William Discovers "Meat Is Murder"

Yesterday evening an un-
suspecting group of carnivorous Barber men had a night out sans their herbivore female counterpart. Of course, meat was on the menu and they headed straight to their favorite BBQ joint while I headed to a school meeting. The following is Bill's account of the events that may change our kitchen forever, the night William discovered what Morrissey has been singing about for years, "Meat is Murder":

Part way through dinner, William looks down at the rib he is eating and asks "Dad, did this pig die of natural causes?" I replied, "No, the pig was killed." Then William said "Well, why couldn't we just use it when it died of natural causes?" I explained that if the pig were old or sick, it wouldn't taste very good, and might make us sick. You could see the wheels turning as he processed that information and mulled over how he felt about it for the next 5 minutes, at which time he said "Do they have to kill the pig to get the meat off?" I responded by asking him what part of the pig he was eating and could the pig survive without that body part? Another 5 minutes of information processing and William asks "What do they do to kill the pig." I responded that with pigs they hang them by their ankles and cut their throats and let them bleed from their necks and unfortunately this keeps them alive for a while until the blood drains out of their brain. This information was received with a face full of shock and horror (for who wouldn't be horrified to hear this while eating pork!) by both boys. They both then wanted to know about how chickens and cows were slaughtered. More horror as I described how cows are shot in the head and chickens are decapitated. William then decided it was better to be a cow than a pig. Another 5 minutes of staring at the ribs, eating smaller and smaller bites until he proclaimed "Tomorrow, I am going to become a vegetarian! I mean, if my friends can do it, I can do it." I responded he didn't need to make any life-long decisions, but encouraged him to try it for a week to see how it felt. William said "I bet I will feel a lot better, because Mom doesn't eat meat and she feels a lot better. But I am definitely not becoming Vegan, because, well, I just love sandwiches too much."

And so began our little family's week long journey into the land of fruits and vegetables. Romney decided to try it out as well (but has since proclaimed he does not want to stay vegetarian forever.) Saturday lunch was at a Japanese restaurant, where they both ordered tempura veggies on rice. They had morning star veggie sausage patties for breakfast the next day and orange veggies and rice for dinner.

A big thank you to Bill for the following:
1- giving honest descriptions of slaughterhouses 2- encouraging our boys to follow their beliefs 3- relaying this story to their mother who missed the whole thing due to a school meeting!


*Veggie Update*: It has been a week and William has declared he is going to be vegetarian forever (that is a long time) and Romney is going to be almost completely vegetarian from now on ("I am only going to eat meat every once in a while.") I have a feeling William has influenced Romney's decision a bit because I woke up this morning listening to this conversation taking place: Romney: "I am going to be vegetarian from now on too, William! This is great because then we can get the vegetarian group discount." :)