So…err…is this thing on? I’m feeling very shy on my return to the blog world after a long absence. As in the public service, let’s start with the who, what, where, when, why. So as for the what, to be brief, Wes and I want to talk about trying to eat free range, trying to shop free range, go to free range serving restaurants and cook free range of course. I want to chat about recipes, awkward social situations, snazzy restaurants, great markets and maybe even visit some farms! It’s about just another choice in the wide variety of ways to fuel your body. And I want to make clear from the outset that this isn’t about conversion – I admire vegetarians and I understand completely if you don’t really give a rats about where your food comes from. But I do care; I’m fascinated by food and where it comes from and the place it plays in my life. I expect to fall off this hastily constructed wagon a few times and run into some problems, but I think it’s going to be fun.
The when and where go without saying. The who is me, and Wes (Hi Wes!) but I’m sure he’ll tell you his vital stats. I’m a public servant and student here in Melbourne, renting in Brunswick – I mention the renting because I think budgets will come up a little in the blog; we’re trying to do this little experiment without bucketloads of cash. Maybe the whole thing will work out cheaper, maybe budget issues will win out over our ethical concerns and it will be back to KFC for us. There are two other important things to mention about who I am. Firstly, I LOVE food, really love it. I eat a lot. Bad food, good food, whatever. Secondly, I have almost no will power (you see where I’m going with this don’t you?) – so I want some serious kudos for trying anything that means dietary restrictions. It might also be worth mentioning that I don’t like conflict and putting people out, again I think you’ll see where I’m going with that. Food plays a pretty big part in my social life; my group of friends is forever going out for dinner to new places and old favourites, cooking each other dinner and talking food almost as much as we talk TV and politics. My best school friend and I have a years long tradition of baking goodies or comfort food when we’re together. I often take photos of my food when particularly excited. Did I mention that food is important to me?
And so we come most importantly to the why. This is something I find hard to articulate. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals definitely has a lot to do with why now, but these are ideas that have been floating around in my head for a long time. I’ve toyed with the idea of becoming a vegetarian before but I really lack the conviction, I’ve experienced a vague feeling that something was wrong, but I’ve never been convinced that eating animals is, in itself, the problem. The whole ‘well you wouldn’t eat your pet dog’ argument doesn’t hold that much water with me. ‘Cos you know what, if times were tough enough, maybe I would eat my beloved pet. Different cultures revere different animals for different reasons, just because – as Safran Foer points out – these aren’t based on cold logic like intelligence and receptiveness to pain doesn’t mean they don’t have worth. Culture and tradition are flimsy notions, we should question and consider them but you’re allowed to decide that you’re okay with eating pigs but not cats based on sentiment. I feel like that’s okay. I can reconcile myself to the idea that living creatures are sacrificed to create my food, I think humans are superior in intelligence and self-awareness, and given the massive impact our lives have on the lives of all the other creatures on the planet in a myriad of other ways, drawing the line eating them doesn’t seem like the logical solution to me.
So why the vague bad feeling? I think a lot of us sense that the way our food gets to us might not be quite right somehow, we dismiss the claims of PETA and ‘crazy’ hippies but maybe something resonates with a few of us. You’ve decided to kill a living creature to feed you so why care how it lives and is killed, you say? Well why wouldn’t you care? If it’s better for you in terms of taste and health, better for the animal and better for the environment then why not show a little kindness? To be blunt, I don’t have a problem with the killing, but the torturing bothers me. I’m going to investigate factory farming a bit more over the course of this adventure but from what I’ve learned it is so cruel as to rob us of some of our humanity; not producing meat that is of the best quality in terms of taste and nutrition; and not environmentally sustainable.
Phew, that was a little ranty and preachy eh? Here is an anecdote that demonstrates another point borrowed from Safran Foer, which points to why I’m doing this: Last week I went out for dinner and I was pretty tired and worn out from work. I knew I should probably order the Bolognese because beef tends to be more ethically farmed but I really wanted that carbonara, I knew it would sooth my troubled soul. I knew that the bacon was likely to be factory/cage farmed but I’d had a rough day. I chose a meal where an animal was possibly tortured over one where the animal enjoyed a natural outdoorsy life because I’d HAD A ROUGH DAY? I pride myself on being a person of convictions and rational arguments and yet that’s the decision I came to. Sentiment won out over convictions. I want to do this blog, and this experiment, to see if I can make better choices. There is already a groundswell of support for free range and ethically farmed meat and I want to see how easy it is for your average person to make what I think are better food choices.
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