Unfortunately opinions are like hairy arseholes, everyone has them but some of them stink. He who speaks loudest is not necessarily correct; in fact it’s the narrow minded opinionated bigots that have infuriated me into writing this passage. 

Whilst attending yet another wedding ceremony (crazy fools!) on Saturday, the promise of a crispy hog roast for supper sparked a few words that I couldn’t get out of my head; ‘an animal had to die for a couple’s whimsical fancy’. A simple tick of a pen or the entering of a PIN number into a credit card machine and that animal was a goner. Now just to get this clear, I’m not a vegetarian, not by any means... I love meat. In fact BBQ’s are without doubt my favorite form of celebratory food, given the opportunity (not to mention the cash needed to fund it) I would relish the Atkins diet, burgers for breakfast are the best!  But for some alien reason I couldn’t help feeling slightly guilty for the act of slaughter that the happily married couple (I’ll give them 2 years ‘till the realization of what they’ve done kicks in…) deemed necessary to celebrate their union (once it had been pointed out to me).

N.B. lots of brackets have been used in the making of the above paragraph which can only be attributed to my hatred of the comma.

Roll back the clock a few centuries and the story and opinions are very different (I’m not delving into the subject of evolution here, that’s for another day….), red meat was an essential part of their diet providing energy and fat to allow early humans to survive through the tough winters. I don’t think the mud huts were central heated so they adapted and used the food sources available i.e. animals.  But now, in 2011, 4000 calories a day is simply not necessary for us to go about our every day activities. I don’t need to physically hunt down and spear a multi legged animal to provide sustenance for my family; Asda do that for a bum-slapping low price (and deliver it to my door). So why do certain opinionated people feel it necessary to mock, sorry wrong word, try and convince those who choose to follow a different diet that our digestive systems (but there’s never a mention to the potential heart disease) will be so much better off eating their way, at every given opportunity?

New food sources and techniques have been developed to allow a very healthy alternative diet without the need for animal blood; and to be honest you don’t meet many overweight vegetarians…. but it’s still a tricky lifestyle to follow, your options at most restaurants are limited and the prices of Quorn are ridiculous. Unfortunately there are too many narrow minded idiots who think that they can be the one to convince you that we are designed to eat meat and that you’re wrong for choosing not to, when in fact you can make any choices you want without having to justify yourself at every public restaurant or family occasion. Vegetarians/ vegans etc are obviously clever enough to sustain themselves on a different diet which can be trickier, and for that I think that they deserve more respect for choosing to follow their beliefs despite the obvious difficulties associated with this choice.   

This leads me to a bit of a cross roads; how can I feel guilty for benefiting from the murder of animals when I enjoy, nay love, eating them?  Should I become a healthy, BMI-perfect vegetarian or an overweight, opinionated meat-eating slob? And how on earth can I get aforementioned overweight opinionated slobs to keep their opinions to themselves? This is a tricky one, I wonder if Smarties still have the answer….