Wash ,'Bushwhacked'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
for some kids there's definitely a difference between knowing that hamburgers come from cows and knowing that hamburgers come from cows
This. Of course, for some, there's little problem with the chicken=chicken strips thing, because chickens are not cuddly creatures. Cows, though, have big brown eyes and can be petted. Few modern kids are able to pet the big, warm, fuzzy critter while thinking peacefully, "I'm gonna eat you!"
A friend of mine's mom used to raise chickens. Once some of her nieces and nephews were over, and they got all excited that she was gonna kill a chicken. So they followed her outside, where she grabbed a chicken, stepped on its head and yanked its body up to break the neck.
There were several shocked and no longer excited children....
I'm a city kid. We'd toss live lobsters in boiling water and then eat 'em with melted butter every summer.
Yummers.
Granted, we didn't pet the lobster and give it treats.
Cows, though, have big brown eyes and can be petted. Few modern kids are able to pet the big, warm, fuzzy critter while thinking peacefully, "I'm gonna eat you!"
From my experience, cows are stupid animals that occasionally step on your feet and won't get off, and on rare occasions attack you for no reason. So that helps with the eating of them.
edit for clarity.
Granted, we didn't pet the lobster and give it treats.
And you didn't need to name it, since all lobsters are named "Larry".
(This particular 8 year-old boy's bout with vegetarianism ended after he realized it would involve eating vegetables.)I bet that's been at the heart of a lot of failed childhood conversions to a vegetarian diet.
But you're not confronted with the physical reality of it if you're a typical city kid. Or so I'd guess.
Maybe. I don't know. I grew up 10 miles north of Boston, in a small city. There was a dairy farm about a mile up the street, but it was an oddity, even then. Now they board horses and sell mulch and loam. Other than my trips to dad's cousin's farm (which was a dairy farm), I didn't have a country lifestyle. It never bothered me as a kid. It probably is something I think about more now (as in, should I go veg). Of course, even as a toddler I ate lobster and steamers from the time they were offered, so I probably wasn't typical.
Granted, we didn't pet the lobster and give it treats.
Of course not, silly. Lobsters are for chasing.
OTOH, the first time I had lobster (I was maybe about 12) I got to pick it out of a tank first. Then when it arrived on my plate I couldn't eat it, as I had seen it alive minutes before.
Hmmm. I guess I got used to the concept of seeing live cows and eating them at a young age, but throw a new animal into the mix and my 'ewww' at eating an animal suddenly emerged.
It's not the conversion of animals to meat that bugs me (IOW, I can go to the fair and look at the livestock and not be upset that Bossy and Babe will soon be food), it's how they're converted. Which is why I buy organic/free-range, I guess.
cows are stupid animals that occasionally step on your feet and won't get off, and on rare occasions attack you for no reason.
Dad!