222 animal, vegetable, miracleIf I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a
pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water
nearby and trees for shade. And I am getting almost as fussy about food
plants.”
I find myself fundamentally allied with a vegetarian position in every
way except one: however selectively, I eat meat. I’m unimpressed by argu-
ments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the ani-
mal killing that underwrites vegetal foods. Uncountable deaths by
pesticide and habitat removal—the beetles and bunnies that die collater-
ally for our bread and veggie- burgers—are lives plumb wasted. Animal
harvest is at least not gratuitous, as part of a plan involving labor and rec-
ompense. We raise these creatures for a reason. Such premeditation may
be presumed unkind, but without it our gentle domestic beasts in their
picturesque shapes, colors, and finely tuned purposes would never have
had the distinction of existing. To envision a vegan version of civilization,
start by erasing from all time the Three Little Pigs, the boy who cried
wolf, Charlotte’s Web, the golden calf, Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Next, erase
civilization, brought to you by the people who learned to domesticate ani-
mals. Finally, rewrite our evolutionary history, since Homo sapiens became
the species we are by means of regular binges of carnivory.
Most confounding of all, in the vegan revision, are the chapters ad-
dressing the future. If farm animals have civil rights, what aspect of their
bondage to humans shall they overcome? Most wouldn’t last two days
without it. Recently while I was cooking eggs, my kids sat at the kitchen
table entertaining me with readings from a magazine profile of a famous,
rather young vegan movie star. Her dream was to create a safe- haven
ranch where the cows and chickens could live free, happy lives and die
natural deaths. “Wait till those cows start bawling to be milked,” I warned.
Having nursed and weaned my own young, I can tell you there is no pain
to compare with an overfilled udder. We wondered what the starlet might
do for those bursting Jerseys, not to mention the eggs the chickens would
keep dropping everywhere. What a life’s work for that poor gal: traipsing
about the farm in her strappy heels, weaving among the cow fl ops, bend-
ing gracefully to pick up eggs and stick them in an incubator where they