Of Meat and Potatoes.....

I  am carnivorous.  I LOVE MEAT.....beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, crawfish, snails, shrimp....well, you get my drift.    I've been eating meat all my life.  I love my steaks rare.  I love my chicken fried (like mama used to make it!)  I love many varieties of fish....fixed a variety of ways.  And now....SUDDENLY....it occurs to me that.....I've been eating CREATURES.   How hypocritical of me...NOW...to still want to eat chicken....as long as I didn't raise it, and don't  have to kill them.  If TYSON does the deed......I'll buy the frozen, fully cooked fajita chicken stips to add to my salad & pig out!  Speaking of pigs....I never met anything PORK I didn't like! (good thing I'm not Jewish!)   I've even gone so far as to HEAR THE CRAWFISH SCREAM upon being dunked ALIVE in boiling water......and I eat them with gusto!  HOW BARBARIC!!!!

These thoughts did not come to me simply because I am now raising chickens.  These thoughts came to me as I was preparing a fresh salad, consisting of lettuce, celery, onions, radishes, carrots, etc.  I thought:  How cool is this to eat a PLANT that grew out of the ground??  As I was preparing the salad, and communing with the vegetables, I began thinking of all the animals on earth that also eat from the bounty of the earth.   I am living in the country...surrounded by horses, chickens, ducks, geese, birds of many, many varieties....and the one thing in common is:  THEY ALL EAT FROM WHAT GOD PLANTED IN THE EARTH!

Then....oh, THEN.....the "preacher's daughter"  in me appeared.  I remember the Bible lessons taught to me all my life...how, in the beginning....the VERY beginning.....in the Garden of Eden....EVERY CREATURE ate from the bounty of the garden!  There were no carnivores!!!  The lion really COULD lie down with the lamb....because the lamb didn't look like a meal!!  DO YOU GET WHAT I'M SAYIN'???  God put enough plants, grasses, etc. on this earth to FEED EVERY CREATURE. That includes you and me!

It wasn't until Eve listened to the serpent (Satan) and ate from the ONE tree God had forbidden them, that blood was shed.  Can you imagine......the enormous bounty of fruits and vegetables that must have been available to Adam & Eve???  I'm sure it would have shamed the buffet at Western Sizzler or even Golden Corral!!  (and let's don't even get into the "Eve gave to Adam" thing.  HE HAD FREE WILL and made his own choice to eat of the forbidden fruit, just like she did!)  SIDEBAR:  Do you see that this "it wasn't my fault" crap had it's origins in the beginning of time??!   And also....just for the record....the Bible NEVER states what type of "fruit" was on the forbidden tree. Somewhere along the way, we humans decided it was an apple. Go figure!

Anyway, once Adam & Eve sinned & tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves (apparently it didn't work so well), God had to kill an animal to provide them with hides/furs to cover themselves.  Guess once THAT deed was done, God didn't want the meat to go to waste.......something or someone had to eat it.  THIS is when carnivores came to be.  Imagine how God must've felt having to KILL one of his beautiful animals because Adam & Eve screwed up! (I wonder if vultures were then created to help with the "clean up" of dead animals?? Until this point, there would have been no real need for their existence....except maybe to eat dead PLANTS??)  

Oh, but I am really getting off track here.  I did not intend this post to turn into a sermon!  I simply meant to convey how my thought processes are constantly changing!   I can hardly look an animal in the eye, now, knowing I am EATING their relatives!  Maybe I should determine that,  going forward, I will NOT eat anything that has eyes!? 

Oh, but wait a minute!  POTATOES HAVE EYES!! 
(But, they don't have "feelings"....do they??)   :-{