May 4, 2007...8:49 pm
Confessions of a Meat Eater
(*credit to the folks at the pulp for the semi-plagarized title)
I choked down a burger the other day. I don’t typically (have to choke it down that is). I grew up in the middle of North America. Beef was always what was for dinner. Frankly, I liked it. And I still do.
However, increasingly as I’ve explored what a Biblical worldview might really be (as opposed to a North-American-Church Person worldview), deciding what’s for dinner has become a little more complicated. My parents visited my home once and cooked shrimp fettucini. They brought the shrimp with them from Canada so I asked if the shrimp was a Canadian product. It was at the exact time of the Canadian seal hunt when fishermen club baby seals to death for their furs. It’s a brutal death. The slaughter occurs in front of the young seals’ mothers. And it’s so fishermen have a few extra bucks in the off season and we can have a “dead seal skin” clothing option. I don’t want any part of supporting that. But the dinner smelled really great and I wanted to appease my family members who thought I was being silly so I ate it. And, therein lies my dilemna.
I like the taste of meat. And, it’s what I’ve been raised on: meat, potatoes and some other “colorful” vegetable with a slice of bread. Everyday. With everyone at the table. But I don’t think it’s what God originally intended nor will it be the ultimate reality of the Kingdom. Carnivorism arose when the curse reverberated through the galaxy. The lamb was laying down with the wolf in utter dozing contentment until Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. In the moment of the curse, for the first time ever, the lamb experienced fear and the wolf discovered a new craving.
We can argue Biblically that God required animal sacrifices and that he created laws for how people should prepare meat for consumption. We can argue that Peter’s vision of the meat picnic laid out on a blanket in a vision was God’s obvious blessing to eat away. But, I cannot be convinced that God approves of gestation crates and feed lots and abused milker cows and battery cages. I can’t be convinced that animals were created as little chunks of meat for humanity — that it doesn’t matter how they are treated while they’re alive if they’re just being raised to become food.
And there is my problem. I don’t like eating meat if the food product is the result of, and promotes, blatant abuse of living creatures who ultimately belong to the God who created them (the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof). As the recently revolutionized world famous chef Wolfgang Puck says, “The veal calf may end up as wiener schnitzel, but… [I] want it to have a happy life first.“
The bookends of the Biblical narrative appear to me to be vegetarian. In the middle of God’s story with us we have permission to eat meat. But we still carry the responsibility of caring for creation (animals included) in a way that honors the One from whom life is given.
5 Comments
May 5, 2007 at 5:22 am
I agree completely, as always. I like the way you put it about the bookends of the narrative being vegetarian. We were free to eat of any tree in the Garden (with that one exception), but after Noah gets off the ark God allows us to eat meat. So, there is nothing wrong with being a meat-eater (and, conversely, absolutely nothing wrong with being a vegetarian).
But, I gots to agree with you: we can eat meat in a more responsible way, eschewing forms that involve mistreatment and waste.
The problem is going to be changing the system. To feed as many of us as we are we have to have a industrial form of providing meat; if we knew what went into getting that steak to our Outback, I doubt many of us would eat nearly as much meat. Ironically, it is the hunter who takes his meal from an animal who has lived in the wild and died suddenly and then eaten completely that is the most eco-friendly. Good discussion, and something we should all think about the next time we sit down to eat!
May 6, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I had this whole reply written and by the time I got to the end of it, I didn’t really agree with what I was saying…or to put it more accurately, I may have agreed with what I had written, but it didn’t really have anything to do with what this post is saying! I blame it on the end-of-semester papers and finals.
Anyway, great thoughts, I’m not sure exactly how one could a) find out how our meat is raised and b) avoid all forms of maltreatment without actually abstaining from meat. And let’s face it, those vegetables are getting a raw deal too; talk about being raised just to be consumed! A friend of mine is a vegetarian; her email signature is this quote from some other really witty person: “I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals. I’m a vegetarian because I hate plants.” I thought that was hysterical! Anywho, great fodder for thought, thanks!
May 6, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Mike,
Your points (a & b) are both valid. As I ponder the whole issue I’m asking myself the same questions. Thanks for writing them down. Maybe someone else has some suggestions?
June 6, 2007 at 10:47 am
I know that the Whole Foods and Sprouts grocery stores in our area carry free-range animal products, so I have that resource and should use it. It should be that easy for me, but most of the time I end up going to the grocery store closest to my house.
I do think it’s a little funny to talk about treating animals “humanely”, but i do like that in the article Puck talks about “responsible ranchers and farmers.” Like you said, God put Adam in charge of the animals and we know that His plan was for Adam (and us) was/is to be responsible for them. To me that doesn’t mean to me not to eat them. And in addition to the responsibility part, the free-range products seem to be proven healthier for us. That seems like a more whole aproach to me…good for the animals…good for us.
June 7, 2007 at 8:49 am
i agree that the word humanely doesn’t quite fit. what i’d like to say is treat animal “animally” or “like animals” but that doesn’t seem to work so well either because it implies “do whatever you want to animals.” i do see a hierarchy in God’s creation whereby animal life and human life do not/should not carry the same value. if it were to be a choice between an animal’s life and a human’s life, human life trumps all others.
animals should not be treated like humans, but they should be treated with caring regard for the needs specific to their species.
thanks for checking in, ashli.
Leave a Reply