I don’t eat much meat,
but I really like the occasional bacon-double-cheeseburger grabbed
at the Burger King drive-through, meatballs on my Papa Gino’s Papa
Platter, one of a variety of New England Hot Dogs in downtown Salem
and for a special summer treat, the just-past-rare steak from Chip’s
grill. And how can I give up the traditional holiday meals: turkey
at Thanksgiving, corned beef at the Porthole Pub on St. Patrick’s
Day, ham or lamb at Easter, pork with sauerkraut “for luck” on New
Year’s Day.
But it bothers me, the
way animals are treated. I now buy only free-range chicken eggs and
get meat from the farmers market at a booth where I’m told the cows
live happy lives in the meadow before humane slaughter. I don’t
object to humans eating meat, that’s what it’s for — I just want the
meat to be treated well on its way to my plate. So, I find what I
call “a happy turkey” for Thanksgiving and “happy pig” for New
Year’s at Whole Foods, where the treatment of the animal is rated at
the meat counter; I’ll be looking for another happy pig for Easter
this year.
Yes, Chip thinks I’m
crazy: He lets me pay the additional cost.
But I’m not happy
enough myself since Chip’s vegetarian sister-in-law sent me that “First
Sunshine for 752 rescued hens” video from Edgar’s Mission Farm
Sanctuary website.
There’s this chicken
farmer in Australia, who a few years ago decided to take his hens
from their tiny cages and let them roam free in a fenced enclosure.
In the video, Cinderella the Hen is lifted from the cage and placed
on the ground in the sunshine. She slowly, almost disbelievingly,
stretches her legs, then her wings; scratches in the dirt; lifts her
face to the sun; makes a nest in the brush and lays her eggs. Yes,
there is emotion-inducing music in the background. And it may be my
imagination that the last scene shows her smiling. But I can’t argue
with the slogan of Edgar’s Mission: “If we could live happy, healthy
lives without harming others, why wouldn’t we?”
I got caught up in the
“healthy lives” issue some 20 years ago, when I had an emergency
hysterectomy. As I left the hospital, I was given a prescription for
Premarin, a hormone-replacement drug used to ameliorate the symptoms
of sudden menopause, as well as protect women from bone loss.
I balked at this,
arguing that taking the drug was unnatural; the young doctor agreed
that “Yes, the natural thing is to die now that nature no longer has
a use for you.” Sarcasm works with me, so I took the drug for 10
years, but someone eventually told me what it is: Premarin, from
pregnant mares.
I went online and
learned that the mares live long (often 20 years or more) and brutal
lives, repeatedly impregnated, and for most of their pregnancy
confined in stalls that prohibit turning around or comfortably lying
down, as their urine is harvested. This didn’t seem possible, so I
went to the drug company website, then Snopes.com, looking for
rebuttal. I didn’t find it.
Still, I wanted strong
bones, so I continued to take the pills, until ... I needed
emergency lung surgery for a rare carcinoid tumor and was told I
could die if it had spread. As I prepared to possibly meet my Maker,
I thought I’d have trouble explaining my participation in the abuse
of those mares. I decided that if I lived, I’d stop taking Premarin,
and I did. My lungs and bones are fine now, and so is my conscience.
Other women might have
to make other choices, but I’m told that there is now a synthetic
hormone replacement that doesn’t require horses in restraints. So,
on to the poultry…
We have wild turkeys in
our yard; they like it here, not only because the squirrels toss
them seeds from the bird feeders, but because we have a mowed-meadow
yard full of bugs and roots instead of pesticides. It’s a joy to
watch them live the life of a turkey, strutting and preening,
interacting with each other, roosting in the trees. When it
thunders, the males herd the females and young’uns into the bushes,
then line up to face the thunder and gobble in unison as they
prepare for battle with Zeus. I can’t imagine stuffing them into a
cage until it is time to stuff them with bread. Of course, when they
get aggressive with me in the spring, they risk immediate beheading
with the wood-pile ax, but that’s another issue.
Yes, some farmers who
experiment with free-range poultry often feed the local foxes,
coyotes and fishers until they move their livestock into a safe
barn, which is still better than cages. I don’t have room here to
tell you about factory pig farming. Or cattle crowded into pens,
hearing those ahead of them being slaughtered as they wait their
turn.
I don’t want to be part
of this anymore. I won’t be a true vegetarian, like those who won’t
eat “anything with a face.” I’ll try to make sure the fish I buy
weren’t crammed into a farm-pen, but aside from that, it’s always
been tough being a salmon, grabbed as they swim upstream by
grizzlies and eagles. I’ll happily eat deer that’s been hunted to
cull the herd and prevent mass starvation. And yes, you may see me
in a weak moment eating a hamburger or steak. But mostly, I’m going
to try to have a happy, healthy life without causing unnecessary
pain to the animals I eat.
