908 --

Well, we cook our meat before we eat it, for starters.

The original post here was about aggression toward toys, and I had in mind, for instance, my girls' occasionally throwing a stuffed elephant across a room. I guarantee you we have never eaten elephant around here! So I would not expect the girls to love or not love the elephant based on anything related to its soul. We do eat things like chicken, beef, pork -- you name it, we are carnivores for sure and omnivores overall. Both my husband and I are recovering vegetarians, and I hope that's one thing our girls will never be -- it's unhealthy, and I consider it child abuse to remain vegan during pregnancy or to nurse and raise a child on a diet devoid of animal products. Check out:


http://www.westonaprice.org
and


http://www.ninaplanck.com


to find out why we need to consume animal/dairy products. I have a feeling you're a veg, and my experience has been that adding some animal products in to my diet has been good for my health -- both physical and mental.

Now, had the post been about something else, you might have heard me mentioning how my daughters insist on taking about 10 stuffies apiece to bed with them at night, and how they each have their favorites which they love and cherish. How they adore our dogs and cat. And so forth. But this post was about -- well, "agressive behavior toward toys" -- so the example I put forth involved just that.

I am a big believer in what you suggest -- that the means required to achieve the ends of all that we see in the supermarket at the meat and poultry counters is not humane. My decision to stop eating meat for many years was based on a moral analysis with which you would probably agree. However, I had a conversion that was related to my own research and personal experience, and made a decision that's been a good one for me. (I'll also mention that it's a good one for my girls as they rarely get sick -- this is probably rooted in many choices we have made, but animal products do deliver nutrients that plant products cannot -- I worked in a health-food store for a long time and the sickest people, mentally and physically -- and both customers and employees, were the vegans, followed by the vegetarians; this experience was certainly involved in my decision to return to meat-eating.)

I do avoid the feedlot beef and commercial dairy as much as possible; we often buy grassfed beef and pork from a farmer who uses a wonderful abbatoir (a small, artisinal slaughterhouse) and we give thanks to the animal for his life and for his death, which helps to sustain and nourish us. As important is both the farmer's and the abattoir's attitude toward killing these animals, which is not one motivated by a bottom line, but by solid moral -- and spiritual -- principles.

My daughters can be, and are now, both carnivores and animal lovers. When they are older, we will certainly explain to them, without any euphemistic thinking, what we eat and where it comes from. I hope by then we can live on a farm where they can participate in the growing and raising of their own food. Just as I hope they will be able to see how animals arrive in this world, I hope that they will be able, one day, to accompany a beeve they have helped raise to be slaughtered.

Perhaps you have a personal gripe with me and therefore wrote this rather odd and anonymous post, perhaps you really believe what you say. I would guess a bit of both. I have tried to consider what you wrote without emotion, but I do have to laugh at the idea of our daughters' going out into the world laden with the "energy of death and fight" -- well, I disagree. They do have a lot of energy, but it's a very happy and positive one.

I apologize for the confusion caused by my earlier post, and hope you'll consider learning more about what health benefits lie only in the consumption of quality meats and dairy products,

Laura