I've been a Vegetarian since 2003 and towards the end of 2009 I started phasing out dairy, egg and fish. It's been a tough process and I've regressed many times. It's not easy being Vegan- products you would never imagine to contain dairy or egg seem to have them included just for sake's "sake", which just goes to prove the point that their inclusion is gratuitous and entirely redundant. I've slowly become aware that being Vegetarian, while a noble effort, isn't the end but merely the means. The conditions in which dairy cows/goats and poultry are kept (yes, even so-called "free range")(unless you are talking about the one and only Jimmy's Farm) is deplorable. The greatest lesson I've learnt over these past few years is that complacency is complicity. And the fact that I'm aware of what's going on means that I cannot trigger that selective acknowledgment that we humans are so good at.
In honour of World Vegan Day I'm going to read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran-Foer. While he will be preaching to the converted, it will be an educational read which will probably help me to engage in more eloquent debate with those who look at me either as if I have a disability or react with outright hostility when they find out I'm a vegan. On the same note, my hope is that I'll be able to handle such reactionists without looking at them as if they are disabled (mentally,spiritually and developmentally) or with blood-chilling hostility. So any way you look at it, it will be a good read.
What I love about the title of this book is that it calls a spade or spade. The question which keeps turning around in my mind (with increasing intensity) is what is "meat". I'm perpetually hearing people talk about "meat". They're eating butchered animal. Not meat. I'm hoping this book will showcase the irrational disjuncture between reality and the bullshit we are fed (literally). Its insane the extent to which simple "Semantics" facilitates and enables denial.
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