Meat Me in Montana

Hey! What are you doing? Are you checking out my marbling? Well cut that out! I’m not a piece of … well, you get the idea.

Big Bird has been pondering what new career opportunities might present themselves if his funding gets cut. Let’s put it like this: He doesn’t want to end up at Chick-Fil-A.

So, at his urging, it’s time for a post about your friend and mine. This post will explore a few randomized thoughts about meat. Some will be deadly serious and no joking matter. Some will be as frivolous as what you’ve come to expect from the likes of me. Some will be philosophical. And at least one will be a reveal of a personal nature. I hope you’ll find this post to be a cut above the rest.

Does this post have anything to do with Montana? Not really, if you get the cut of my jib.

Why does it feel like dairy farms only hire people who hate cows? #animal #abuse

— Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) October 13, 2012

Make the jump for the first cut-scene.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about hating one’s job. I get that. But taking it out on defenseless creatures? That just pisses me off.

In case you missed it, back in 2010, I wrote several times about a story where a worker at Conklin Dairy Ranch in Ohio went crowbar on cows. The worker was a man named Billy Joe who also aspired to be a cop. He and other workers were caught on undercover video by animal rights activists doing things to dairy cows like poking them with pitchforks, punching them in the face, stopping on their heads and beating them with crowbars. I dubbed the place “Crowbar Ranch.”

Now it has happened again. This time in Idaho.

Bettencourt Dairies, located in Murtaugh, Idaho, is a dairy farm with more than 60,000 cows. The diary farm is part of the supply chain for Burger King, In-And-Out and other food companies. After an animal rights group shot undercover video at the dairy three workers including a “low-level manager” are facing misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty.

The days of the crowbar almost seem nostalgic by comparison. One scene of animal cruelty on the video shows a cow chained by the neck and dragged by a tractor. Other footage includes stomping, beating and the twisting of tails.

She thinks my tractor’s sexy!!!

It’s so hard to get non-degenerate help these days.

Source: Los Angeles Times

—

Now that’s Gaga!

In personal news I recently “transitioned” from ovo-lacto pescetarianism to eating meat. That’s the polite way of saying I honked on some beef stick. And jerky and chicken and an open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy. My memory is a blur but I believe I mowed down a few hamburgers, too. There may have been a whole haggis in there somewhere.

Suffice it to say it’s been a busy 24 hours.

My streak ended at approx. 11 months. But at least I haven’t eaten steak.

My wife also recently succumbed. Score another notch in bacon’s belt. Her streak went three years.

Curse you, bacon!!

There are still several possibilities available to us. We recently watched a TED video where the speaker promoted the idea of being a “weekday vegetarian.” If that’s too hard core, there is also the idea of giving up meat only once a week. For example, “Meatless Monday.” That should be doable even for a weak-kneed bastard like myself.

We often get asked why we did it. For me, the answer is simple. I was just aping my wife. It was partially about health, especially after seeing the movie Forks Over Knives. One of the graphs they showed in that movie really got to me. It was also partially about a food cultivation system of questionable ethics. For those reasons we’ll both be working to get back on the program to some degree.

—

This section might be called: I Love Being The Bearer of Good News

Insects It’s What’s For Dinner. Insects: The other beef meat.

To the farmers and ranchers who hold so many of my cow brethren in captivity, I say only this: “Let my people go!”

Um, yeah. That came out wrong. But you know what I mean.

Some people say our food future will consist of insects. Say what? Yeah, it turns out that 10kg of feed will produce only 1kg of food and 9kg of “waste.” Yummo!

This data is based on a presentation by another one of those TED geniuses. He also says that beef requires the most land and water to produce. By necessity we’ll all soon be eating a lot more bugs. 80 percent of the world already voluntarily consumes insects as part of their diet. The rest, like us, only do it by accident or by snarky concealment.

Does that make you curious? See my previous post Buggin’ Out: Our insect future for a locust swarm of more information (and a link to the video) than you ever really wanted to know. You’ll soon be eating insects whether you want to or not so you might as well learn more. You’ll thank me for it!

—

With just a bit of imagination it’s easy to see how I might bring a special appreciation to the following ditty.