From: ekeller@aerie.CalStateLA.EDU (eddy keller)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: What's wrong with free-range eggs ?
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:37:59 GMT
Reply-To: ekeller@calstatela.edu
Organization: ATS - CalState Los Angeles

In article <6963@transfer.stratus.com>, moser@sw.stratus.com (Tom Moser) writes:
|> In article <1992Oct1.061205.3088@abo.fi>, abulsari@abo.fi (Abhay Bulsari VT) writes:
|> > 
|> > Comparatively  few  people  would eat chicken if they had to kill the birds
|> > themselves,  
|> 
|> Why do so many vegetarians believe this? I disagree with this completly.
|> I would eat just as much chicken (maybe more in the case of chicken) if I
|> had the opportunity to kill and clean the birds myself.
|> 
|> Another argument which holds no weight is that most people do not associate
|> packaged meat with animals. I was at a local fair recently and we were
|> standing near a pen containing a few pigs. A family walked up and the father
|> said to his son (who looked to be about age 3) "Do you know what these are?".
|> The boy was not sure but he said he thought they were pigs. and his father said,
|> "That's right - that is where your bacon comes from". 
|> 
|> Even at a very young age children are taught to associate meat with animals - 
|> there are pictures in the supermarkets of cows with the cuts of meat shown.
|> 
|> Most meat eaters would butcher and clean their meat given the opportunity
|> skills and need. It is simply a matter of convienence and opportunity and
|> not one of aversion. Most people have cleaned fish at some time in their 
|> loves.
|> 
|> I am not trying to defend meat eating or veganism - I just think that
|> these particular arguments are totally false.
|> 
|> If you are an omnivore reading this group - please respond and let us know if
|> you would butcher the meat you eat if there was no other way to get it.
|> 
|> -Tom

I too would be interested in hearing from other omnivores on this.  Maybe I 
have just been a vegetarian too long but I when I ate meat I never can recall
the desire to butcher my own meat - in fact the few times I was around
at butchering time when visiting my grandparents I was not moved to pitch
in.  The slaughter left me without a taste for the final product (of course
I did grow up and stop eating meat so obviously I cannot comment on *real*
omnivorism).  I guess I support your statement about errant vegetarian
beliefs because I think that most omnivores would be less so if they
had to kill and butcher their meat.

As for knowing from whence the steak, bacon, drumstick comes - well
I think that there is a bit of knowing but not really comprehending
(IMHO).  It is quite one thing to see a cow and say "There is where
my next burger is coming from" and quite another to watch the cow 
being slaughtered, butchered, ground up and fried (or flame broiled
if you are a Burger King fan :-) ).  I think that a large number of our
human population give little thought to what they are ingesting, much
less the process which led to its present form.  So the fact that a three
year old knows that bacon come from the pig he is seeing isn't necessarily
saying a *whole* lot.

I appreciate the honesty of your position, however I don't agree
that you are the omnivore norm.

Peace.
-- 
***************************=================***********************************
eddy keller                                  (ekeller@calstatela.edu)
Phone: (213) 343-2717                  California State University, Los Angeles
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Newsgroups: rec.food.veg