Love me, kill me, eat me: The 5-step animal rating system.

While reading this post (dated Feb 2 2011), for the first few minutes I was sure I'd mistakenly stumbled upon some Vegan/Animal rights article which had inexplicably managed to sneak itself unto the Wholefoods website.

Now don't get me wrong. I have NOTHING against vegans or animal rights for that matter. I mean - to each his own. But I'm a girl who loves her meat, so any talk about the benefits of vegetarianism is totally lost on me.

 But the phrase 'while shopping for meat' had caught my eye, so I pressed on. Which was lucky, since it turns out that the topic was anything but what I'd initially thought it was.
As someone who is very interested in the subject of nutrition (and considering the fact that I'm spending a great deal of money to educate myself about it) I understand what Wholefoods and it's affiliate organizations are trying to accomplish by this venture. In fact, let me say here and now that I not only understand it, I respect it. We need more chain stores to join in this effort to ensure that safe food is delivered to our tables.

Still, for once I found myself looking at things from the point of view of the animals. What struck me while I was watching the embedded video clip,

                                                           
was a comment made by one of the people interviewed. He said [and I quote] - " The animals are rooting, they're playing, they're running around in a manner that <pause> you might say they're happy..."

Now that gave ME pause.
I have a confession to make. You see, I'm not an animal lover, at least not in the way most people would understand it. I never owned a pet growing up, and I don't feel that somehow my life is damaged because of it. The only time I like to have close physical contact with any animal is when it's nicely cooked and on it's way to my mouth from my plate. Still after watching that video (which by the way would have made any animal rights activist very proud) I began to think more compassionately (if I may use that word) about the animals that 'give up their happiness' so to speak and lay down their lives, just to satisfy my choosy palate.

I know it may seem like I'm trying to play devil's advocate here, given my antecedents, but I really am not. Think about it - would it be okay if you had your hair and scalp tenderly nurtured by your hairstylist for months on end, only to find out that the real reason he was putting in all that dedicated hard work was because he was planning to shave your head clean and sell your hair as extensions?!

I guess the moral of this story is that we meat lovers actually do have our moments of quiet and sober reflection. In fact after watching that video, I think I'm going to stick to fish from now on; at least until someone comes along to try to convince me that fish have emotions too!