Sunday 30 May 2004

Pic of the day: This picture has nothing to do with today's topic, I just wanted to use it while it's still technically spring. ^.^

Dead meat

I don’t go regularly to McDonald's, but it happens. The last time I went there, I bought a "Big Tasty" burger. The dressing is indeed very tasty. But when I opened the box, the first thing that hit me was the stink of dead animals.

It has come gradually, I think. Right then, I remembered that I had sensed the same thing the last time, possibly the time before ... but I forget it after a while, because I think it should be different. So over time my memories – yes, even mine – change so I remember things the way they ought to be, not the way they were. Until the next time.

But it isn't just there. In the supermarket when I buy groceries, there is a fairly large section of cooled food that is dedicated to thin sheets of meat or sausage, a popular thing to put on sliced bread here in Norway. (We don't eat much sandwich like they do in English-speaking countries, our bread is simply sliced and used as a foundation to add various tasty foods on. It is pretty much the same as the Swedish "smorgas", which incidentally is not spelled that way in Swedish.) Bread with meat and some kind of fat (margarine, mayonnaise, or a salad made with lots of oils) is a staple food here, although more and more variations are taking market share. It is quick and easy and stops the hunger. Kids are more likely to eat their bread with jam, though. And now, so am I.

***

It is not a principle. And ironically I am more distant from the animal world than when I was younger ... after all, I grew up on a farm, and was not happy about my friends being slaughtered an eaten. But I was OK with meat as long as it was processed enough so it did not look noticeably like a dead animal. Sausages, burgers, meatballs, meatloaves ... it all went down quite happily. But as I grow older, I find it more and more distasteful. Not in a moral sense, it just seems yucky.

I probably don't need meat at all, since I consume quite a bit of milk and yogurt and some cheese. Which is a good thing, since this part of the world has no idea what "tofu" means (they would probably think I meant "Teufel", the German word for devil, and soy is either a sauce or (if you're a homekeeper) an oil. From what I have gathered over the years, God made the soybean so humans don't need to eat meat. Or something. It seems to be one of very few plant products that contains some of the rarer amino acids which we humans can't synthesize from plant food. It also has some less marvelous effects, from what I hear, but overall it is quite healthy. Not that anyone here would know. Then again, soybeans don't grow well in our climate, if at all. Sheep do.

It is probably typical of us, but no less a small tragedy, that Norwegians will at least know about sushi (although far from all have tried it) but have never heard about miso soup unless they watch a lot of anime. But at least things have changed from the time when you had fish and potatoes 2 days a week and meat and potatoes 5 days a week. (3 and 4 in some coastal areas.) Back then, boiled vegetables were considered the height of refinement to add to the meat and potatoes. And a fat brown sauce, of course. Need all the fat you can get in our cold climate. Well, that was true enough back when people worked with their bodies, not just their brains.

It is most likely this change that has cause me to distance myself from meat: I don't need calorie-dense food when I only use my body an hour a day. I like cakes less too, which supports the idea, and I like chips less as well ... but the attraction does not fade as fast as with meat, nor does it go entirely over into distaste. So perhaps some other process is also at work.

***

In Hindu (and Buddhist) thought, eating animals is considered a crime for the higher castes or those seeking spiritual purity. The sinners are allowed to do this primitive thing, but it significantly reduces your chance of spiritual purification and you can pretty much forget leaving the wheel of death and rebirth. At best if you restrain yourself you can hope to be reborn as a human again, not a wild animal.

But as I said, it is not a principle for me. According to the book of Genesis, God allowed the descendants of Noah to eat meat (as long as they first removed the blood) after the flood. It is assumed then that either the flora before the flood was more nourishing, or humanity decayed genetically to a point where they could no longer synthesize the necessary proteins. (Human life span dwindled rapidly over the generations after the flood.) Of course, some of us very much doubt the book of Genesis as a literal truth and see it more as a parable or poetic truth. In that case, it would seem that vegetarianism is the ideal, the first choice, while eating meat is a sad necessity.

Does my subconscious subtly convert my tastes? Or is it simply my aging body that has less need for the stuff, and then I make up reasons why I don't miss it anyway? I don't know, but something is definitely happening to me, and has happened for quite a while now.