porky_and_bess

Far and away the thing that most motivates me to consider staying a vegetarian is that I hate the idea of animals suffering — not simply as they die simply also throughout their lives. Merely five weeks into this experiment equally a meat lover testing out vegetarianism, I have to admit: I still desire to eat meat.

I can't practise manufactory-raised, only I'm thinking, hey, farm-raised might be a nice compromise. I wanted to talk to some people who were involved in raising and killing their own animals, and lo and behold, I went to a party last week and happened to meet Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brett Ridge, the stars of the reality show The Fabulous Beekman Boys, which tells the story of the couple starting a subcontract in upstate New York.

The prove ended, the farm lives on. Kilmer-Purcell and Ridge raise two pigs a twelvemonth, have them slaughtered on their farm every fall, and and so they eat the pigs' meat. I watched the episode in which their two pigs, Porky and Bess, are slaughtered, and interviewed Kilmer-Purcell about his experience raising, killing, and eating the pigs.

Q. And then you had Porky and Bess from very young?

A. Yes, we got them when they were weaned and we raised them for 10 months before we had them slaughtered. That was the starting time time nosotros raised and slaughtered ii pigs, but we've washed it twice more since then. Nosotros hire someone to come up practice information technology. [Laughs.] It is a misconception to recall that every farmer can perform every task on a subcontract. I have slaughtered chickens before, but slaughtering a grunter is a pretty special skill. It would be cheaper for u.s. to bring them somewhere else to exist slaughtered, but what's most traumatic for the beast, we're told, is the send. Nosotros want to make certain we did everything equally humanely as possible, and so we never took them out of their homes.

Q. I have to say that what has disturbed me a lot about raising animals for meat is non so much how they die only how they live. And your pigs seemed to alive well.

A. Yes, I think it's fair to say that they had about the best life you can imagine for a grunter. They had a overnice big pen and had very good nutrient. We were very good to them.

Q. Tell me nigh the slaughter. How does it piece of work, and how did y'all and Brett feel afterward?

A. Well, you wake up the morn of it and you lot definitely have this heavy feeling. And the kickoff thing yous do of course on a farm in the morning is go out and feed the pigs. And you're feeding them thinking, "Wow, this is their last meal." And the guys arrive to slaughter them. They sprinkle corn on the ground and the pigs come over to eat it, and they shoot them. This only stuns the pig. [In the episode the human being slaughtering the pig explains that the shooting renders the beast senseless for bloodletting, which is the fastest style for information technology to die.] We watched the whole affair.

We were both really sad for a couple of days later the first time, and information technology has gotten easier, but it's never easy. I've killed a chicken before, and killing poultry doesn't touch me in the same manner. Pigs are very hard. Their eyes are very homo.

The offset time, we really asked the guy who does the slaughter if we should separate the pigs and then the one didn't get scared while the other 1 is existence killed, but he said it was all right, the other sus scrofa would exist OK. The sound of the gun existence shot definitely scared the other sus scrofa, but subsequently a few seconds it calmed down and only started eating corn once more. The guy was explaining to united states of america that aye, pigs are smart, but they don't take a concept of what blood is or anything.

Q. In the past few weeks of not eating meat I have had to think hard almost whether I can eat something that died simply for my pleasance. Surely you have thought about that?

A. Oh, yes. I've definitely thought almost it. Information technology is and then articulate to me that meat is worth and then much more nosotros pay for it at the grocery store.

We cull not to be vegetarians. Nosotros savour eating meat, we enjoy preparing it. We have a responsibility to the animals we raise and I recollect that nosotros fulfill that. Only at that place are consequences to that choice for usa, some bad feelings. Ultimately, I guess I feel similar those consequences are not such that I am willing to be a vegetarian.

After talking to Josh I cheered upward. I thought, wow, I could eat meat and be a nice person too!

Just then I thought about what existence this sort of meat eater might entail. It might piece of work if I went to people's houses for dinner and said, "I'chiliad a vegetarian" and just ate the salad and the bread and so on. I don't call back people would concur that against me. (I never accept.) But every bit far as going to someone'south house and saying, as the repast they prepared is set before me, "Is this factory raised? If so, I pass"? Maybe some people can do that, but I but tin't. If they thought of me as a meat eater, I would just consume it. As well, I am pretty sure if I ate meat, I would eat meat. I hateful, I could say, "I'1000 only going to eat this kind of meat." Simply when you're hungry, or not wanting to offend, yous will do just about anything.

So and then I thought, well, I will tell anybody I am a vegetarian — and then swallow meat on my ain, in hugger-mugger. But that only seemed like creepy, drug-addict beliefs.

I am not terribly disturbed by the thought of eating meat that comes from animals that lived and died the fashion these pigs died. But at the aforementioned fourth dimension, I know that part of not being disturbed is just that I really want to eat meat, I want the pleasure, and if I choose to swallow meat, I am choosing my pleasure over everything else.

Considering it'south becoming increasingly clear that, unless there is a health issue (and I don't believe I accept one), there is no reason to eat meat other than for pleasure. Information technology takes a lot of infinite to enhance meat; it uses up a lot of resources in full general.

But am I actually a serious plenty person to forgo doing something that I like? Particularly when there is this industry of "boutique meat" — which I, not having a family to support, can afford to indulge in when I accept a craving?

I was hoping that as this experiment drew to a close, I would no longer want to consume meat. And I did succeed in not wanting to eat manufacturing plant-farmed meat. Simply if Josh Kilmer-Purcell walked in here with some of his farm-raised bacon right now, I would eat it. Well, not right at present, considering I'm leap to this experiment. But in a week or and so? I would get for it.

And so I talked to a friend of mine who has been a vegetarian for a few years. He is also a very un-strident guy who doesn't care what I swallow or don't swallow. He doesn't swallow meat because he can't deal with the guilt. "I feel like that stuff leaks into your emotions. I like not feeling guilty about animals dying. Of class I like meat. Meat is delicious. Just that's the only affair it's got going for it."

I'm thinking, with one week left, delicious is a lot to have going for you. Simply is it worth it?

There is no way around the fact that if yous desire to consume a mammal, someone is going to accept to shoot it in the caput and then stab it and so it bleeds to decease. I wouldn't want that to happen to me, no matter how great my life was — but I feel similar it's OK to practice it to a pig or a cow, because they're non man. So many people call back that'south OK that, indeed, mayhap information technology is.

Still, I'1000 relieved that — at least for today, while I'grand nevertheless bound past the terms of this experiment — I don't have a pick about whether or not to eat meat. Considering I don't experience expert about doing information technology, and nevertheless I feel deprived thinking it'south a permanent sacrifice.