knowing your meat

 This discussion thread from Oregon Public Broadcasting's (OPB) Think Out Loud series "Knowing Your Meat" was meant to stir questions about locally sourced meats and if there was any value to it. The discussion quickly spurred lots of rage and debate among the Portland vegan community (thanks to the ladies at Herbivore clothing via their twitter @herbivorecc), and rightly so if you ask me. The photo used to promote the discussion (as seen previously on vegansaurus) is so sickening and unbelievable. I could only imagine holding a dead animal like that if it was my cat if she passed away, not something I was about to consume for food. Naomi Pomeroy, the woman from the photo and the owner of the restaurant Beast, says that the photo is meant to help us acknowledge that the meat we come from was once a living animal. As an ex vegetarian herself, Pomeroy suggests that we should only eat meat if we can understand where the animal orginated from. I don't know about you, but that's why I wont eat meat. As with most vegans and vegetarians it simply seems ludacris to eat something that was once a living and breathing sentient being. The ethics of this woman seem very strange to me, I feel like it would be natural to create a restaurant that equally caters to vegetarians as well as meat eaters with vegetarianism being in her past. Instead on the website for Beast she says that "pescatarians, vegetarians and vegans would find it a challenge to enjoy our six-course dinners."  But what more could we expect from a woman who turned away from vegetarianism for the benefit of her business. To feel like she was still doing something good, Pomeroy decided to start sourcing the meat for Beast from "ethical" and "local" distributors. This being the whole reason for the online discussion and radio broadcast, finding out if it's worth it to only purchase "ethical" and "local" meats, and if so where do you draw your lines on that? I agree with Michelle from Herbivore, she wanted to know why they weren't going to have any vegans or vegetarians as guests on the radio show. Just because we personally don't eat meat doesn't mean we can't offer some valid points on ethical eating. Instead the whole broadcast was full of ex vegetarians calling in to explaining why they began eating meat because they could now get it from ethical sources. My question here is WHERE THE HELL WHERE ALL THE VEGAN CALLERS! I know there were no shortage of vegans posting on the internet discussion, but not a single one was on the radio. I'm worried that OPB screened the calls, or maybe no vegans actually called in, which either way is a serious shame.(According to the Think Out Loud  blog there were a few technical difficulties with the calls. I understand that a few off the calls were dropped instead of being put on hold, so I'm sorry if that's what happened to the vegan callers.) Instead I listened to someone who was a vegetarian for over 20 years describe how she started eating meat out of respect for her husbands avid hunting. 

One of the other callers (also an ex vegetarian) spoke about buying whole animals to have butchered for food for her and her husband. The caller said she wasn't ready to yet raise her own animals for food for fear of growing attatched to them. I think this sums up what is wrong with her meat eating. She's admitting she has a problem with the death of animals for food, so why try to deny that by continuing to eat them? 

Overall, I'm sad this radio broadcast failed to represent realistic ways for Portlanders (and anyone for that matter) to eat ethically.