How are people not grossed out by preparing/cooking meat?

ewa-jo

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 12:45 pm

shalhevet wrote:

Some people have valid reasons to be vegetarian, but if you or anyone in your family needs meat or poultry or prefers it lichvod Shabbos or YT, you are not doing something admirable, but rather playing the spoiled princess at other people's (or mitzvas) expense.

If you want to get used to it, you will (I also found it hard the first few times).

I buy frozen meat and plop it into the crockpot as a block of ice. I won't touch it otherwise.

DH gets meat dishes and he is happy, but I would never buy a whole chicken and cut it up with a knife or anything like that.

I'm libertarian, so I respect his right to be a adult and choose his meals.

My kids eat meat when DH gives it to them. Once in a while, I give them shnitzel (the pre-made stuff... obviously) but usually they eat what I eat just because they're around me more. When they get older, they'll get to choose what they want to eat. (my oldest is 3years2months...mind you)

I dunno, I kinda think that a vegetarian who is disgusted by meat can refuse to cook it for her DH... the same way a wife can refuse something in bed that she's not comfortable with... why should making him happy make her miserable, right?

ewa-jo

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 12:52 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

You tear an apple off a tree. There is an audible snap as the limb holding the child to its parent severs. You bite into the apple. There is a loud crunch as its flesh tears apart. The juices that were carrying nutrients to its heart drip down your hand. You then discard the seeds, the potential life of a baby tree.

You can't hear the apple trees screaming as their babies are taken from them. You can't hear the apple screaming as you rip it apart. But that doesn't mean they aren't screaming.

I'll bite. (lol)

An apple's flesh doesn't resemble mine. It doesn't have bones and skin and muscle and blood like me. A cow (or other kosher animal) does.

sarahd

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 12:55 pm

celestial wrote:

Hmm, I thought the Torah encouraged us to be aware of what we were eating, and that animals used to be living? I thought living a Torah lifestyle meant trying your best not to be an "insensitive clod"? Forgive me for taking your words at face value, but laughing at the idea of sensitivity does not negate it is an important way to live our lives as servants of Hashem.

Where does the Torah encourage us to be aware that the meat we eat used to be alive? Can you point me to the pasuk?

I don't find it necessary to be more sensitive than Hashem, who created these beings for man to eat (or to bring as korbanos to Him.)

imamiri

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 1:02 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Watching footage of factory farming, with these animals who never have a normal life and are then slaughtered, can bring tears to my eyes. Free-range animals who are raised on a family-run farm or ranch have good lives, at least.

Death is never a happy occasion.

Having food to eat is a happy occasion.

I am sad that the best way for people to be healthy is by killing and eating other living things. But I'm still going to put MY health first. Law of the jungle.

And now, I have a question for the vegetarians: Don't you care that every time you eat a fruit or vegetable you are killing it?

You tear an apple off a tree. There is an audible snap as the limb holding the child to its parent severs. You bite into the apple. There is a loud crunch as its flesh tears apart. The juices that were carrying nutrients to its heart drip down your hand. You then discard the seeds, the potential life of a baby tree.

You can't hear the apple trees screaming as their babies are taken from them. You can't hear the apple screaming as you rip it apart. But that doesn't mean they aren't screaming.

In every leaf of every plant there is a spark of soul, which you snuff out when you kill it.

If you're OK with eating plants, I don't see why you're not OK with eating animals.

Apples are not sentient beings.

amother

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 1:05 pm

I stopped eating meat because I objected to factory farming, not eating animals per se. I still eat eggs and dairy, but I do this as a concession to my family. I'd rather stop. Shechita doesn't bother me nor does any other method of humane killing. It's how we get there. It's a tzaar baalei hayim issue.

I have found that I've unintentionally become disgusted by meat over the past few years. I won't cook it for my husband, but he's fine with only eating meat when we eat out or he brings something home. He'll bring it home for shabbat or whenever, and I'll just eat pareve. No big deal.

AlwaysGrateful

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 2:30 pm

I have a question for all of you vegetarians out there, and please believe me, this is not a bashing question. It would belong in a "respectfully learning about vegetarians" question. (although I guess it would only apply to people who don't eat any animals, as opposed to people who would have no problem eating free-range animals, or whatever).

When the bais hamikdash returns, will you bring karbanos? And eat them? Is that somehow different? Will you eat the karban pesach on Pesach? And if you'd choke it down...would you feel it was barbaric?

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 3:01 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

I come from a long line of butchers/shochtim on both sides of my family. Its in my blood.

I've actually been to a slaughterhouse and thought it was pretty interesting.

Some animals just gross me out - eels for example. Or lobster (like big cockeroaches!) Its not logical.

My cousin became a vegetarian because she went to feed the ducks in the pond and hten realized they were "duck" she had eaten.

Have you ever read "The carp in the bathtub"? Two children try to stop their mother from using a fish that she brings home (and keeps in the bathtub until she is ready to use it) and wants to make gefilte fish out of it. The children try to stop her. At the end of the book, the girl (now a grandmother) says that she never ended up eating gefilte fish.

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 3:08 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Here is your answer:
http://youtu.be/Ov5Jgw_Nwx4

ElTam

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 3:53 pm

I go off and on with it. When I am PG, forget about it. DH I can barely manage it cooked, much less raw. When DH cuts up chicken sometimes, I have to leave the table.

I was a vegetarian for four years (figured I needed meat less than animals liked being alive) and could be again on my own but with picky husband, picky children, one child with a very limited diet due to allergies, I can't manage cutting meat out of our diet.

I don't think it is desensitization...I think it it is compartmentalization. We learn not to connect one with the other. And in our daily lives, how many of us interact with chickens or cows? We interact, maybe, with animals we would never eat--dogs, cats, etc.--which makes it easier to compartmentalize.

Mrs Bissli

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 4:33 pm

Another "food for thought" question. How about leather, do sensitive vegetarians consider about dead cow hide whenever you see leather shoes or handbags or a teffilin straps?

I agree with the view that the "gross" factor has more to do with familiarity of where the food comes from. Real food comes in gross status. If you're accustomed to pre-packged cold cuts or pre-cooked schnitzels sold in supermarket's frozen food section, it's surely no surprise if you see what the actual liver or chicken giblet looks like.

I do enjoy occasional meat or chicken, but don't make a habit of eating them during the week because of environmental concerns (animal protein takes so much more natural resources). And I'm rather fond of milky teas.

sequoia

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 4:56 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

saw50st8 wrote:

I loved that book! His name was Joe, I think... I was also really sad when he was made into gefilte fish.

celestial

Mon, Feb 20 2012, 5:16 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

I agree with you up until "law of the jungle". Humans are given brains, reason, compassion, and G-d intends for us to use them.

As for your subsequent "argument", if you can even call it that (I find most people intuitively understand the difference between torturing animals and plants, so I assume from a normal person this is more teasing than a discussion) - Animals have central nervous systems, just like human beings, and exhibit signs of pain, suffering, emotion, fear. Especially mammals like cows, who have been known to jump fences when their fowls are taken from them to be slaughtered, or cry in line for the slaughter. Even in the rare, illogical scenario that animals only show signs of pain and don't actually experience it or are not conscious of it (how would that aid their survival in the natural world, exactly?), the Torah teaches us to be compassionate anyway, because of our humanity, not because of their animal-ness. Even the capital punishment, something the Torah advocates as part of our punitive system if a person is truly guilty of certain things, is something Rabbi Akiva feels is spiritually harmful on the part of the slaughterer. In other words, just because G-d deems someone should die or experience pain, who says it has to be through me?