Monday, August 13, 2007

Serving Cow

Why is it that if you say you are serving beef that it is no big deal, but if you say you are serving cow then it suddenly becomes personal? I mean other than people who don't eat meat, I'm sure it wouldn't bother anybody to agree to eat hamburgers or steaks. But who can honestly, with absolutely no emotions or reservations, agree to eat cow?! It is the same with another meat as well. We might have no problem with bacon or ham or pork, but pig?

I think the name of the animal somehow conjures a picture of a live animal. We can picture a cow standing in the field eating grass or a pig flopping around in the mud. Whereas, the products from the animal conjure...well, just products. We seem to simply ignore where the products came from and think that they just picked them off of a hamburger or bacon plant. Nobody was harmed...all is well in the world!

And yet there are meat products like chicken or fish or deer or buffalo that don't seem to have this same response on us. We can picture a chicken running around the yard or a fish dangling on a line, and think how good it would be in a cream of mushroom or lemon sauce.

Why is that?

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