Of Vegetarians and Vegans
I recently read a post on one of my tuition kid's site, saying she was going to become a vegan because of the massive cruelty animals raised for food are put under. She's in Secondary 3, and coincidentally, at that point in my life, I also turned vegetarian, for 'health' reasons and because some of my friends decided to become vegetarians too. That lasted for like a brief period of a couple of months, before we all started eating meat again to get the nutrients because we were still growing (ya I wished... still as short as ever heh). Then, straight after I read her post, I get a craving for a double cheeseburger, whilst in the midst of wondering how any girl can possibly make this ultimate sacrifice - no chocolates and icecream. I go to Macs, and did something I haven't done for approximately 10 years. I got myself a double cheeseburger, and finished the entire thing all by myself. Yup, after stopping being a vegetarian (not vegan) I swore off all meats with the exception of chicken and fish, coz I really didn't want to give up eating chicken, and since I ate chicken, why not fish as well.
Ok, for those of you who actually know me, I have to admit here that I did 'cheat' over those 10 years by eating bits and pieces of beef here and there. But since I didn't limit the variety of my food intake for any much better reason than red meat causes bowel cancer (apparently due to the high amount of iron in red meat, not sure if this is actually proven although statistics do show some link), and since that little part of conscience in me that felt guilty for the cows dying so I could enjoy myself was kinda appeased by the fact that the bulk of the beef was actually going to be eaten, and was ordered by someone else, it didn't particularly matter to me.
I don't think I am going to actually get negative comments about this post, or actually any comments at all, considering the traffic to this site isn't that high, and I seriously doubt anyone can be bothered enough to read through my ramblings. But just in case some avid meat eater or vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian etc decides to take offence at what I say, I will first state that I am not going to ever push my views of food intake and cruelty to animals onto anyone. The most I'll ever do to 'enforce' my views on others is to insist they brush their teeth first before they even attempt to kiss me *gigglez*. Oh and of course if you are going to be my future lifemate, ya I won't cook foods for you that I won't eat. To save YOU obviously, not me. Did you really want to die of indigestion? =D
Well, a little background of my eating habits. I don't eat pork because I don't like it. I don't eat beef because it's red meat. I am too scared to try meats other than those mentioned above with the exception of chicken and fish because.... I am me? Haha. I don't eat prawns or any seafood with the exception of fish because I am scared of all those things with so many legs/tentacles, cooked crabs smell plain freaky to me, and my mother hid a prawn in the leaves of my vegetables when I was young and I took a big bite out of it and now I'm also scared of eating the leaves of vegetables =X. (Ok fine i DO eat the leaves now. But I always spread them wide open to ensure nothing frightening is inside. My friend once commented that I'm mad because his grandmother once 'hid' a caterpillar inside his leaf for him, so my mother's prawn is nothing in comparison. HMPF. For all I know, the caterpillar would have tasted better!)
I am also very opposed to animal cruelty. But that is also because I cannot stand physical torture of any kind. I spent 1/2 of Hannibal hiding behind my hands, crouched up in the cinema seat. Yes, so I did kill like plently of mice for my Honours year project. But I was very humane about it. Turn on the CO2 full blast, leave it on for extra long to ensure they are fully dead. No experiments with neck breaking, which is supposed to be the best way (instant death, no pain), because I know I can't do it skillfully. This, by the way, is all my friend's fault. In year 1 of uni, I had this Biochemistry practical which required me to kill a mouse to extract it's spleen and lymph nodes. So the day before, I geared myself up, all ready to hold the mouse down to kill it on first go, so it would suffer as little as possible. Then on the day of the practical, my wonderful friend comes up to me and tells me 'I pulled off the tail of the mouse!'. So GG. I didn't dare to pull too hard in case the tail came out. But then the mouse wouldn't die. Argh. Surrender. Back to the lab mice that I killed with CO2, well, I for one have weird views of life and death. I don't really like my existence on this earth, and would like to die ASAP, but I also can't stand pain while dying. So I vaguely told the mice as I killed them (Ya I'm mad I talk to them too. Even when they are dead.) that I'm sorry, but I have to do this to graduate, and sincerely I would like to die a quick death just like they were going to. I sincerely think they have come back to haunt me though, coz now my cells used for my experiments keep dying. BLEAH.
Josie, I know you'll probably never read this, but this is the reason why I insisted you turn on the tap full blast when killing the mice and insisted you turn on the tap again when you turned it off 1/2 way and cried. I'm really sorry but I couldn't stand the thought of the mice suffering on the way to death.
Yes, torture to death is one of my worst nightmares. So when I saw that part of fear factor where they were blending live insects and worms and goodness knows wad to make some fearful cocktail for the participants to drink, all I think of was what is wrong with the producers? Is the fear they are trying to establish fear in the competitors, or in those poor bugs who on top who can sense death all around them and are trying to crawl out? Or perhaps is the fear that those poor critters will come and haunt them for giving them such a horrible death? Given all my pickiness in foods, I would actually say that I probably would not have found much problem drinking that concoction, if the insects were not blended to death.
I am really picky when it comes to food. My mother and ex-boyfriends can all testify to that. One of them actually went to have a happy long chat with my mother about my eating habits >.<. Not that I am that unappreciative of my mother cooking for me when I am old enough to actually be cooking for the household (ok fine, I don't want them of die of food poisoning by my hands) and helping out with the other chores. But I wonder if my pickiness comes from my mother's cooking. When I was young, she turned the only dish I really liked (chicken stew) into something totally uneatable by adding sotong (??!!!!) in. She is also the only person I know who can turn brocoli bright yellow by adding some bizarre reagent in. My brother also sometimes calls me to tell me 'you better buy something back to eat today's food looks.....'; and he eats practically anything. But anyway she's really nice when it comes to food nowadays, and caters to my extremely limited range of food preferences, so I must say I really appreciate her efforts.
So since I am this picky about food, and I am opposed to (unwarrented) animal cruelty, why am I not a vegetarian? I like chicken. And until today, I sincerely believed that chickens were slaughtered in a humane way. Yes, the link on my tuition kid's website tells about how chickens are killed in horrible ways, but it was a PETA website, and I thought they were overexaggerating. I had also read some websites before which highlighted the fact that actually many animals that live in the fields of crops such as wheat and soy die during the plowing of these fields, such that vegetarians can't claim to prevent cruelty to animals purely by avoiding meat or their products. There was even some other site which gave figures to show that more animals are actually killed by vegetable eaters than animal eaters. If only I had bookmarked that site, I really can't find it anymore. PETA's response was a simple 'Animals bred for food eat crops harvested from those fields too' (well something like that, not quoting here). Hmm. I am so Singaporean I always thought cows only ate grass hahaha, and although I did wonder (before ever reading PETA's response) whether the fact that livestock do eat enough crops such that if everyone became vegetarian the number of small animals dying during the harvesting process would be reduced (I for obscure reasons decided that it was possible that the same no. of animals, including the cows, would die in the process), I felt that PETA's response was a little too, for lack of a better word, short. It really felt like that was all they could come up with.
But then today I was referred to this site http://www.meat.org, where I saw chickens really being kept in those horrible conditions described by PETA. I always knew the conditions were cramped, and that dead chickens in the pen were to be expected (I mean if you can keep hamsters and some can randomly die even though you are so nice to them....), and that injuries were bound to be present. But I didn't realise that to save time chickens are just hauled out of boxes and slammed into the travel vehicles, and many times the handlers miss and slam the chickens right onto the sides of the box, pick them up and slam them there again by mistake. And chicks bred for egg laying do get their beaks shorn off to minimise harm done to each other in those crowded conditions (I didn't believe PETA's complaint that KFC would do that to the chickens bred for human consumption because I didn't think it possible for those chickens to be able to eat properly without beaks). And of course the part of the movie where the chickens were scalded alive (after having their throats slit of course, but I am told they may not be dead yet; perhaps the question is can they still feel? Nagging feeling the answer is yes), was rather disconcerting.
So great. Now that I know how horrible the living and dying conditions are of the chickens I happily devour, will I be able to continue eating them? Yes I can always choose to block it out when I eat chicken. I just ate chicken for dinner today, no guilty feelings about it at all. I can also choose to pretend that here in Singapore the law does not allow the chickens that reach me to be treated in this way. Weeeeelllllll. Sincerely, over the years, the size of the chicken in KFC appears to have shrunk to me, another reason I didn't believe the pumping-chickens-with-antibiotics-to-make-them-grow-faster story. But given the fact that the only thing really stopping me from being a true vegetarian is my great love of chicken, it is way possible that if i ever find out that the chickens in Singapore are being treated with that much cruelty, I'd stop eating them. Eggs too. But I think as yet, I will continue to eat chicken, and donate blood for good karma instead.
And as for being a vegan, that one is really. Next life. Or maybe not even then. Girls need their icecream and chocolate to survive.
Ok, for those of you who actually know me, I have to admit here that I did 'cheat' over those 10 years by eating bits and pieces of beef here and there. But since I didn't limit the variety of my food intake for any much better reason than red meat causes bowel cancer (apparently due to the high amount of iron in red meat, not sure if this is actually proven although statistics do show some link), and since that little part of conscience in me that felt guilty for the cows dying so I could enjoy myself was kinda appeased by the fact that the bulk of the beef was actually going to be eaten, and was ordered by someone else, it didn't particularly matter to me.
I don't think I am going to actually get negative comments about this post, or actually any comments at all, considering the traffic to this site isn't that high, and I seriously doubt anyone can be bothered enough to read through my ramblings. But just in case some avid meat eater or vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian etc decides to take offence at what I say, I will first state that I am not going to ever push my views of food intake and cruelty to animals onto anyone. The most I'll ever do to 'enforce' my views on others is to insist they brush their teeth first before they even attempt to kiss me *gigglez*. Oh and of course if you are going to be my future lifemate, ya I won't cook foods for you that I won't eat. To save YOU obviously, not me. Did you really want to die of indigestion? =D
Well, a little background of my eating habits. I don't eat pork because I don't like it. I don't eat beef because it's red meat. I am too scared to try meats other than those mentioned above with the exception of chicken and fish because.... I am me? Haha. I don't eat prawns or any seafood with the exception of fish because I am scared of all those things with so many legs/tentacles, cooked crabs smell plain freaky to me, and my mother hid a prawn in the leaves of my vegetables when I was young and I took a big bite out of it and now I'm also scared of eating the leaves of vegetables =X. (Ok fine i DO eat the leaves now. But I always spread them wide open to ensure nothing frightening is inside. My friend once commented that I'm mad because his grandmother once 'hid' a caterpillar inside his leaf for him, so my mother's prawn is nothing in comparison. HMPF. For all I know, the caterpillar would have tasted better!)
I am also very opposed to animal cruelty. But that is also because I cannot stand physical torture of any kind. I spent 1/2 of Hannibal hiding behind my hands, crouched up in the cinema seat. Yes, so I did kill like plently of mice for my Honours year project. But I was very humane about it. Turn on the CO2 full blast, leave it on for extra long to ensure they are fully dead. No experiments with neck breaking, which is supposed to be the best way (instant death, no pain), because I know I can't do it skillfully. This, by the way, is all my friend's fault. In year 1 of uni, I had this Biochemistry practical which required me to kill a mouse to extract it's spleen and lymph nodes. So the day before, I geared myself up, all ready to hold the mouse down to kill it on first go, so it would suffer as little as possible. Then on the day of the practical, my wonderful friend comes up to me and tells me 'I pulled off the tail of the mouse!'. So GG. I didn't dare to pull too hard in case the tail came out. But then the mouse wouldn't die. Argh. Surrender. Back to the lab mice that I killed with CO2, well, I for one have weird views of life and death. I don't really like my existence on this earth, and would like to die ASAP, but I also can't stand pain while dying. So I vaguely told the mice as I killed them (Ya I'm mad I talk to them too. Even when they are dead.) that I'm sorry, but I have to do this to graduate, and sincerely I would like to die a quick death just like they were going to. I sincerely think they have come back to haunt me though, coz now my cells used for my experiments keep dying. BLEAH.
Josie, I know you'll probably never read this, but this is the reason why I insisted you turn on the tap full blast when killing the mice and insisted you turn on the tap again when you turned it off 1/2 way and cried. I'm really sorry but I couldn't stand the thought of the mice suffering on the way to death.
Yes, torture to death is one of my worst nightmares. So when I saw that part of fear factor where they were blending live insects and worms and goodness knows wad to make some fearful cocktail for the participants to drink, all I think of was what is wrong with the producers? Is the fear they are trying to establish fear in the competitors, or in those poor bugs who on top who can sense death all around them and are trying to crawl out? Or perhaps is the fear that those poor critters will come and haunt them for giving them such a horrible death? Given all my pickiness in foods, I would actually say that I probably would not have found much problem drinking that concoction, if the insects were not blended to death.
I am really picky when it comes to food. My mother and ex-boyfriends can all testify to that. One of them actually went to have a happy long chat with my mother about my eating habits >.<. Not that I am that unappreciative of my mother cooking for me when I am old enough to actually be cooking for the household (ok fine, I don't want them of die of food poisoning by my hands) and helping out with the other chores. But I wonder if my pickiness comes from my mother's cooking. When I was young, she turned the only dish I really liked (chicken stew) into something totally uneatable by adding sotong (??!!!!) in. She is also the only person I know who can turn brocoli bright yellow by adding some bizarre reagent in. My brother also sometimes calls me to tell me 'you better buy something back to eat today's food looks.....'; and he eats practically anything. But anyway she's really nice when it comes to food nowadays, and caters to my extremely limited range of food preferences, so I must say I really appreciate her efforts.
So since I am this picky about food, and I am opposed to (unwarrented) animal cruelty, why am I not a vegetarian? I like chicken. And until today, I sincerely believed that chickens were slaughtered in a humane way. Yes, the link on my tuition kid's website tells about how chickens are killed in horrible ways, but it was a PETA website, and I thought they were overexaggerating. I had also read some websites before which highlighted the fact that actually many animals that live in the fields of crops such as wheat and soy die during the plowing of these fields, such that vegetarians can't claim to prevent cruelty to animals purely by avoiding meat or their products. There was even some other site which gave figures to show that more animals are actually killed by vegetable eaters than animal eaters. If only I had bookmarked that site, I really can't find it anymore. PETA's response was a simple 'Animals bred for food eat crops harvested from those fields too' (well something like that, not quoting here). Hmm. I am so Singaporean I always thought cows only ate grass hahaha, and although I did wonder (before ever reading PETA's response) whether the fact that livestock do eat enough crops such that if everyone became vegetarian the number of small animals dying during the harvesting process would be reduced (I for obscure reasons decided that it was possible that the same no. of animals, including the cows, would die in the process), I felt that PETA's response was a little too, for lack of a better word, short. It really felt like that was all they could come up with.
But then today I was referred to this site http://www.meat.org, where I saw chickens really being kept in those horrible conditions described by PETA. I always knew the conditions were cramped, and that dead chickens in the pen were to be expected (I mean if you can keep hamsters and some can randomly die even though you are so nice to them....), and that injuries were bound to be present. But I didn't realise that to save time chickens are just hauled out of boxes and slammed into the travel vehicles, and many times the handlers miss and slam the chickens right onto the sides of the box, pick them up and slam them there again by mistake. And chicks bred for egg laying do get their beaks shorn off to minimise harm done to each other in those crowded conditions (I didn't believe PETA's complaint that KFC would do that to the chickens bred for human consumption because I didn't think it possible for those chickens to be able to eat properly without beaks). And of course the part of the movie where the chickens were scalded alive (after having their throats slit of course, but I am told they may not be dead yet; perhaps the question is can they still feel? Nagging feeling the answer is yes), was rather disconcerting.
So great. Now that I know how horrible the living and dying conditions are of the chickens I happily devour, will I be able to continue eating them? Yes I can always choose to block it out when I eat chicken. I just ate chicken for dinner today, no guilty feelings about it at all. I can also choose to pretend that here in Singapore the law does not allow the chickens that reach me to be treated in this way. Weeeeelllllll. Sincerely, over the years, the size of the chicken in KFC appears to have shrunk to me, another reason I didn't believe the pumping-chickens-with-antibiotics-to-make-them-grow-faster story. But given the fact that the only thing really stopping me from being a true vegetarian is my great love of chicken, it is way possible that if i ever find out that the chickens in Singapore are being treated with that much cruelty, I'd stop eating them. Eggs too. But I think as yet, I will continue to eat chicken, and donate blood for good karma instead.
And as for being a vegan, that one is really. Next life. Or maybe not even then. Girls need their icecream and chocolate to survive.
posted by Shelly at 8:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home