Eating Dead Flesh - It's Okay 2B Grossed Out!

Some recent stories about dog penises found in a Taiwan slaughterhouse, Pork labelled as beef in Sweden, and horse flesh mixed with cow flesh in Ireland got me thinking about a few things... The first being how odd it is that anyone would be upset with eating one type of matter from a dead being over another. I know none of it is pretty and so does Lisa Simpson:



But it's not like it's not all the same thing anyway... Carnists are so strange! As if there really is a quantifiable difference between consuming one bird called a chicken and another named a pelican! The "ick" factor comes from custom and ingrained habit - Not from any significant reasoning.

Odd how even die-hard omnivores want to spew when they consider the following "foods" misplaced in the category of human nutrition:

Like the pink-slime scandal that makes us recall incidents in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair:

Sinclair told of old, lame, diseased cattle still sent to slaughter. He told of “potted chicken” made from tripe, pork fat and the waste from veal; of rancid butter, rechurned and sold to market; of meat that had fallen into the filth, spittle and sawdust of the packing-house floor, only to be retrieved and packaged; of rats and rat dung, poisoned bread and spoiled meat, mixed together in sausage hoppers.
All processed meat, Sinclair reported, contained what was euphemistically called “filler”: “There would come back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was mouldy and white -- it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped in the hoppers, and made over again for human consumption.” There were “butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste” of the manufacturing plants, which was added to fresh meat and churned into breakfast sausage. To use parts of meat that couldn’t be sold whole, the packers applied what Sinclair called “the miracles of chemistry” to make the result appear palatable.

Or PCRM reports that: Nearly Half of Supermarket Chicken Tainted by Feces, Testing Finds

And everyone should know about the pus in cows milk... But what about the mites and maggots in cheese? 

Or maggots used to process meat:


What about worms in fish? You don't even have to consume the fishes - Just have intercourse with someone who did!

Is it okay to be grossed out by the idea of consuming these guys the Taenia saginata or Taenia solium aka tapeworms? Of course cooking the flesh at high temperatures kills these worms - But they're still in the meat...

Hitchhikers in meat

So people eating cows, pigs and fishes are already eating these worms... Then why should they get  nauseated at the idea of  having flies on their plate or maggots on a sandwich? Why are people repulsed by squirrel, opossum or rat eating but aren't equally disgusted at eating rabbits? What about pig rectums? A lamb's head? Or eyeballs or intestines? It's all animal protein anyway you slice it! And if you're grossed out by one you should be grossed out by all!

As a vegan... Can you possibly imagine being revolted if you discovered a forth kind of bean in your three-bean salad? Or carrots cleverly disguised in a sweet potato pie? Or nuts tucked and folded inside a veggie patty? No. Eating kale would no more gross you out than eating bok choy, or arugula ... Red cabbage wouldn't turn your stomach any more than white. And one beautiful mushroom would be as appreciated as all the rest... All simply good food!

So as the rest of the world wrings its hands and shuts its eyes as to how insanely ridiculous it is to fret over horse's bodies mixed in with cow's bodies or eating chicken's brains along with chicken's ovaries, or the confusion of species they think is "food"... I have discovered that it's okay to be grossed out by their grub. Even they among themselves "yuck" and dry-heave over equally nasty choices... I may even be able to say I have a predisposition to be offended and repelled by all animal eating... It May Be Genetic!

I'm comforted in knowing that it’s normal to feel grossed out by people eating meat.  As every thoughtful vegan will agree there are countless good reasons for thriving on plants instead. The dear creatures trapped in a "food chain" that's fashioned to serve the inconsistent, fickle and frivolous wants of man thank you for your very palatable choice!