A Year Without Beef

A long time ago when I was a bit more naive--and younger, dumber, and fatter--I started out many-a-day with a cigarette, a Coke and a sausage egg and cheese muffin from the king of fast food restaurants. Then one day, somewhere between that glorious breakfast and a lunch no much healthier, I came across MurderKing.com. On the site I learned of the horrors that chickens in commercial egg laying facilities go through. Since that day I have eaten perfectly and completely ethically.

Yeah, right.

Actually I did try at first. I stopped buying eggs in supermarkets and only bought them from my local co-op, the good ol' Seward Co Op in Minneapolis. But could I buy all my meat at those prices? I quickly started making compromises. My will but not my poverty consents....

Last March I was reminded of the sickening way in which animals are treated in this country. Chickens are stuffed into tiny cages, so close to other birds that they cannot even turn around. Their beaks are cut off and their entire life is lived with barely any freedom of movement. Not only can't they pick at the ground or do any other of their natural instincts, but these poor fowl cannot even turn around in their over packed cages. And if they stop laying eggs? Apparently they deprive them of food and water for an extended period of time, something that either starts the egg production or kills the bird. There goes my appetitite for restaurant eggs, mayo, store-bought cookies, and the list goes on.

Meat animals don't have it much better. Most commercial animals are fed grain (like corn), which is not what their bodies have been designed to eat. This causes unfortunate consequences (like death), but no matter, they are fed so much so fast that they won't be alive very long anyway. Forget about images of cows on the open range or pigs nosing around the forest. In modern meat factories, pigs' tails are cut painfully close so that when another pig--weaned too early from its mother--tries to use another pig's tail as a substitute nipple, the sucked-on pig will feel so much pain that it will fight back against the other pig. Kind of hard to enjoy pepperoni after knowing that, isn't it?

Anyway, I knew a lot of that nearly a decade ago when I stopped eating cruelly grown factory farmed eggs, but I continued eating meat anyway. Then last year I came across even more evidence of the evils of our meat industry. All this trucking around of meat, raising the corn to fatten it, the water usage, etc. is causing a major share of our planet's climate change symptoms. Our meat habit is killing the Earth!

That was the last straw. No one messes with my mother. So since last March I have been boycotting beef. Other than the once-a-month allowed splurge, I have been beef-free for a year.

During the last year I've been doing a lot of reading: Omnivore's Dilemma. In Defense of Food. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I've even watched the fascinating documentary Corn. What I've learned is that meat isn't evil. First, meat doesn't have to come from the factory. Local co-ops and farmers' markets have lots of local options. Second, when you buy local you can make sure it's pasture raised. Third, when your meat is pasture raised it's usually a more healthy way for that animal to spend its life and also its meat tends to be healthier for us. For example, research is showing that wild fish and pastured (grass fed) animals tend to have healthier meat (e.g. more Omega 3s) than farmed animals.

So, as February fades into March and the Year Without Beef is over, I will go back to eating beef again. And now, when I buy it from local farmers, I can do so feeling much better about doing so.