I, too, was uncomfortable with the comparisson to the lammedvavniks. I believe that eating meat is a moral concession. The comment was meant to make visible the amount of work that goes into meat production that is usually invisible…but I agree it was overstated and inappropriate.

For some, eating meat is not good nutrition. For a large number of others, eating _some_ meat is healthy. (I strive to eat it only on Shabbat). A diet that includes some meat is also part of a balaced local foodshed that includes dairy and manure for crop fertilization. In addition, I believe strongly that meat from nearby is a better way to get protein than tofu made from chinese or GM soybeans.

About the vegetarians eating turkey: Our current industrial food system offers a conscientious person very few options. I was a vegetarian for 8 years because I didn’t want to have any degree of participation or endorsement of CAFOs and their environmental and social violence. But giving peopel another option is exciting. I fully respect people who don’t want to kill (altho know that if you eat dairy, the boy animals born to the lactating cows and goats are killed, and so you’re not really ‘not participating’ in killing animals unless you’re a vegan). But if it can be done in the best possible way — healthy for the land, the farmer, and the eaters, I am proud to bring this alternative to folks. None of us should be too dogmatically stuck in our opinions to not have them shaken up after a while. If all those folks who ate turkey went back to being a vegetarian afterwards, I still applaud their openmindedness.

Finally, I support your call for more conversation about food justice and environmental issues. We have a lot of work to do!

Two public remarks at the Food Conference were disturbing to me.
1) People were asked to stand up in many categories such as new attendees, those who attended all three years, those who were Rabbis or Cantors, etc. Then there were questions about who had eaten the turkeys.One was:
“If you are a vegetarian but ate the turkey, please stand-up.” These people received a lot of applause. I would wager you would not ask something like “If you are usually Kosher but eat treif too, please stand-up”. If this was asked, I don’t think people would applaud. Then one speaker compared the work of the 25 people who shechted and prepared the turkeys to the “36″ the righteous persons who hold up the world. Really? First of all the identity of the 36 are never to be known, but I think they have more serious and world saving work to do rather than participate in the killing of any living beings. I hope that the 2009 conference will put more emphasis on healing and repairing the world by working to reduce world hunger and environmental damage rather than so much time, effort and talk about “sustainable” meat. I hope we can be less elitist and more open to the suffering of both people and animals.

Thanks for participating on the farm and for your thoughtful post. I couldn’t have said it better myself. We need to take responsibility for the meat we eat, to eat less of it, and to treat the animals with kavod, rather than as commodities. Yesher koach to everyone working to raise consciousness and change the system.

And the turkey was, indeed, delicious!

See you on the farm next year. :-)

~Roger

I will echo Fern and Nadya as a vegetarian who welcomes your words. This has been my frustration lo these almost 20 years (!) I’ve been a vegetarian. If people can’t handle killing it, they shouldn’t eat it. Now, I personally would still not eat the above turkey, but I would have far fewer qualms about you eating it :).

Funnily we just re-watched the clip from Michael Moore’s film “Roger & Me” where the woman skins the rabbit, which seems to bother everyone so deeply.

On a similar note, just read “My Year of Meats”, and if ever there was a vivid and moving picture of the impacts of CAFO and the repercussions of the perception of cheap meat as a right, that is IT (and great for those who can only pay attention to narratives, like me).

While we in the food movement may disagree on whether or not to eat meat, it’s nice to have places in the where we can have overlap on trends and practices.

As a vegetarian, I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment and commend you for being one of the few (it seems) meat eaters who really “gets” the above idea. I’m not a militant vegetarian, but I think its nuts to want to eat meat ans simultaneously want to be totally disconnected from the meat production process.

I think your point about eating less meat is also a good one. It’s better for the environment to raise and process meat on a smaller scale, it’s better for the animals, and it’s better for people’s health to eat meat in moderation. I wish I could remember the rabbi who I originally heard this sentiment from, but he pointed out that eating fleishig meals every night for dinner is a relatively new occurrence in the Jewish community. Just a few generations ago meat was too expensive and too scarce to eat it as often as American Jews eat it today.