Would you eat your pet?

A feeling of disgust comes over me as I drive next to one of those trucks with cows crammed together on their way to slaughter. Why do we still eat mammals?

Humans eat animals 

A long time ago, humankind decided to feel superior to animal beings. How strange indeed, because first there was the animal and then there was mankind. Whether that came from a fiery Big Bang or from God in Paradise. Why man is allowed to eat the animal and not vice versa is beyond me.

No vegetarian Jehovah’s Witnesses, please.

We are fortunate that we are not living millions of years ago and are sort of civilised. So things can be different. For me, the solution is very simple. I would like to tell you about it. But how? Because I don’t want to be a vegetarian Jehovah’s Witness going from door to door with unsolicited advice on what you can and cannot eat.

Which animal do you want with your Knorr dish?

So I came up with a nice little thought experiment to show how Reckless it is to still be eating meat in 2022. The idea is as follows:

What if, instead of ready-to-eat ‘born’ chicken fillets, all supermarkets had a real ‘bio’-industry built in. You enter and select an animal. You wait a moment and, behind a transparent wall, the animal in question is murdered. Especially for you, because you feel like having a piece of chicken with your Knorr dish.

Great idea, but what do I know. Although the significant drawback is that a bio-industrial space practically doesn’t fit in our AH TO GO. What a shame, because I’m sure people would find it rather sad to choose a sweet little animal to kill. After all, it’s 2022 and we would never do that, it’s not nice.

A butcher does not eat his favourite horse either

Eating an animal that you’ve never met is much more chill. Anonymity makes life easier. In the city, you’re more likely to honk at the person in front of you who doesn’t immediately move as soon as the traffic light turns green. In a village, you are patient and indicate with an encouraging nod: ‘That’s alright mate, I’ll just wait a minute’. 

It’s the same with eating meat, because nobody would ever eat their own pet and even a butcher who loves horse riding, would never eat horse meat. The horse is then suddenly no longer an anonymous animal, but a being with personality.

Long live the chicken nugget

Anyway, I don’t want to convince anyone to eat only dry soya beans or to go through life as pale as me (which are the prejudices most meat eaters have). It’s more about awareness. What is it that you actually eat? Are chicken nuggets born that way or are they finely ground chicks that you shove into your mouth? Paul McCartney said it perfectly: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”