2008 Woodie Awards
Don't ask, don't tell: the best policy for dietary decisions
Eryk Salvaggio
Issue date: 12/10/07 Section: Soap Box
For years, I've been making a lifestyle choice that few people agree with. It is unnatural, against some people's religions and makes Thanksgiving dinners uncomfortable. Though I don't force others to participate in my lifestyle and never mention it except to others who share my decision, I am constantly ridiculed and mocked for my "agenda."
You see, readers, I am a vegetarian.
I'm not a guy with a "meat is murder" T-shirt. I don't hold up signs next to ice cream stores that say "Milk is Rape," but I have friends who have and, well, no one was convinced. I find PETA annoying.
I am not trying to convert anyone. I am just trying to eat my tofu lasagna in peace. Yet the minute the word "tofu" escapes my lips, I meet a litany laced with a thousand references to steak. After that, I am told that vegetarians are pushy and annoying. All I have ever done to merit this outpouring of annoyance is answer a question about what's inside the Tupperware.
Ultimately, I think it's selfish to make anything else suffer in exchange for my own comfort. While McDonald's may have told you that hamburgers grow in gardens, they do not. Instead, they are taken from a cow, which dies after a hook is inserted into its neck and it is left to hang until its blood stops dripping long enough for it to be sliced open.
This seems, at the most fundamental level, rude. It is rude to ask a cow to do that so that I may eat a hamburger. If someone were to ask me to do it so that they could eat one meal, I would say no. So, I don't eat meat.
The other reason I don't eat animals is that I don't want humans to die. Producing one cow for consumption requires a disproportionate amount of food for the cow, food that could go to humans. Cows eat too much. The same acre of land that could produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes only produces about 250 pounds of beef. If Americans ate just 10 percent less meat in a year, we could feed 60 million people in what we save in grain.
You see, readers, I am a vegetarian.
I'm not a guy with a "meat is murder" T-shirt. I don't hold up signs next to ice cream stores that say "Milk is Rape," but I have friends who have and, well, no one was convinced. I find PETA annoying.
I am not trying to convert anyone. I am just trying to eat my tofu lasagna in peace. Yet the minute the word "tofu" escapes my lips, I meet a litany laced with a thousand references to steak. After that, I am told that vegetarians are pushy and annoying. All I have ever done to merit this outpouring of annoyance is answer a question about what's inside the Tupperware.
Ultimately, I think it's selfish to make anything else suffer in exchange for my own comfort. While McDonald's may have told you that hamburgers grow in gardens, they do not. Instead, they are taken from a cow, which dies after a hook is inserted into its neck and it is left to hang until its blood stops dripping long enough for it to be sliced open.
This seems, at the most fundamental level, rude. It is rude to ask a cow to do that so that I may eat a hamburger. If someone were to ask me to do it so that they could eat one meal, I would say no. So, I don't eat meat.
The other reason I don't eat animals is that I don't want humans to die. Producing one cow for consumption requires a disproportionate amount of food for the cow, food that could go to humans. Cows eat too much. The same acre of land that could produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes only produces about 250 pounds of beef. If Americans ate just 10 percent less meat in a year, we could feed 60 million people in what we save in grain.
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