molly.com

Saturday 3 June 2006

Eating Meat

What we place in our mouths, savor, chew or even spit out is closely tied to pleasure, family, culture and memory. We are in no small way exactly what we eat.

What do you eat? Today, I’m mostly interested in drawing from the experiences of carnivores versus vegetarians. I have so many people in my life who are firmly carnivorous, and others that are equally intent upon their vegetarian or even vegan diets.

Personally, I have never felt well without some form of flesh protein in my diet, be it fish, meat, or eggs. Eating meat is important for me. At the very minimum, fish in my diet regularly and red meat once a month at low tide.

So how about you? Do you file your canines every night so you can rip apart a good bit of flesh or do you stick to the lighter side of edible life?

Filed under:   general
Posted by:   Molly | 14:46 | Comments (75)

Comments (75)

  1. I stick with a plan.. I can go two months without meat, eggs, dairy… Then the following week I’ll go out at Wendy’s or MCd’s and have me a chicken sandwhich, after that I’ll go two more months without eating meat.. So on occasion I’ll eat it. So this helps me stay balanced, but If I wanted to though, I could be Vegetarian or Vegan really easily, but I chose to eat white meat instead once in a while.

    So to everyone that’s dieting and want to live healthy lifestyle, just stick to a food plan and get plenty of exercise.. even taking walks to the park with friends or family help.

  2. I have been going back and forth between diets of meat, vegetarian and even vegan at times. Currently, I am in the vegetarian/vegan wave of thought and that is really a large part of what it is all about for me – wave of thought – my terminology for a collection of similar thoughts or thought processes. I find that certain thought processes are prevalent when I eat meat – more agressive, more calloused, more self-centered – even more energetic on some level but certainly in my mind a wave of thought that is lower in the evolutionary levels of human existence. With the vegetarian/vegan(going back and forth between the two) I find myself to be more compassionate,understanding and generally more consciencious even in matters outside of the realm of food and eating. In regards to eating meat, I don’t think that it is a matter of right or wrong, just what your premise is.

  3. I eat all meats, except for when I am full up. Then I have a yogurt.

  4. That Kale and Pine Nuts recipe is great, June. I’ve made it a couple of times. My only quibble is that I can’t afford top-quality balsamic vinegar, so I had to make do with some “cheap” stuff from a supermarket. But it was still wonderful.

  5. Hi, I am a part-time model and am very health conscious. I eat chicken/turkey almost twice a day on most days! And I need my filet once every week or so. Not a big fan of pork or seafood. I have tried exotic meats whenever I got the chance…zebra in Kenya, camel in Dubai, cuy (guinea pig) in Peru, frog legs (I loved them!) in Vietnam.

  6. O-negative and a meat eater, here.

    I, too, did the vegetarian girlfriend thing in college, and had a miserable year. I lost muscle, started getting colds and other ailments, etc. She was a good cook and there were a couple of decent vegetarian restaurants in town, and individual meals could be delish and filling, but as a trend, I was unsatisfied. Recovered considerably when I went home over the Christmas break and ate lots of meat, eggs, fish, then back to the veggie grind for a few more months. Nice girl. Little too earnest and idealistic. We broke up and I went back to eating formerly-alive animals.

    Somebody said they eat occasional meat, but don’t like to prepare their own because they can’t seem to cook it right. Same person raved about veggies from “the more expensive places” that provide fresh, seasonal, properly handled, etc. Well, my suggestion is to avoid the supermarket and do the same in your meat acquisition as for your veggies. Find a butcher who features (or completely specializes in…) organic and free-range meat. Splurge a big chunk of the weekly pay on a small tenderloin roast (basically filet-mignon that hasn’t been sliced into steaks). For you-and-a-friend, or you and then some yummy leftovers, that’d be maybe a pound-and-a-half (hey, I use a lot of hyphens, don’t I; but they’re thoughtfully placed…).

    Take it home and leave it on the kitchen counter (i.e., room temp) for at least an hour before you begin to prepare it. Well, you can rub it with some oil and garlic, but don’t let salt touch it.

    A few minutes before you are ready, turn on the oven to heat.
    Heat a cast-iron skillet on the stove-top, quite hot. Add a couple of tablespoons of oil – canola has a good high temp resistance, as opposed to olive which will scorch sooner, and we want a hot skillet. Slap your roast in the pan and sear it, turning it to all four sides, and even standing it on each end, just long enough to start some browning. This seals in the juices for the next part. You aren’t trying to cook it here, just sear the outside, quickly. This whole part of the operation is over in two or three minutes (I did say to get the pan rather hot, didn’t I?).

    Put your oiled-and-seared roast into a small roaster and into the oven on a lower (but not bottom) rack and let it slow-cook at 275 to 280 degrees fahrenheit for about an hour. Yes, if you speak in Celsius that’s not much hotter than boiling water. A slow oven, as they say.
    If you like veggies with your meat, prepare ’em and start ’em before the roast comes out. This method, coupled with the lean cut of meat, does not produce a lot of drippings, so don’t expect gravy. The object of this exercise is to taste beast at its best.

    When it’s roasted, I prefer boiled-in-the-skins (preferrably new, but ya can’t have that year-round) potatoes with butter, and green or yellow string beans (also with butter), to complement the meat but not overpower it with strong competing flavor.

    Anyway, the hour of slow cooking for just a small roast yields medium-rare.
    Whip it out on the counter. It should “rest” for just a few minutes – i.e., stop cooking, but not get cold. Carve and serve quickly. Serve a medium-dry, not-strongly-flavored red wine. Again, you don’t want the flavor to compete. You also don’t want it sweet, yet you don’t want every sip to pucker, either. Moderation.

    Tuck in, and enjoy a little piece of heaven. Tender, juicy, flavorful… exquisite in its symplicity.

    Remember, salt doesn’t touch the meat until it’s on your plate – if then.

    If you are one of those people who normally have horseradish with beef, consider eating a few bites of just the meat, without masking the natural flavor. Remember, you chose grass-fed, organically raised meat, and it cost more than what you usually buy… not to mention being a cut that you would normally have as steaks, rather than roast. So savor it.
    Gravies and sauces have their place, but not when you’ve picked the best, treated it properly, and done your best to reveal its own character.

    Hmm. I’m getting hungry.

    By the way. It took me decades to learn that you can be a health-conscious meat eater. Just eat your meat and veggies and avoid the sugar and grains. Well, any processed food… except the wine. That’s processed, and is a definite improvement over drinking grape juice with a meal. πŸ™‚

    Eat plenty of fruit, to be sure, but another time. There’s just no call for fruit anywhere near a perfectly roasted hunk of beast. Nor a perfectly grilled steak.

    But, since I’m thinking of it… anybody know where/how to get frozen cherries? I absolutely love dark cherries in season, but the season is so short and there seem to be only couple of places in the world that grow ’em (unlike apples and citrus that are available “in season” from somewhere at any time of year). So, I was hoping to find them frozen, which is the next best thing to fresh. No joy so far. I’m in Canada.

    Salut tout-le-monde

  7. Hi firstly people seem to be mixing terminology.We are all Omnivours whether we choose to eat meat or not.Vegetarianism is not a Biological term but a term to describe a moral, ethical or cultural CHOICE.For this reason other animals can’t be Vegetarian they would be Herbivours.And for basically the same reasons Hitler couldn’t be described as a Vgetarian because he didn’t abstain from meat through CHOICE but because of a medical condition.I have been a Vegetarian for over 30 years.Firstly out of concern for Animal welfare.Is a lifetime of suffering worth 2 minutes of pleasure in our eating it.The average human eats 1000 animals in their lifetime.That’s 1000 animals suffering for a few moments of pleasure.I’m also vegetarian now for health reasons.Independent studies have shown Vegetarians less likely to get cancer and heart desease (the west’s 2 biggest killers)and on average Veggies live longer.I’m also a Veggie for Environmental reasons (the biggest threat facing mankind) Meat production is incredibly harmful to the planet.55 billion animals need watering and feeding. it’s estimated we would need more than one planet to do that and feed the WHOLE human race adequately.Not to mention deforestation, soil erosion,and emmisions from cattle etc.Animals wouldn’t exist in such massive numbers if we didn’t intensively breed them.In short it’s good for the Animal , it’s good for the person and it’s good for the planet…go veggi how many good reasons do you need ? – Ian

  8. For anyone interested in the healthiest, happiest diet I’ve found, be sure to check out goneraw.com – it’s full of raw food recipes, and since incorporating lots of vegan, raw foods in my diet, my health has improved dramatically.

  9. I’m vegan. I eat no animal products. My reasons are both health based and ethical.

    First and foremost, I’ve had high blood pressure all my life – I’m 27. Since it runs in my family, my doctor told me that I would never be able to get off medication. Given that I’m a wanderer at heart and free spirit by nature, the thought of being stuck to a pharmacy for the rest of my life really, well…it drove me right to the internet – that’s when I first read that the absence of animal products in a diet can lower blood pressure, not to mention blood pressure and numerous other diseases, such as heart disease. Since I had nothing to lose, I gave it a shot. Well guess what? A year later I’m off all medication – my blood pressure is now normal. I’ve escaped my genes, done away with my birth right and gloated in my doctor’s office. πŸ˜‰

    And it was easier than I thought it would be, mostly because I also have strong ethical reasons.

    I saw a show on the travel channel about eating habits in certain parts of Asia. To most Westerners, dogs and cats are pets, and chickens, pigs and cows are food. Well, in certain parts of Asia, dogs and cats are food. One scene in particular drove me over the edge.

    A man took a dog out of its cage, lead it on leash outside, all the while the dog was wagging his tail, happy that he was finally getting some attention. The pooch kept looking up at the man waiting for attention, tail wagging…happy. Then, the man chained the dog to a fence, took out a large knife, grabbed the poor clueless dog’s back leg and started chopping away. The poor dog, not knowing why the man was harming him, and clearly in horrible pain, starting yelping and struggling and looking back at the man, almost as if he was begging him to stop….whenever I get a meat craving, I think about that.

    What’s food to others are beloved pets and companions to us, just as in some countries, the animals that we think of as food are actually companion animals…even considered holy. And then I think about my beloved dog, and, well…I’m glad she was born here and not Asia.

  10. Also, whoever claimed proof that humans are natural carnivores is blocking out reality, and doing so to justify his or her own desires.

    1. Meat-eating animals have sharp teeth for tearing flesh. Humans have mollers for grinding grains, veggies, etc.

    2. Meat eating animals have shorter intestines and digestive tracts so that the decaying flesh can be eliminated as quickly as possible.

    In no way is the human body made for eating meat. If a person chooses to eat meat, that’s fine. Everyone has the right to choose. However, please do so based on honest facts and truth, not false assumptions and made up justifications, such as that we were made to eat meat. That is nothing more than a justification…and it’s a false one.

  11. I do not eat meat. I do not believe that we as humans should have the right to kill animals for our satifaction. As well fro the fact that eating on a vegetarian diet is healtier and less costly.

  12. I am a very strict vegetarian. I believe that killing helpless animals for human tase buds, is just wrong. the animals are treated so badly these days, I just cant bear to even begin to think what they go through.

  13. In our country there is a culture of eating meat.In Romania,especially on holidays we eat a lot of meat-we eat pork products in Christmas time and lamb in Easter time and almost all kind of meat.I love meat too,but there are moments that I would eat only vegetables and fruits.And it feels great.
    I also think that people should not figh so much upon yhis issue, because it’s only a matter of choice and neither vegetarian or omnivor should not be discriminated for what he eats.If not, it could drive to the 3rd war.
    So my message it’s Peace πŸ™‚ and do not listen to others opinion.

  14. i eat meat every time i can because it is tasty and has lots of protien steak and ribs are my favorite BBQ! yum

  15. Man, I was a vegan for 2 years, but then when I took a trip down Tokyo, Japan… I was starving for
    a day trying to look for Vegan restaurants, but no luck… so I had to eat fish about everyday to survive down there, and I felt guilty… then I went back home and started eating Vegan again.

    So another thing to remember to all the vegetarian and vegans out there, plan really hard before you travel somewhere… because most restaurants and fast food places aren’t vegetarian and vegan friendly.

  16. I was brought up by a yugoslavian mother and english father here in the uk, my mother was a complete carnivore eating meat as well as offel,she would regularly buy ox tail, toungue lambs livers turkeys necks tripe bla bla bla, and yes I would eat it,she was brought up in a small village in the mountains of her home land, having to kill their own animals and grow their veg and make their wine from the vinyard grapes,heard their sheep up the mountains, a far cry from factory farming,and chemicals.She passed away aged 55 seven years ago, from a meat based diet,she wasnt a fan of veg her kidneys packed up from eating too much protein ,I miss her dearly . I would always catch her chooing on a steak or pork chop.!!. however my father was a vegetarian,and still is he is 69 and looks fit and healthy and looks in his early 50’s.I used to think he was mad,as he always used to tell me when i was eating my delicious chicken that it once was alive had eyes and breathed, I used to say shut up !! ignore it. his father was a vegan (my grandad), always drinking his boiled water very health concious ,he used to say to me my stomach is not a cemetary for dead animals.He lived to the ripe old age of 88 as a vegan all his life.!!.when I was 17 I met my now husband, I used to crack open the chicken bones with my teeth and suck out the marrow, I didnt know any different.as well as steak pork lamb whatever once lived.My husband thought It was disgusting.my first pet was a rabbit and I am a huge animal lover I stopped eating for 6 months became withdrawn when my rabbit died, I began thinking animals were better than humans they dont shout at you,but to me it was brain washed it was right to eat meat and I needed it, what a load of tosh animals love you unconditionally, when I was having a tough time as a kid or felt lonley I would go in the garden and talk to my pets,my rabbit used to come up to me to say hello everytime I went in the garden and lick me. I would save snails,etc………now when I was 9 I had this vietnamese friend in my class at school she was from a refugee family, I went round for dinner, I could see her sorting out some wrapping of food, and there in their kitchen was a little pen, and in it was three cute chickens,I said ahhh arent they cute , my friend said would I like one, I said no my parents wouldnt let me,………next thing her father grabbed one, ran up stairs to their bathroom and I was confused, I was shocked, next thing I heard was this poor chicken screeming for at least 5 minutes, the father came down the stairs with a dead chicken blood all over his clothes face and hands,he had stabbed it to death, I didnt know what to do, the next thing her mother started plucking the feathers off, with out a care in the world, she had just been picking her nose and eating it before preparing the chicken, so I would of thought she had enough protein for the evening ….but oh no, she then started to pull its guts out , and to cut a long story, she was making my dinner!!!!………..I had to get out,before I left I had to go to toilet and my god, ……the whole bathroom was red, blood all over the walls floor it was like a horror movie……what bloody mentality, didnt even have the knowlege to kill that poor chicken humainly I said I must go home I dont feel well, all my friend said to me was please dont tell the police we dont have a licence to keep chickens……..my biggest regret was I never took those two live ones with me and rescue them, but I was a scared 9 year old I didnt know what to do back then.I couldnt eat chicken for 1 year after this, but I eventually forgot about it, and yes my mum force fed me chicken again,but then there was another time I cut into a chicken breast and found a lump I poked it and puss came out …….YUCK>>>>>…I then was put off again, every time i ate it i would look for veins and i would find them it would flip my stomache, tuna steaks also i would cut it and see veins..When I was 19 I was on holiday in a restaurant cutting into a delicious peppered steak and you know what I looked at it as some blood came out, and I thought what the hell is this its not a steak, its a dead cow.!!lol.from that day I stopped eating red meats and cut down to chicken and fish only, a hypocrite I know!!!!lol as I was still eating meat,but for 13years I havent touched any other meat .Then 2 months ago I was talkking to a lady about meat and I told her I only eat fish and chicken but I would love to be a vegetarian but I dont think I would be able to as I wouldnt know what to eat,and she told me to look up the peta website. And believe me It has finally sent me to vegetarian heaven , I will never eat meat as long as I live I feel better health wise concious wise and meat may taste nice, but it is full of chemicals hormones blood puss some has tumours in itas well as creulty its not surprising there is 3 million veges in the uk alone,meat makes the digestive system sluggish, and 95% of bacteria salmonalla comes from fish and meat and eggs,if we were meant to eat meat we would have the right body make up for it, but we dont, if my grandfather lived to 88 on a stricked vegan diet doesnt that say something,……..we do not need it.I do not understand how someone can say aaah dont kill seals or ahhhh its sad dogs and cats are skinned in china or poor dog left abandoned, but they dont care for daisy the cow,or porky the pig, they are all animals and the same there is no divide, pigs are as inteligent as a three year old child.I am not vegan but nearly !!as I think dairy cows get the toughest time being over milked, and milk is not meant fo us to drink we were weaned off milk as babies, the milk of a cow is designed for its baby calf……..shame they shoot the male calfs in the head as they are no use to farmes,and the female dairy cows when they have finnished providing for your tea cakes and coffee and cereal, they too get the chop and get put on your plate……..poor things. I now dont drink milk as personally who knows whats in it, and 2/ its proved the calcium in in is no good for you unless you got magnesium to absorb the calcium. I drink soyamilk with b12 in it, it tastes better too and my kids are not going to be brought up like I was eating animal body parts and dead flesh. .There is one big regret and thats that I never became a vegetarian earlier oh and I am blood group A ideal!!!I never used to cook right I got salmonalla from a prawn curry, now I find it easier to cook, I make millet cous cous lots of veg and soya based foods quorn etc, salads, I feel great no more blood veins tumours and no more feeling sick and no more contributing to creulty and world distruction……….I am happier with my life.

    good luck to you weather you are veggie vegan meat eater eeek !!!….frutarian or canibal lol xx

  17. I stopped eating all meat except shrimp awhile ago. It’s always interesting to see the excuses for why people can’t. Animals do not need to suffer–and horribly in this day and age–to feed anyone. The blood type diet was just another money maker. I have never felt physically, emotionally, or spiritually better since I stopped eating animal flesh. For people who didn’t feel well because of being vegetarian, all I can say is that it obviously wasn’t being done right or perhaps just not creatively enough. Thanks to all the carnivores on this earth, we have suffering animals, global starving, and people extremely sick from all the runoff garbage from factory farms.

  18. I’ve been eating vegetarian for only eight months, but I couldn’t imagine going back to eating meat. First it was for taste reasons – I’d much rather have some sauted spininsh than chicken, and about a year ago I began to eat a lot less food in general; I don’t eat when I’m stressed or upset, so when I do have to eat, I’d rather eat veggies. I eat alot more vegtables than fruit though, which is strange- Its not like I dont like sweets.
    At this point though, its for ethical reasons also. You’re eating someone’s flesh; not very apetizing.
    I wouldn’t go vegan though – hunny and milk don’t hurt animals. I’m not sure about eggs though. I will proabably give them up eventually also. Or when I’m on my own, buy free-range.
    Fast food wise (hey, i’m a teenager) alot of times I take me off, and give it to whomever’s sitting next to me. (I’m not too worried about contamination).

    Enviormentaly, I’m looking to get a car thats a vegetarian too; one that I’ll convert from disel to used vegtable oil. check it out: grease not gas

  19. Sorry I don’t follow you at all Molly. πŸ™‚

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