Making the connection

Bear with me on this entry... When I first decided to eat a vegetarian diet, I was doing it for health reasons. However, there is the unavoidable fact that when we eat meat and dairy products, animals are involved (and I suppose that's a euphemism... they actually die for us to eat). Until last September, I didn't really question what I was eating or think about it too much. I generally ate healthy but "treated" myself to BBQ, ice cream, chicken popcorn poppers from Sonic. Some people might see animal rights issues and health as distant relatives. Believe me, I used to roll my eyes when I would see a PETA commercial or billboard. But the more information I expose myself to regarding the treatment of the animals we eat, the more connections I am making. Animals suffer on factory farms so that our children can have some chicken nuggets and cheese burgers (that will eventually clog their arteries if they eat enough of them and make them suffer). I was discussing a strange irony with my husband the other day that when you have a raw piece of chicken in your hands, most people cringe (and wash their hands thoroughly to prevent disease), yet thirty minutes later after a stint in the oven, that same piece of flesh is considered delish. I also have been thinking about the connection between the way animals are treated on farms (how they develop diseases, both physical and psychological) and the plethora of human diseases resulting from our overconsumption of animal products. I could go on and on about this subject (don't worry, I won't), and let's be clear, I am not criticizing people who eat meat (as I was doing for most of my life). I am simply asking you to think about the food you eat, where it comes from, and the sacrifices that were made to put it on your plate.