Hywel Pitts

eatmeat.

What would a cow do if it were free to roam the wild? Just… chill? Lie down in a field somewhere, masticating? Work on its tan?

I’m asking, because I don’t understand vegetarianism. I mean, I’m against animal cruelty; there’s not much that can provoke more disgust in me than some brainless prick on a power trip in an abattoir, kicking the shit out of some defenceless chicken before cooking it alive and sticking it in a Twister. Also, I was a vegetarian for a while, during my rebellious youth phase. But I wasn’t a vegetarian because of my beliefs, I was a vegetarian because a girl I fancied at the time challenged me to be one. And, you know, I’m fickle like that. Eager to impress.

It just seems to me that if an animal is selectively bred for generations, and is farmed for the sole purpose of being slaughtered for provisions, isn’t it crueller to not eat it? Isn’t it wasting that poor cow or sheep or chicken’s life, just letting it rot?

I understand that vegetarianism is a growing trend, it’s becoming more and more popular, what with all these sexy celebrity spokespeople preaching it… but the tragic reality of it is farmers aren’t slaughtering fewer animals. A single person becoming a vegetarian isn’t going to save a single cow from becoming a Big Mac. Activists should target the producer, not the consumer.

So I’m going to sit here, on National Vegetarian Week, eating my beef cutlets, clad in nought but leather, because if I don’t… some poor cow’s died for nothing. And if you think that’s abhorrent, then your compassion trumps your common sense.