28 Mar Would you eat your pet?

If I would ask someone: ‘Would you eat your pet?’ I think the person involved would frown at me, would look at me as if I had lost my mind and would answer with a resentful: ‘Of course I wouldn’t!’

Connection

We are not eating our pet, but many of us are eating meat from other animals.
What is the difference between eating a pet and eating meat bought in a supermarket?
I think the answer is ‘connection’.
We love our pet, we feel connected with it, we care for it, we know it. Of course we are not going to eat the animal we love so much and which gives us so much.

So for many people it might be easier to eat meat from an anonymous cow or pork. A cow or pork which is not even recognizable as a cow or pork anymore.
There is no or less connection with the animal they are going to eat.

Different bodies, different needs

This blog is not about the question if eating meat is good or bad. I am not going to judge it. All people are different. They make different choices, have different bodies and different needs. Also regarding nutrients. Some people can easily live without eating meat, while others need the body-building nutrients provided by it.

Raising awareness

Regarding eating meat, I think it’s important to raise awareness. To be aware of the choice we have to eat meat or not to eat it. To be aware of the fact we are eating an animal when we eat meat. To be aware of how we treat and raise the animals we eat, what we feed them, how we take care of them. Becoming aware that it’s important to give animals a good life and feel compassion and gratitude when we are eating an animal.

This is a different way of eating meat than having a lack of attention for animal life and seeing a piece of meat just as the slice you put in the pan, as something that didn’t live, as just a thing that you take for granted.