This presupposition is based on three experiences I have had in the last couple of months. Starting with the most recent. Yesterday I was driving home from my children’s pre-school. I picked them up and we were on our way home. Half-way through the drive to my house, I saw a dead deer by the road side. Someone had hit and killed that deer. The blood oozing out was still fresh, so I figured the incident happened recently. I suddenly experienced chills all over my body. To be honest, my eyes even watered a bit. Why did that have so much impact on me? Already I have stopped eating red meat. I only buy occasionally for my children because it is a good source of iron.
Here I was, badly shaken and feeling so bad for the poor deer, when I know that someone else would be so ecstatic about the idea of free game meat and all the delicacies they can cook with it. Back in my home country, it is called “bush meat” and very expensive.
The second incident was when we took a trip to a place where we could buy live chicken, have it killed, cleaned and prepped and all. I remember walking into the store where they had different animals waiting to be picked out and killed to be eaten. I saw hens, ducks, pigeons(for the love of Mike, people eat that too!) , guinea fowls, rabbits, goats, sheep, calf, fresh eggs. It was so overwhelming for me. Too much for my kind heart to fathom. Some of the birds were in cages, some were free-ranging. It was a perfect chaos and I kept feeling guilty for being in a place like that. I saw some cute little bunnies in a box. They were the cutest rabbits ever. That day, I knew somewhere in the future I was getting my children a bunny. Even as a man attended to us, while we purchased a couple of live chickens, through the weighing process, the preparation and actually paying for the freshly killed chickens, I couldn’t bring myself to shake off the enormous guilt that overcame me.
The third incident was when for the first time in my life I visited an abattoir. This was on a huge farm where there were various animals including cow, sheep and goat. We wanted some cow meat (which we thought we would find someone we could share a whole cow with) and some goat meat for husband( I don’t eat goat meat). Eventually we we left empty-handed that day because apparently people got there way earlier and had to wait in line till a certain time. In short, we arrived too late to have anyone attend to us. However, I left that placed traumatized because I saw intestines of killed animals, I could perceive the smell of burning animal skin and it was so horrifying for me. That day, I knew I would have to consider going meatless somewhere in my nearest future. I peeked into the room where they actually killed the animals and allowed the blood drain and I almost fainted. In that moment the nausea I developed was instantaneous. The closest thing I have ever killed in my life was a cockroach. I have never attempted to and never will, kill a chicken.
I love chicken but I hate having them killed, which makes me a “righteous hypocrite”. I am in a dilemma. Perhaps the solution is to just go pescatarian . I like eating fish.
Ultimately, should I just consider plant-based meals and embrace veganism?
Maybe I don’t know precisely what I will do eventually, at this time, but I know I have broken up with meat and that is a good place to start.
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