Meat and potatoes: The war of the main course
Love does not make the world go round, nor does the gravitational force of the sun or something else too complex for me to understand.
In fact, the only thing that makes the world go round besides fast food, inactivity and good television like Deal or No Deal (sarcasm alert) is the conflict between vegetarians and “meatarians.”
You may know them as carnivores or omnivores, but for the sake of pedantry, I’ll use the “scientific” term “meatarians.”
I will warn those of you who scoff at this issue and relegate it to low-class conflict status to think twice. This conflict arose the day humanity began.
A group of early cave dweller nutritionists – all promoting their own agendas and diet plans – met to establish what humans would be allowed to eat.
Eventually a temporary compromise was met allowing humans to eat vegetables, meat and other things as long as it was fried or covered with ketchup.
This agreement allowed humans to focus on fighting about more trivial things like religion, oppression, freedom and completely changed the landscape of history for the rest of … well, history.
Furthermore, those pushing for the diet of boogers, bugs and Hot Pockets were quickly stoned to death. That idea was almost as good as the invention of the wheel.
Obviously, this resolution did not last long enough as vegetarianism made great strides with the publication of “The Jungle,” the 1970s, and the guilt-inducing “Veggie-Tales” to present a viable threat to the oppressive meatarians.
Today, the conflict has sunk so low that meatarians have developed the BK Quad Stacker, while the green side recently lured Ruben Studdard to the world of salads, nuts and wheat germ. Ruben Studdard. Sick.
I see good points on both sides of the issue. However, my side of the issue is simple: I eat cows, chickens and pigs.
I eat anything that walks, swims or flies and is deemed kosher by our social norms and the law: I don’t eat bald eagles or my neighbors’ dogs.
However, it’s not so much that I’m a meatarian, it’s that I’m not a vegetarian.
I don’t understand vegetarians. They choose not to eat animals because they find it cruel and unnatural. However, vegetarians are willing to eat grass, nuts, fruits and vegetables – the animals’ food. That seems contradictory to me.
I would rather have somebody put an apple in my mouth and roast me than make me starve to death by eating my food supply. I’d taste good (I’m meat) and someone would be getting a little enjoyment out of the whole deal.
Actually, I’d rather they put a lamb chop in my mouth instead of an apple, though.
Though I may fall under the category of meatarian, some of our practices are a bit perplexing to me – particularly the hierarchy of our food on an economic level.
The most disgusting things are the most expensive foods.
Lobster (whose death I already analyzed in a previous column) is a big bug. Caviar is raw fish eggs (those globbery things that are fertilized by boy fish and develop into baby fish). Escargot and oysters are the incarnation of snot hidden inside shells.
All of these things can put a dent in anybody’s financial situation but Oscar Mayer hotdogs cost less than 25 cents each. Hmm, fishy. Which reminds me, mmm … fish.
If measures aren’t taken to reach another compromise like our great cavemen ancestors did, we will find ourselves in another world war. I don’t want to guess the winner because either way most of us will be disappointed.
We need to come together now for the sake of some of the easiest pleasures this world allows us to enjoy because though some would not like to admit it, vegetables and meat can live in harmony.
And who wants to live in a world where we can’t have a cheeseburger and fries, fish and chips or meat and potatoes?
Nobody, that’s who; nobody except vegetarians and strict meatarians.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum