What I Like to Eat

I don’t have eating issues.  I don’t have food issues.  In fact, under certain circumstances, I will eat anything.  I have eaten snake, lizard, duck cooked in its own blood, cheese with black moldy rinds.  While I’m no Anthony Bourdain, I’ve done okay.  You may be wondering about those certain circumstances, though.  Here they are.

Fruits, Vegetables, Dairy.  I prefer organic food.  I hate the organic trend, and I believe that “organic” has been marketed and capitalized upon to the extent that there are far more products labeled as organic than I would believe are actually organic, or that even come close to the spirit of organic food.   Not to mention the price premium put on organic foods, and the . . . challenging . . . shopping experience that is Whole Foods.  But there is organic food out there that is worth eating because it is grown without pesticides, using healthy and sustainable soil and resource management.  And I eat it whenever I can.  There is far more to say on this topic, and I will say it.  Soon.

Seafood.  So hard to know.  Organic seafood has to be managed seafood, which means it has to be farmed and not wild.  Farmed fish are prone to diseases, cannibalism, and pollution.  Farmed salmon are fed dyes because the shrimp which makes their meat pink is lacking in their pellet-based diets.  Seafood is plagued by pollution and overfishing.  The seafood industry is plagued with fraud.  Seafood itself is plagued with mercury and PCBs.  There are guides out there to help one navigate the world of seafood.  But I love me some fish.  Raw, broiled, sauteed, roasted, grilled, steamed.  And I try to eat it when I can.

Meat.  Here is my real interest.  I will only eat animals which have been allowed to live their natural lives, meaning: root if they need to root, peck if they need to peck, wander if they need to wander, eat what they need to eat–grass, bugs, rotted vegetables–which also means they need to be outside and have access to fresh water, air and food.  I won’t eat animals from factory farms, or giant feed lots (CAFOs) brimming with disease, or animals which have been given growth hormones or antibiotics or other medicines, whose waste is congregated in overflowing lagoons which contaminate groundwater and soil.  I won’t eat animals whose lives have been spent in pens in which they can barely turn around, covered in their own filth, eating only measured amounts of specially created feed to maximize their market value.  I won’t eat animals who aren’t permitted to eat what they are designed to eat and instead are fed cheap substitutes which cause illness.  I won’t eat animals grown by farmers who are beholden to the practices and pricing of the enormous vertical agribusiness meat producers.

I don’t have a problem killing animals for food.  I simply believe we don’t need to torture them first.