About Food, What Else?

I'm reading a novel, Before You Know Kindness, by Chris Bohjalian. It's not great literature, but it's an okay read. I bought it because Bohjalian is a "local" author--local to where I used to live before seminary, anyway. He's best known for Midwives, which became a bestseller when Oprah chose it for her bookclub a few years back, but my favorite of his works is Tran-Sister Radio, a story about a transgender person. This most current novel, however, is about a vegan animal rights activist who is accidentally shot with his brother-in-law's deer rifle. I won't reveal any more about the plot, but somethings Bohjalian says and/or implies about hunting and about animal rights and about vegetarians got me thinking.

Bohjalian's commentary at least through the first half of the novel could be read as a strong apologetic for hunting, particularly deer hunting. Through his characters he speaks of how deer have few natural predators these days, and how their deaths from starvation, the inevitable result of the overpopulation that would occur without hunting, would be much more painful than dying quickly to the hunter's bullet. I've never understood the draw of hunting. I don't like guns, and I don't like killing--it's hard for me to think of killing anything as sport. And when I think of deer, for better or worse I think of Bambi. I've tasted venison once, and I don't like it, and frankly the idea of eating wild game makes me very queasy--more about that later. But if he's right about predation and overpopulation, his arguments make some sense. I still have problems with killing as sport, though.

To his credit, Bohjalian makes a potent argument for strong gun control as well. One of his characters does something incredibly stupid with his gun, and through the character of a police officer no less come comments about needing strong gun laws. I grew up in a family that had guns--my grandfather collected guns, and my father had to have a gun for his job although he never used it as far as I know. Guns scare me, and I see no need for them. One of my daughter's best friends committed suicide with a gun in middle school, and to this day I think she might not have been successful in her attempt if there had not been a gun in the house. "Guns don't' kill, people do" is the argument you hear so often against gun control, but guns make it so much easier for stupid bad things to happen when people get out of control.

But back to the meat issue. I've been a "semi-vegetarian" for a while now--off and on for about 15 years, but more consistently the last 3. By that I mean that I don't eat beef and I avoid most pork, except that I have a weakness for bacon, and for ham sandwiches (not logical, I'll grant you). I eat seafood, and although I don't cook it, I will on occasion eat poultry. [Disclaimer--I cooked a turkey breast for the benefit of my son right after Christmas, but it may be the last because he seems to be losing his taste for it.] I quit eating meat not for ethical reasons so much as for health reasons, and because I just wasn't that attached to it. Not ever having beef is no hardship for me.

Both of my daughters flirted with vegetarianism in high school and college, and both returned to being carnivores after a while. Lovely Daughter #1 who was quite strict about her eating took up meat again right after college; she became friends with some people who were very into the whole northern New England alternative lifestyle--gardening and hunting and ice fishing for food, and so on. She didn't hunt, but she did eat things that I never imagined that she would eat--bear for example. But even as a meat eater, she was concerned about the sources of her food--preferring free range chickens and eggs (when she could afford them) for example.

The last summer before she went to Korea, LD#1 worked on a farm--it's a "tourist farm"--the former estate of a wealthy family now turned working farm/museum/inn, and her job was primarily teaching children about the animals--milking the cows, making cheese and butter, and so on. But she did a lot of basic farm work as well. One of the things she did was to help care for a flock of turkeys, and in the fall each of the staff who had cared for them was given a turkey with the proviso that they must slaughter the turkey themselves. And so LD#1 did. She killed it and dressed it and plucked it, and she cooked it for a Thanksgiving dinner for her friends.

I couldn't have done that. I would sooner never eat turkey again than to have to do what she did. Am I spoiled? No doubt, and had I lived in an earlier time, I'm sure I would've had to deal with killing my food. LD#1 takes it a step further: she says that I am in denial about where my food comes from. And she's more than likely right, and so I've tried to be more mindful of that. When I could shop at Whole Foods, the little bit of meat I bought was organic, free range, no hormones, etc.

The character in Bohjalian's novel is a vegan because he can't stand the idea of animals suffering. IMHO he takes things too far--he obsesses about causing pain to lobsters the summer he worked in a restaurant in college, and he won't even let his daughter go to a zoo or to a fair where there might be a 4H exhibit with animals. For him, any use of animals is exploitation. I don't think I want to go that far; I don't, for example, believe that shell fish have nervous systems advanced enough to suffer the way Bohjalian's character imagines. And I believe that the potential benefits from medical research are great enough to justify the use of animals there, with proper oversight. Zoos and aquariums can, if done right, provide a decent environment for animals.

I've recently been thinking that I need to completely give up meat--the bacon and ham I love to start with. So for now, I think it's no more mammals for me. And probably no more poultry either. [Another disclaimer: we gave up fast food from MickieD's and BK years ago, but I still have a liking for crispy chicken strips from KFC. Probably my southern upbringing.] Again, my motivation is less about the treatment of animals and more about healthy food choices. For me, meals that don't feature meat are lower fat and calories, and that's a good thing.

But increasingly I think that my food choices are influenced by what's good for the environment as well as what's good for me. I eat organic food when I can, and I try to choose foods with less packaging. How does this relate to choosing not to eat meat? If what I read a few years back is correct, raising beef (for example) consumes far more resources for the amount of nutrition it provides than does raising plant foods.

I don't claim to have a completly logical rational for any of this, nor will I likely ever be totally vegetarian. But for now, no more mammals, anyway.

A final note: The down side is that I don't like some of the foods vegetarians rely on--specifically mushrooms and tofu. Any one with good recipe suggestions?