On the Joy of Meat
Posted: 12 Apr 2008 07:32 AM CDT

Remember the post I wrote about the Canadian radio show that featured a butcher who used to be a vegetarian and the author of Carnivore Chic? Well, they're back, and though you undoubtedly will find their sentiments and their sensibilities offensive, what's important is the message.

In "Rediscovering the Joy of Meat" by Allison Hanes in yesterday's Canadian National Post, we (re)visit The Healthy Butcher.

Here are the highlights, for me, that make me more certain than ever that talk of animal welfare rather than liberation has been a complete failure:

It is just one example of a recent revival of the joys of carnivorous eating.
Butcher shops are the new shopping grounds of a hip, elite and socially conscious clientele. Full-fledged meatfests are back in vogue as community events.
Perhaps more significant, even some vegetarians are abandoning the moral high ground to emerge from their meatless exile.
"I do think something fundamental has shifted in our culture," said Susan Bourette, the Toronto-based author of Carnivore Chic: From Pasture to Plate, the Search for the Perfect Meat, who said that a lot of the shift began, ironically, with the vegeterian movement.

It is not that eating meat ever fell out of favour, she said, but it definitely went out of fashion for a spell with all the fuss about what the industrial food complex was doing to the environment, waistlines and health.

Now meat is in again, she said – and people are consuming it, albeit more discriminatingly, guilt free and with a renewed gusto.

The author of The Shameless Carnivore, Scott Gold, said: "Vegetarianism I suppose became equated with being more emotionally or morally evolved, but now the tide is really turning. If you try grass-fed, locally, humanely raised meat, it's not only significantly better for your health, it's better for the animal. It's not just good for the environment, but also, ultimately, once again, it all comes down to taste."
I recently posted on Rethos: "Is Compassion Carnivore an Oxymoron?" If you're being honest with yourself, you'll admit that it is.