Venturing into Vegetarianism

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 05/24/2008 7:34 AM  |  Health

A former carnivore explains her reasons for saying a permanent good-bye to meat.

 

It was sobering food for thought: The mass of blinking eyes coolly regarded me as I backed away with a mixture of horror and stunned fascination.

I had come across 20 or so live (and some not so live) chickens tied crudely together by the feet and hanging upside down over either side of the seat of a parked motorbike that was in my path. Dead birds walking, or hanging in this case, they were on the way to their final destination, and I was their last ray of hope, a gutless Canadian who was not used to meeting her meat on the street.

Though I was outraged seeing their inhumane treatment, this shocking method of transportation for live animals, I would not be their savior that day and set them free. They were just chickens, I thought. I didn’t even demur to having fried chicken breast for dinner that night, but that sight in the market did affect me over time and made me think more about what I eat.

It has also become a familiar anecdote that I cite when asked why I chose to become a vegetarian. Eventually, I did put one and one together and realized that the chicken dinner on the plate in front of me would have had the same miserable ride against a burning muffler, suffered rope burns and come up against a terrifying ‘executioner’ at the end of the line in a crude slaughterhouse.

This would have been the end of its sad existence before winding up on someone’s dinner table. It also made me think: Is it OK to treat other forms of life however we wish just because our lives seem so much more important? Animals have no say in the matter, but what if they did? What would they say to us if they were given a voice?

I came to Indonesia a meat-eater. With no daily reminders in Canada of how the meat arrived on my plate, I carried on my carnivorous way of life in my new surroundings without hesitation. My turning point didn’t come that day with the chickens in the market, but when a new work colleague told me she didn’t eat meat. In searching for common ground, I told her about the unfortunate stray cats I liked to help.

“In Australia, cats and dogs have everyone’s regard, but cows, chickens and pigs have similar behavioral traits, so why should we treat them any differently?” she replied.

This conjured up the memory of the blinking eyes pleading from their unenviable position slung over the seat of the motorbike. No one would have allowed cats or dogs to be transported in this manner, and I know I would have screamed bloody murder if I had seen Puss or Fido in that precarious situation instead of some chickens.

The world was starting to look all wrong as I caught my first glimpse of the double standard in the way I viewed animals.

“So, what do you eat?” I asked her, marveling at the solid build of my new vegetarian friend. Frankly, I was amazed that a person didn’t just ‘fade away’ without the consumption of fleshy protein. And skeptical. Surely, one couldn’t survive, not comfortably at least, without meat.

“Lots of things,” she answered.

She said most recipes could be easily ‘vegetarianized’ by using a little imagination. For example, substitute tofu, mushrooms or beans for the meat in spaghetti sauces, stews and chili. Her views on animal equality and not just affording humane treatment to our domestic short-haired companions had opened my mind to a new truth, one that had been buried by my parents and culture while growing up. Now I understood: All forms of life deserve humane treatment.

Several months later, I was attending a seminar hosted by the Indonesian Vegetarian Society. One of the speakers from Singapore singled me out from among the meat-eaters in the audience, putting his hand gently on my shoulder while saying in a kind tone: “You will become a vegetarian. You don’t have to go cold turkey,” he added with a smile, amused at his own joke, “but set a date for yourself and steadily cut down on your meat intake until then.” So, I did.

The downside: It wasn’t as hard crossing over to the other side as I had expected. I thought I would see immediate good health from my conversion; instead, I was going down a few dress sizes. It seemed that cutting meat out of my diet meant there weren’t many choices left on the menu at local eateries. I made do with French fries or salad, and filled up on Diet Coke. Waiters would politely raise their eyebrows and muster an “Oh” when I explained I didn’t want any meat or fish. Then they would suggest a dish with chicken or bakso in it. At this point, I would let my head hit the table with a thud and sigh, “Just a salad then, please.”

All my friends were supportive. Without me asking or even suggesting, most would join me in ordering meatless dishes when we ate together. But some people were insensitive, and even bizarre in their reactions to my eating discipline, such as one colleague, who when I first told her I was vegetarian, exclaimed with a feverish zeal that humans were meant to eat meat because we were born with incisors.

This fact would be passionately brought up again and again, as if she felt her point had fallen on deaf ears. And it had. Then there were a couple of colleagues who enjoyed subjecting me to their conspiring banter about every kind of meaty indulgence they could think of in a volume that confirmed their obvious attempt to rile me. Immaturity knows no boundaries, it seems.

My meat-at-every-meal German father laughed outright at the news, but then voiced a strong protest when I passed on his homemade goose organ soup, with its big globules of fat floating all over the surface. “Hey, it’s good soup. You don’t know what you’re missing.” I was now a rebel in his eyes, a deviant.

Bringing it home: An influential teacher I had once told our class, “If you ever visit a slaughterhouse, you will walk out a vegetarian.” This statement, however, would sadly not apply to my highly practical but crusty father.

A teenager during World War II, he beheaded some of the carcasses placed on our dinner table, pulling the guts out first in our laundry room. The rest of the family hated this, but would always endure and sullenly eat dinner afterward.

After retirement, my father devoted his time to raising beef cattle on his hobby farm. A dear friend would ask my father on each visit, “How can you eat your pets?” It made us all laugh every time she asked because of her simple honesty.

He never quite knew what to say to her, so he would just chuckle uncomfortably before leaving the room when no one was looking. Each year, my father chose one of his ‘pets’ for slaughter and the same butcher company he always accused of ripping him off was summoned to pick it up.

It was a familiar sight in spring, that rusty livestock truck gingerly rolling back over the rutted ground of the field near the barn, while my father and brother engaged in a comical struggle to move the giant creature, which would buck and pull back desperately on the rope tied around its neck.

My father would later remark with respect that the unfortunate animal knew its fate -- it knew the truck wouldn’t bring it back alive, so it fought hard for its life. In defiance of this practice, my sister refused to eat beef from the age of 13, and she was relieved I was now by her side to add strength to the protest. A change had taken place in me after living in Jakarta and becoming a vegetarian: my sensitivity level had risen sharply and seeing a cow’s departure was as upsetting to me as witnessing chickens dangling off the backs of motorbikes.

Last year came the amazing news that my father was giving up raising cattle – he had sold the entire herd! Apparently, the American beef market, which he and two other farmers in our area supplied, wasn’t offering enough cash to make raising cattle worthwhile.

I had won, or so it seemed. There were other changes to note; his rough and tumble cowboy demeanor was gone, and he confessed that he liked eating falafel. I no longer had reason to harass him.

He missed his cows, he admitted. I reassured him he had made a good decision, and was even helping the environment as the breeding of these methane-dispensers contributed more to global warming than vehicle emissions. I also pointed out how grateful his arteries would be without that extra cholesterol and fat clogging them from consuming outrageous amounts of dead flesh.

He just nodded, popped some more peanuts into his mouth and said impatiently, “Ya, ya, thanks for that. Now shut up, the news is on.”

During a commercial break, he spilled the truth and delivered a last stab: “You know, (I got rid of them because) I just don’t get a thrill out of killing anymore.”

He looked sideways at me to catch my reaction, but I wouldn’t give him the pleasure. I reasoned I could still claim victory in this one, because half of the winning is in knowing who you are and turning the other cheek when people knock you for what you believe in.

+ Maria Kegel
Illustration by Admira Pustika

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