Eating things with a face

Last week I went to eat oysters at the Ferry Building in San Francisco which has a lot of high quality food shops. Next door to the Cowgirl Creamery is a butcher shop with cuts of meats on display. Although I enjoy the flavor of beef, this image looks scary to me. The blood, the hooks, the carnage. The shank on the left looks like a face from a horror movie.

Kiki and I have often discussed the idea that people would be less inclined to eat an animal, or they would at least be less wasteful, if they had to kill the animal themselves. At most grocery stores cuts of meat are sliced and wrapped in plastic which, I think, psychologically distances us from the steps to bring meat to your table.

Personally, I don’t have a problem killing an oyster and eating it. Same for a fish. Personally slaughtering a cow? I don’t know if I’d have the heart for it. But a chicken? I think I could do it, but only for a special occasion and giving thanks to the spirit of the chicken.

I know that not eating meat lessens suffering in the world. I’m still working on eating responsibly. Seeing pictures like this helps me.