The metaphysics of meat



     “What does it say about us?” – that idea.  What does it say about us that we idly consume products made with misery?  I’m talking about mass production of beef in the world.  Harm to the animal, harm to world and harm to us.  Usual disclaimer: I do eat meat.

     This is an old argument.  Who wants to hear it?  Lines already drawn.  What have I to offer to the conversation?  Well, I offer to explore the idea of something being imbued.  Malcolm Gladwell (love him or hate him or be indifferent to him) covered something similar to this concept in Blink, where you have the phenomenon of experts of, say, Greek sculpture being able to discern professionally-rendered fakes at a mere glimpse.  This ability comes from years of experience and dealing in a very material specialty – that which is carved in stone.

     So too beef, where animals stressed at the time of slaughter have higher levels of adrenaline which transferred to the meat and effects the taste and quality.  This is a very real.  This is the taste of fear – imbued in the meat.

     What of the vibe?  Here we go metaphysical, which means leaving the materialist crowd behind, though, well, alas, yes it means leaving them behind.  But if you’re religious or spiritual or just feel a connection to nature, then hear me out.

     Our actions are recorded on what we touch and on things we interact with.  For an extreme example, think of a murder house and how you would feel being given the keys and told it was yours to live in – never mind if it was haunted or built on a cemetery.  Even muting the spiritual or religious, isn’t it still creepy?

     So apply that to meat, beef.  There’s a time in a factory farmed cows life when all is well, say, sunrise on a warm day, the trough freshly filled.  Then there is the crowded conditions, the abuse suffered at the hands of violent workers, and the eventual, walk into a facility resounding with scared, spooked fellow creatures, terror building until – stunned – and killed.

     Then the meat, with terror tangible in it, is processed in fluorescent-lit environments by employees treated like cattle themselves, put into/onto plastic and Styrofoam, frozen, shipped and put into containers with images decrying a that what is seen is only a serving suggestion.

     Are all these steps in the process imprinted in the meat?  Are they imbued?  At the very least the meat as an artifact itself does represent the industry, those types of jobs, and the economic system as a whole – an economic system that endorses and abets this production method.  Are these concepts recorded in the meat?  There is the leap.  But a purchase of the meat by an individual is, like the government, a condoning of all those systems and behaviors – massive fossil fuels intensive farms, exploitative shift-work and the blurring of the lines when it comes to the health of a populace and the health of the industry.