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Chew on these facts about eating meat
AS an old man, George Bernard Shaw was faced with a horrific
choice - eat meat or die. ''Death is better than cannibalism,''
he told his doctors. ''Animals are my friends, and I don't
eat my friends.''
In his honour, animals followed his coffin - ''oxen, sheep,
flocks of poultry, and a small travelling aquarium of live
fish, all wearing white scarfs,'' exactly as his will had
stipulated.
Shaw's determination to stick to his principles has always
moved me, and I hadn't forgotten this story when I decided
to step aside from my own lifelong vegetarianism for a TV
game show.
In front of more than 10 million people, I ate live insects...
though even GBS didn't have cockroaches and wichetty grubs
marching in his cortege.
I had twin motives - to earn food for my companions, which
the rules of the game show demanded, and to raise cash for
my chosen charity, Children With Aids.
I don't regret what I did, though I do find these days that
in restaurants I check my Caesar salad more carefully than
before for hidden caterpillars.
The truth is that meat could not have prolonged Shaw's life
- or, at least, that he could have obtained the protein and
vitamins his body needed from any number of vegetable sources.
As the great playwright observed, plants are bursting with
goodness which corpses are not: ''Think of the fierce energy
concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it
explodes into an oak! Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but
decay.''
To eat meat, believe many doctors, is more dangerous than
parachute jumping or swimming with sharks. It's even more
dangerous than driving a car.
Dr Neal Barnard proclaimed: ''The beef industry has contributed
to more American deaths than all the wars of the last century,
all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.
If beef is your idea of 'real food for real people' you'd
better live real close to a real good hospital.''
And when scoffers tell me, ''Meat is good for you!'' I always
reply, ''It isn't good for the cow.''
The annual death toll of farm animals in the US alone dwarfs
the worldwide slaughter in the fur trade, the vivisectionists'
labs and pet pounds. About 50 million living creatures are
sacrificed each year for medical and cosmetics research; about
ten billion for our tables.
And those figures are just for the States. The toll in Europe
in no less sickening.
In the face of these statistics, it becomes plain that the
current campaign in Britain to ban kosher slaughter is not
about animal welfare. It's about religious prejudice.
A government advisory group, the Farm Animal Welfare Council,
is expected to call for an outright ban this month on shechita,
the Jewish tradition of slaughtering an animal by cutting
its throat while it is conscious.
At the same time, this quango will demand an end to halal
killing by Muslim butchers.
To a vegetarian, it is disgusting that any body calling itself
the Farm Animal Welfare Council can advocate any kind of killing.
The produce of any slaughterhouse is corpses - how much welfare
is there in that?
And to a Jew - or a Muslim - it is outrageous that a political
lobbying group should try to ban a spiritual ritual. There
is no difference between a meat-eater who denies Jews the
right to kosher meat, and a Christian who boards up the doors
to a synagogue.
Judy MacArthur Clarke, who chairs the FAWC, claims she is
making a reasonable decision: ''We have listened very carefully
to the evidence put forward by the religious communities and
have visited slaughterhouses and observed the methods used,''
she said. ''But we remain unconvinced that this is a humane
means of killing an animal.''
Her arrogance is enough to put you off your breakfast. Jewish
laws governing the slaughter of animals are the most stringent
and complete of any religion. The Bible teaches that they
were dictated to Moses by God. We have observed them for thousands
of years.
Who does Judy MacArthur Clarke think she is? The new Moses?
God? God's big sister?
But maybe I worry too much. Science will solve this problem,
as it promises to solve all the world's ills.
(Hint to new readers: I might not exactly mean that last
sentence. There could be some irony in the tone. And while
you're feeling sceptical, don't swallow all the following
facts without question.)
Dr Vincent Tartley, director of the UltraModAgri Group which
pioneers bio-engineering and gene modification in plants,
claims his researchers have developed a Meat Tree.
''We take the genes from cattle that produce key proteins
and splice them into the reproductive cells of grapefruit
trees,'' he told the Weekly World News. ''When the seeds mature
into trees, instead of producing ordinary citrus fruit, the
pulp contains meat. You get the flavour, texture - even the
smell. Those who've sampled the meat agree it tastes like
the real thing.''
A meatball wrapped in grapefruit rind? I've heard of blood
oranges but this sounds like the answer to everyone's problems.
No more shecita, no more halal, no more tofu.
Since DNA can be extracted from a few drops of animal saliva,
no farm animal will ever suffer again, not even the first
creature to donate its genes and be mated with a grapefruit
tree.
Oh rejoice, and praise the name of Judy MacArthur Clarke!
(Note: The Weekly World News is an American supermarket tabloid
which applies the same standards of truthfulness and fact-checking
that constrain the New York Times. Which means this story
is bound to be made up.)
Email
him at uri@urigeller.com
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