Grr....

[jarandhel]

So, the other day I got some Buffalo burgers at Wholefoods. Cooked them up for me and Dusk for lunch. (VERY good, btw.)

While I was still eating mine, our housemates came home. Almost immediately, I was confronted and asked not to leave plates with blood (from the defrosted meat) lying around the kitchen because we have a resident vegetarian. Now, I was going to clean up the kitchen (including this plate) as soon as I got done eating anyway, and if it hadn't been for one little thing this whole incident probably wouldn't have bothered me...

... but the thing is, the girls themselves left a dish FULL of bacon grease sitting on the kitchen counter for TWO DAYS. It was still there while they were complaining about the plate! How is liquified animal fat any less offensive to a vegetarian than a little bit of blood? And this got me thinking...

This vegetarian has sat down with me and her partner before as her partner and I have consumed a big fat christmas turkey, even taking a small nibble of it herself. She is not a vegetarian because of beliefs about cruelty to animals or anything like that, it's just a personal preference. So how is her vegetarianism at all relevant to the situation with the plate? It feels to me like her vegetarianism was not the issue, and was just being used as a weapon, and that bothers me... because I can't figure out what the underlying issue actually was. Considering their bacon grease dish, it certainly couldn't have been a cleanliness thing, unless they were being REALLY hypocritical. The whole thing just gets under my skin...

Comments

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Perhaps that accounts for it, and the connection with vegetarianism, though I still don't understand her attitude towards the dish FULL of bacon grease sitting on the counter for two days as compared to the small plate. Personally, I'd think people would find liquified animal fat much more disgusting than a small bit of blood. Then again, I'm not sure how many people really understand that's what grease is...

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

I think that's just the cooked vs. not cooked. Even if there isn't a real health concern, it's half a step more removed from a dead animal sitting in the kitchen.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

This is really just convincing me more and more that people have gotten too far away from their roots. There was a time when dead animals sitting in the kitchen was common, they were called dinner. Now that everything is prepared for us in advance by butchers and we just pick up meat at the markets, there seems to be an increasing disconnect in people's minds between animals and the meat the comes from them and ends up as our food, and any reminders like blood disturb them.

And yes, I realize that the last time I personally tried to help someone turn an animal into a food product, I ended up briefly fainting from the smell (got up again as soon as I hit the ground), but I still took the meat inside and washed it off and packed it for eating later. And it was YUMMY.

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

This is really just convincing me more and more that people have gotten too far away from their roots.

In general, I agree. In specific, I have a weirder disconnect. The squickiness usually happens to me with anything dead unless it's a matter of necessity to deal with it. On the rare occasions that I'm personally craving meat, I'd far rather deal with a chunk of deer dripping into a fire than styrofoam-packaged sanitized ground anything. I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't a personal ethics and spirituality thing *closer* to my roots to not want to deal with it in this mass-produced factory farm system, or if I just got desensitized oddly during the ass-poor years in my early childhood when we were pretty much living at the shorehome and we'd catch and clean fish to eat so we wouldn't starve.

Sorry I've been harping on food so much lately. I'm trying to sort out my own feelings on food and prepackaged and dead things and such as my diet is naturally shifting and I'm floundering at people like my co-workers I go out to eat with who can't understand dietary restrictions without a 100% true all the time with a label they've heard of before explanation, even if I state health reasons. It's getting bizarre and annoying me and I'm sure I'll drag the ranting to my own journal at some point.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's a good point. In your case, I think that's probably very true... in my housemate's case, quite the opposite. Personally, I'm almost addicted to chicken and the person that gets between me and Venison or Buffalo is liable to get a chunk taken out of them, but the real staples of my diet are probably potatoes, cheese, and pasta. Possibly rice and vegetables too at times, though I haven't made a rice dish in quite a while now. But I really couldn't imagine going vegetarian. Hell, the last vegetarian chili I tried eating almost made me throw up. Then again, I'm not really a fan of mushrooms, and I'm pretty sure it was a form of processed mushroom that was the meat substitute in that, judging by the texture.

And hey, don't worry about it, harping on food is fun and entertaining. I really have been meaning to get into talking about it more again, I'm *trying* to persuade myself to more back towards more wholefoods again now that I'm more or less settled in the area. Just need to get a job so I can actually afford them, as opposed to the cheapo pastas I generally pick up.

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

Mm. I manage the more-whole-foods diet by saving what I can where I can on cheapo pastas and mystery vegetables from the asian market. It's a rather maddening balancing act that requires going to far too many stores. Bleah.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Hehe, actually i did manage to pick up a lot of organic whole-wheat pasta from Giant recently... it was on sale, ten packs for ten dollars. I could have also gotten ten cans of tomato sauce for ten dollars, but it was a brand I hadn't tried before and I only got two of those and the rest of a brand I knew. As it turned out they were excellent. Definitely going to have to keep an eye out for that sort of sale again.

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

Just watch out if you're going to buy the only-ten-cents-more-expensive new brands of organic anything; they've recently changed the laws to be far more lax about what can be called organic in the US, and a lot of companies are realising they can squeeze profit margin out of ever so slightly improving the production process and then charging more to stick a Friendly label on it. It *is* slightly better, but sometimes it just doesn't seem to be enough to be worth it.

Like the Safeway cookies I saw the other day containing Organic Modified Somethingorother. huhWHAT?