Diet of Worms

Hosting a vegetarian and a sort-of vegetarian for the past few days has made me realize that I eat a lot of meat.

For instance, several times a week I mosey into Subway and order myself The Feast, a delicious sandwich that requires the flesh of no fewer than four different animals (pig, cow, chicken, turkey) to be donated. A similar conflation of meats occurred last night with the birth of a meat loaf, which presently ceased to exist when I shoveled it down my gullet a few moments later.

From time to time I consider my meat consumption, and it does strike me as odd that eating living beings doesn't bother me more. I like animals a lot, and I cringe when I witness the cruel treatment of one. Still, I am able to maintain the disconnect. I think this is, in large part, due to my tendency to be ridiculously adherent to logical consistency.

To explain, I must mention my brief obsession with Fruitarianism. Fruitarianism, in short, is the lifestyle requiring that we, as enlightened human beings, restrict our consumption to raw fruits. Fruitarians have many arguments for this dietary choice, but the most compelling point to me was this: to be a Fruitarian is to be one who does no harm when he eats. Fruit, after all, are meant to be eaten. The purpose of a fruit is to entice animals to eat it so that the seeds of the plant will be spread. Even eating a vegetable requires the harming of a plant, for a vegetable is part of the plant itself, an essential part that ensures its survival. Yes, for me it was Fruitarian or bust. I think you can guess which one it was.

In fact, I never even attempted Fruitarianism because after an hour of imagining myself surviving on apples, bananas and kiwi alone, I found myself craving a damn Slim Jim. I knew that I could never be a Fruitarian, but I also knew that I could never be anything less because it just wouldn't make sense to me. Why can I hurt this animal or plant, but not that one? So, I adopted, quite consciously, the philosophy of human superiority. Humans, I decided, are the only demonstrably conscious beings on Earth and therefore have a right to do to the non-conscious beings whatever we want. It sounds harsh and crazy, but it's true, I think. And look, if you actually enjoy causing pain to animals there is something quite deranged about you, but I really can't argue that animals have any "rights" per se.

I know I've probably infuriated the two (that I know of) vegetarian readers of this blog, but I hope that I haven't. This is not a comment on you, but rather an explanation of my own strange reasoning. Maybe think of it as me expurgating my omnivore's guilt. And let us remember, we'll all be the diet of worms. So there's some sort of retribution there, I guess. Or maybe one day the vegetarians will hold their very own Diet of Worms and excommunicate heretics like me from the Animal Kingdom. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll be reincarnated as a cantaloupe*, in which case I'll be fair game for even the Fruitarians.



*confession: it took me three tries to spell that correctly