Should We All Become Vegetarians?
I mean, probably. Probably we should all become vegetarians. Or, at least, all of you should. I never will. As I told a co-worker the other day, “If there is a choice on a menu between something without meat and something with meat, I will order the thing with meat. I always go with the meat.” But if you have been paying attention to the international news lately like I have because I am sophisticated and don’t only read about hipsters and Lena Dunham, you will know that there’s quite a scandal going on in Great Britain due to the fact that horse meat, in the guise of cow meat, has entered the food supply. And this whole awful situation where National Velvet got cooked into the local pub’s shepherd pie took place unbeknownst to all the innocent, omnivorous people of Britain. Well, “innocent.” I mean, can you ever really call any meat-eater “innocent”? Yes, you totally can. Don’t be psychotic and reactionary.
Anyway, so—horse meat. Although horse meat has long been considered a delicacy in France (seriously! I remember learning that in middle school French class and being horrified because that was when I was at my peak horse-loving stage), horses are one of those animals—like dogs and cats—that are not considered acceptable to eat unless you are literally starving to death. And even then! Have some dignity. “National Velvet” was a great movie. I mean, young Elizabeth Taylor! But so, in an article in the Guardian, John Harris tackles the subject of whether or not everyone should become a vegetarian for reasons that go beyond not wanting to eat a pony. So, ok, nothing about this is new. Everyone should know at this point that eating meat is bad for the environment and bad for your health and bad for all the dead animals that are horrifically killed just so that you get to eat bacon.
So, clearly, the right thing to do is to be ethical and just opt out of eating meat. It will be better for society as a whole and better for the world and all that objectively good stuff. But, well, isn’t one of the nice things about ethical issues like this that as long as other people act ethically, it kind of balances it out when you don’t? Or, more specifically, when I don’t? Am I wrong about that? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, that I will go on eating meat because it’s delicious and I am very bad at denying myself things that I enjoy, but I would really like to try and convince all of you to, if not give up meat totally, at least decrease your meat consumption. I mean, probably you’re not accidentally eating horse meat, but that isn’t really the point.
In order to facilitate you all in your efforts to act more ethically, I’ve come up with a list of some of the best vegetarian options and animal-friendly things to do here in Brooklyn to make it easy for you to make the right choices, so that I don’t have to. Happy eating! And happy clean living! Let’s all live clean! Well, not me. But the rest of you guys!