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From: DawnWatch - news [at] dawnwatch.com
Date: Jul 9, 2007 10:46 PM
Subject: DawnWatch: “An Ambivalent Vegetarian” in Self Magazine, July 2007

The July “special summer eating issue” of Self Magazine includes a fascinating article, by Elizabeth Devita-Raeburn, headed, “An Ambivalent Vegetarian: A food lover gets to the meat of the matter.” (Pg 34)

The author explores a struggle that many of us have felt, and that many people on this list might still be tackling — weighing a taste for meat against the desire not to hurt animals.

She opens with:

“Every time I sit down to eat at a restaurant it is the same dilemma: Should I choose what I want or order vegetarian? Sometimes I am lucky and what I want is meatless. But if what I really want is the boeuf bourguignon or the veal pepperonata, I squirm, caught between moral horror, my taste buds and a desire not to be the ‘weird’ vegetarian.”

We learn that the writer’s vegetarianism was originally “motivated more by a concern for calories than animals” and that a boyfriend prompted her first flip-flop. She writes, “I felt slightly guilty but my boyfriend’s approval was ample compensation.” During her time with him, she developed a healthier relationship with food than that which had first prompted her vegetarianism. She writes, however:

“But untethering my calorie obsession from meat ended up making room for the bigger, knottier issue I had only dimly considered before — namely, the animals. Although I had always been a dog lover, I’d never felt any special affinity for cows and sheep. But somewhere along the way (probably from the Italian boyfriend), I’d picked up a smattering of information about cuts of meat and where they came from. Increasingly, when I looked at a piece of beef on my plate, I no longer saw the calories I would have to jog off the next day. I saw something that looked unnervingly like flesh — flesh not all that different from my own. This tugged my mind to uncomfortable comparisons. Skinned and butchered, how different would I look on a plate? How different was this piece of meat from me?

“I didn’t know. But the idea bothered me enough to launch myself back into vegetarianism, at least sporadically.”

She describes going on and off the veggie wagon. And she discusses what she read in science journals about the sentience of animals:

“Fish may feel pain. Sheep could distinguish the faces of their peers — and even human caretakers — from strangers. Cows suffered anxiety. Chickens were able to utter different calls to communicate the ups and downs of life.”

She tells us she also read about Temple Grandin’s methods of making slaughter less stressful and more humane for animals. She comments, “But the need for them made me feel even worse. Clearly these are not dumb, insensible creatures who are oblivious to whether they live or die. Quite the reverse. Does it matter whether they can think their way through a calculus problem or write a symphony? I couldn’t help but sympathize with them for wouldn’t I, too, feel hysteria if I knew my seconds were numbered. What made me so different from these animals? I wondered.”

She writes that we “relegate thoughts about the creatures we eat to about the same space we give to any crisis halfway around the world…” but she comments that “just because we turn our back on the situation doesn’t mean it isn’t there anymore.”

She also writes that she would love to let herself off the hook by saying she is not cut out for vegetarianism but, “That would presume real vegetarians, by some fluke of biology, have an easier time of it” when in fact she knows their commitment comes with a price. She writes that when she eats meat she wishes she possessed “a stronger moral character.” And she ends by noting that, ironically, it is not other people but animals “who are forcing me to consider the depth and breadth of my humanity. Every time I pick up a fork.”

I think the article is terrific, and I am thrilled to see it in a leading mainstream magazine. Most of us have struggled with cravings for meat or (for vegans) cheese, plus the desire to order anything we want on the menu, weighing those against the desire to make the most compassionate choices. Yet I know that many people on this list have been vegetarian or vegan for a long time and no longer find it such a struggle. As vegetarianism moves more into the mainstream, it will become even less of a struggle, as the likelihood increases that there will be delicious meatless meals on menus. So please, check out the article and then send letters to Self Magazine, commending the coverage of the topic, and with encouraging comments for those in the process of going vegetarian. The more of these kinds of articles in mainstream magazines, the easier the transition will be for everyone.

Send letters to letters [at] self.com including your full name, address and telephone number.

Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be sure not to use any comments or phrases from me or from any other alerts in your letters. Editors are looking for original responses from their readers.

I send thanks to Joan Dillon for making sure we saw this article.

Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

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