I'm a vegitarian because I hate plants.

[jackofallgeeks]

So, over the weekend I went out to get my car's 10,000 miles maintenance done. We'll ignore for the moment that I'm managed to put 10,000 miles on my car in two months and instead focus on the TV show that was playing while I watched.

In particular, it was one of the myriad talkshows that are on mid-day during the week, and there was some actress or another from a recent B-horror movie. The 'interview' was rally shallow and short, but at one point the actress said she was afraid of spiders and killed them on reflex. This was notable because, she said, she was a vegetarian.
Which struck me as odd. I mean, she didn't eat the spider, she just killed it. This confusion was cleared up, though, when the host explained that being a vegetarian means you care about animals. Oh, OK; I always thought being a vegetarian meant you didn't eat meat.

Maybe it's just me but I find this glomming of terms and ideologies rather annoying. Never mind the fact that I, personally, think it's a rather dumb move to change one's diet -- that which the body uses to run and maintain itself -- just because you like kittens and puppies is a rather stupid idea. I think it's perfectly valid to be a vegetarian for health reasons: if you find a given diet is more or less beneficial to you, by all means act on that. But I don't think being a vegetarian is necessarily coupled with a driving sympathy for lesser species.

And it's a fallacy that's made on both sides of the fence. I know people who speak rather derisively of vegetarians, and make snap-judgments about people based on whether or not they order the Sirloin. Why? Because vegetarians must be bleeding-heart PETA fans who would sooner invite the family dog to the dinner table than a baby.
There's nothing wrong with sympathy for animals -- I love kittens as much as the next guy. and it's alright to want to ensure they're treated appropriately and not abused and that sort of stuff. It can go a bit overboard when you're dressing up Fido and giving him choice bits of filet mignon, but anything can get out of hand. What bothers me is the blind, knee-jerk pairing of ideologies and behaviors.

Comments

Veggytubbles

[xenu.livejournal.com]

When I became a vegetarian ten years ago, it was because I simply did not like meat. It wasn't until years afterward, as I learned (and am still learning!) of the ways that our food (animal and otherwise) is processed and treated before it gets to the supermarket, that I began to be concerned with the need for humane treatment of animals. Today, I am no longer a vegetarian, having discovered a previously unknown love for nearly all things seafood related (it was easy for me to give up fish when my knowledge of seafood consisted of fishsticks and not much else), but still am careful (as much as is financially possible) to make sure that the food that I eat comes to me via means that I find morally acceptable.
I would also like to add, however, that it is entirely possible to be a meat-eater and also be concerned with the welfare of animals. We are, after all, omnivorous by nature, and eating meat is a natural thing. The key, of course, is to be aware of where it is your meat comes from.

Remember that place Louis & I took you & Andrew for breakfast/lunch? Honey's is part of the Sustainable Business Network (http://www.sbnphiladelphia.org/), an organization which strives to help businesses to survive while also maintaining socially and ecologically sound practices. Buy Local Philly is part of their philosophy.

And now I will shut up, having said WAAAAAAAY too much.