Ethic Cleansing

Sweary

 

As my most devoted followers will know (big shout-out there to mah peeps in Arbour Hill!), I turned vegetarian about ten months ago, give or take the odd mix-up in the McDonalds order.

And I have endeavoured, give or take the odd mix-up in the McDonalds order, to be a very good vegetarian. My reasons for forsaking the tasty taste of tasty death concern animal welfare and my fretting over the intensive farming methods that have made the traditional small farmer an endangered species. Not to mention the fact that said methods don’t stand up well to the scrutiny of a kindly soul with an easily upset tummy-wummy. Whaddya mean, you gots to keep a dairy cow lactating? Don’t cows produce milk all the time? DID ALL MY PRIMARY SCHOOL READERS LIE TO ME??!?!

Bleargh, in other words.

Let me make this clear. I have nothing against eating animals. Animals are very yummy. I just can’t stomach the thought of gobbling something that was begat of artificial insemination to a stressed mother, pumped up with hormones on a feed lot, and slaughtered after three years in a box it couldn’t even turn round in, all to pump a jazillion tonnes of farts into our already off-kilter atmosphere for a measly ten minutes worth of Big Macs (I don’t have as much a problem with organic meat, though I do feel that you’re asked to pay extra for the usual amount of dead animal simply because the farmer had a slightly bigger field). So, in principle, the idea of munching on a piece of pig doesn’t really offend me, but the way in which we grow the pig for slaughter does. Simple, no?

Because being a veggie should be simple. All you have to do is Not Eat Meat. As Bart Simpson says (and it was Bart Simpson and Lou the Cow that prodded my conscience so in the first place), “Don’t have a cow, man.” No rashers. No sausies. No beef in yer stir fries. This wasn’t difficult at all for me, as I was never a big meater-eater in the first place, though foregoing chicken liver pate was a big sacrifice, because it tastes like … I dunno, what would an angel’s poo taste like? Anyway, vegetarianism should not prove too much of a challenge.

Yeah. My mistake.

Being a vegetarian is fucking mind-melting. Don’t eat meat? Don’t eat fucking meat? You think that dead animals are tidily contained in meat? Fucking hell, it was only t’other day I realised the amount of non-vegetarian cheeses out there. How could something as pleasantly placid as a lump of cheddar be full of dead calves?  Cheeses wept, like!

The realisation that cheese, my light, my joy – my cheeson for being, as it were – is not necessarily suitable for the well-meaning but hopelessly uneducated veggie can be summed up with the following Tweet.

Indeed, there be dead animals in everything. Additives, refined cane sugar, that pink food dye I splattered all over me ice-creams when I was a wee carnivore…  I knew that the days of marshmallow krispie squares were over when I vowed to stop nibbling on anything that was sauntering along the cutsie road to sentience, but Jesus Christ, you get pink from slaughtered insects?

The further into the murky depths of responsible eating I dived, the more I longed for an instant hardening of the heartstrings so’s I could get back to picking rasher fat out of my teeth. If you’re going veggie on the Animal Rights ticket, then you have to consider giving up dairy products, because the methods used to keep moo-cows lactating for our lips are as barbaric as chopping them into little bits to make kebabs. If you’re worried about the poor wee lambs not enjoying being marinated, then you should also turn your nose up at their being sheared in the name of big business. If you’re not too fond of crushing kittens, don’t you think it odd to endorse fucking lobsters into pots of boiling water?

But, should I start down this eye-opening and gut-churning path, where will it end? Will I relegate myself to the Crazy Lady role, handing out scary pamphlets at family dinners and throwing paint over brides in silk dresses? Will I end up infested with headlice, dressed in rags I fashioned out of my own dreadlocks, living in a cave and eating scree?

My worry is that one cannot live ethically, in the same way that one cannot admit to punching babies or having slept with Paris Hilton. If you’re not exploiting the workers, you’re exploiting the third world. If you’re not contributing to the deaths of helpless animals, you’re putting money into the hands of criminals. If you’re not sneering at single mums, you’re laughing at people with gimpy legs. And so on and sew the seeds of destruction.

For the first time in my life, I’m asking myself to choose a path that’s not one at a geometrically-convenient crossroads. I’m on a fucking merry-go-round, and it’s moving so fast I can’t see where I’ll end up when I finally get off the fucking ride. Whichever way is going to leave me dishevelled and nauseous.

Oh, what’s the fucking point? Pass me the sauteed bunny rabbits with the cocaine chaser; I give the fuck up.

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