“Hoof and Horn, Hoof and Horn,
All that die shall be
reborn.
Corn and grain, Corn
and grain.
All that fall shall
rise again.”
I used to be vegan. Or more appropriately “plant based” back
in the early 2000’s. Not because I was young and hip, but because I had just
found out what was ailing me, which was lactose intolerance. It wasn’t the only
thing making me sick but it irritated my whole digestive system. I had been vegetarian
on and off most of my childhood. The same compassionate compulsion that drives
many a vegan and vegetarian. I raised, loved and nurtured the animals around me
and when a pig I had been particularly fond of ended up dismembered and turned
into food for the table I was devastated. My family laughed. I was called naive
and silly. This stung a lot but I look back now and I WAS naïve. I was living
on a farm. The lambs I hand reared were going to the slaughter house. They were
not pets, no matter how carefully I tended them. These animals had been bred
for the table for generations. My step-brother said it plainly. “You not eating
meat will not save the life of these animals, they are going to die. Even if
everyone stopped eating meat, they would then be killed and thrown away.”
I look back at the food privilege I had and was unaware of.
I had real free-range food, wild foods, fish, game and what we grew and raised.
I had eaten goose, pheasant and rabbit, eel and snail. Homemade hams hung from
our kitchen ceiling and we had our own potatoes, milk (goat) and cheese that
came in bricks. Our freezer was full of blackberries, damsons and apples. We
pickled our own onions. I kept my own chickens (birds so stupid they will drown
themselves if a water dish is too deep) and tended everything with a deep loving
connection. I declined meat.
So what changed? I
became pregnant. I became aware of the animal in me. A deep, primal animal. Fierce,
holy and strong. I wanted meat. No I needed meat. As rare as I could get away
with as many times a day as I could. Peppered steak. When I tried to eat
anything else my body rejected it quickly and in a violently ugly fashion. Not
for the first few months, but the whole pregnancy. I also craved shellfish (scallops,
prawns and crab) but my landlocked ass was thwarted. I had to navigate this
emotional roller-coater of guilt and shame, unbridled desire and primal need. I
surrendered to my body, and its knowing. I surrendered to the wisdom of my
animal self. My wildness. I finally understood, I was, I am an animal too.
I was connected to the earth, the plants, the animals, like
a wolf. I could no more deny my nature. I could no more pretend that I was
above death and blood and pain. I could not pretend that loving the wild, which
I really, truly do, separated me for its laws.
I have known deep wise and beautiful souls, whom happen to
be trees. I have known suicidal stupid chickens. Mushrooms are scientifically now more animals
that plants. Yeast is a living, vital thing. We are made of more bacteria than
human cells. Were you draw the line of which life matters to you is important.
I have seen a lot of vegans be pretty awful to people. Be terrible and
unknowing to the human cost of their privilege. Rejecting the world of animal
and animal products doesn’t save an animals life. That animal may end up in
landfill instead. Eating better quality meat, from better sources and eating
nose to tail helps the market change. Eating animals that are disruptive or invasive
can help restore balance. Crop diversity, growing your own, cooking your own
food and caring about what is in it and where it comes from is not a bad idea.
Neither is eating a lot of fresh veggies and vegetarian foods. That said it is
not my place to judge others. At least not for what they eat.
I am aware that food is a huge part of people’s cultures. It
separates and joins families and communities, countries and likeminded souls. Some of the best food cultures use meat
sparingly, or consume it with great respect. The West used to be like his also.
We would eat fish as our main protein, with bread and vegetables unless we were
feasting. We would have a goose we would fatten for the Yuletide season, or a
wild boar hunted at that time. Eating meat meant killing it yourself. Meat was privilege.
Dairy meant milking a sheep, goat or cow. It meant wasting nothing. It was
killing your pig for a ham, bacon, and sausages no matter how cute it was.
Mono-culture cash crops like soy and many vegan foods are
terrible for economies, environments and poor usually brown people. They are
terrible for biodiversity and make farmers in these places food poor. It makes
them susceptible to corporate market forces making neighbours competitors rather
than co-operating. Often these countries are not poor because they lack
resources but because they are still paying for their freedom from colonial
oppression. France receives around 400 billion euros a year from Africa. So
when I see some “helpful” vegan leave rather cruel and distasteful remarks
about indigenous people hunting and eating meat on food travel vlogs my eye develops a twitch.
I am all for making the world a better, kinder place. I am
all for cooking more food. Being more aware where it comes from, how it is
raised and grown. What I am against is the naivety that rejecting animals and
animal products makes you better. I reject that humans are different than any
other animal. That pets or people must make allowances for your beliefs. We are
not separate from nature. Hoof and horn, corn and grain, we will all die,
because that is nature’s law. We are human, primates and mammals. We are part
of this world and each other.
