{"id":7925,"date":"2012-04-24T07:11:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T14:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=7925"},"modified":"2012-04-24T07:11:55","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T14:11:55","slug":"a-meat-eater-speaks-her-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-meat-eater-speaks-her-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Carnivore: Why Eating Meat is OK — Sorta"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cattle<\/a>
Cattle feed lot at Harris Ranch, Central Valley, California. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s my essay for the \u201cWhy It\u2019s OK to Eat Meat\u201d contest the New York Times Magazine put on a few weeks ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post<\/a>, I didn’t win and I\u2019m OK with that; some of the other essays<\/a> were truly superb.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

When our son was a boy he was tormented by headaches. Tests showed he was allergic to the seven-story cypress tree growing outside his bedroom window. \u201cCut that tree down,\u201d said the pediatrician.<\/p>\n

My husband and I were taken aback. No way were we going to cut down that cypress tree. It was magnificent \u2013 roots growing deep into the soil behind our house and thick, graceful branches reaching around our deck.<\/p>\n

\"Meat
Chicken breasts and thighs, ready to cook. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That tree was a presence, a being. It had been there when we bought the house, it would be there when we left. We had no right to end its life. We\u2019d find another way to address the headaches.<\/p>\n

Like our cypress tree, a head of butter lettuce has a life, a fact driven home to me whenever I buy one of those fancy organic versions sold alive, roots still attached.<\/p>\n

I take the lettuce from its box, ponder the tender leaves and the roots still caked with soil, and think, \u201cThis plant isn\u2019t dead yet. I\u2019m about to rip off its roots and eat it alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see where I\u2019m going with this.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see a clear difference between slaughtering a pig and cutting down a seven-story tree. Between netting the wild salmon I eat for dinner and harvesting my breakfast oats. Faced with a choice between killing a pig and killing the tree in our backyard \u2013 I\u2019d kill the pig. (Full disclosure: I’d have the pig slaughtered, just as I’d hire someone else to cut down the tree.)<\/p>\n

Many people differentiate between plant and animal. A Buddhist might say one is sentient and the other lacks \u2013 what? The wind poppies growing in our front yard this spring opened their petals to the sun and radiated what felt like \u2013 a will to live, an intention to live.<\/p>\n

Some perceive a hierarchy in living things. The more sentient the being (i.e. the more like us humans) the more valuable its life; a mammal is more valuable than a bird.<\/p>\n

\"Green
Green lentils for sale at Whole Foods, Berkeley. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But not everyone thinks that way. During a trip to Sikkim my husband and I engaged a Buddhist guide who told us, yes, many of the local people were vegetarians. But others occasionally ate meat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they do,\u201d he said, \u201cthey might slaughter a single ox instead of many chickens. One ox will feed as many people as a flock of chickens \u2013 but only one creature dies.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are all destined to die \u2013 the cypress tree, the pig, my breakfast oats, the chickens. But meanwhile we live, and in order to live, we eat. Humans and pigs eat other living things. And that has to be okay.<\/p>\n

The ethical high road might be to go, not vegetarian, not vegan, but fruitarian \u2013 living on fruits alone, consuming only the seed-bearing part of the plant not essential to its survival.<\/p>\n

I for one am not willing to live the constricted life of a fruitarian. And I don\u2019t think my body is set up to subsist on fruits alone, which is maybe too bad for all the turkeys and carrots and spinach I\u2019ll be consuming until my own time comes to feed the worms. But that\u2019s the way it is, and it has to be okay, it has to be ethical<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I care deeply about how farm animals are treated. I care about the toll our meat-eating habits take on the planet and our bodies. I don\u2019t need slabs of meat on my plate, but I do like a little chicken broth in my lentil soup. And I try to stay aware of the creatures \u2013 the butter lettuce, the pig, the artichoke \u2013 whose lives have come to an end so that I can keep mine. For now.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A<\/dt>\n
Our cypress tree . . . part of it anyway!<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n

If you enjoyed this post, consider getting my regular updates with an email subscription. Just fill in the box at the top of the right-hand column. You can also get updates via Facebook , Twitter or RSS by clicking on the appropriate icon at the top of the right-hand column.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[caption id=\"attachment_8640\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"Cattle<\/a> Cattle feed lot extending acres into the distance at Harris Ranch, CA. Photo by BF Newhall[\/caption]\n

I don\u2019t see a clear difference between slaughtering a pig and cutting down a seven-story tree. Between netting the wild salmon I eat for dinner and harvesting my breakfast oats. Faced with a choice between killing a pig and killing the tree in our backyard \u2013 I\u2019d kill the pig. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[725,721,726,88,89,727,728],"class_list":["post-7925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-carnivore","tag-ethics","tag-meat-eater","tag-nature","tag-nature-photography","tag-trees","tag-vegetarians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}