Chicken Love & The Pony Express

Who among us can stand up, honestly, confidently and raise their hand crying out in all sincerity “NO, I have never loved a Chicken” – Oh I imagine that would be a pretty exclusive club, I can barely envision the vast, rich tapestry that weaves itself around our various stories of true chicken love…. I beg of you, please keep your criticisms and judging to yourself, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, what’s not to like about Chickens?

For now though, put that on hold, we’ll come back to the Chickens, I promise. Tonight, I had my first Vegetarian Dinner. Technically, I suppose – not really – there have been many nights, too numerous to count when my dinner was liquid, eventually ending up in blackouts…. come to think of it, that was how I met Darla in the first place, but no – that is not what I want to talk about, that is a private, personal matter between a man and his poultry. I was explaining that there had been nights over the years when dinner was nothing more than a salad and some artisan bread or a nice Pasta Primavera or Veggie Burgers. So technically no, this was not my first vegetarian meal. BUT, it was the first vegetarian meal I had eaten after consciously and publicly stating that I was trying to become a vegetarian.

I don’t care for your assumptions and I can assure you the decision to stop eating meat has in no way anything whatsoever to do with Darla. Don’t judge me, it’s her personality which has ensnared me…certainly not her plentiful, juicy breasts or firm, rounded, meaty thighs….

I don’t know where this will lead, as I’ve mentioned previously I have always been most comfortable firmly planted within the carnivores camp, singing meat songs around the campfire – going so far as to have been the flag bearer for the Meat Games back in 1995. However, after all these surgeries and procedures and prescriptions and needles and waiting rooms and million dollar machine scans etc etc…. What could it hurt to try and take a preventative, proactive, protective policy from now on? Go on the offensive, stop ingesting so many chemicals, steroids, nitrates, dyes and who knows what else… to see if it makes a difference. Everything I’ve read, seen and heard says it will make an almost immediate difference… Relax, it’s not my intention to suddenly dump my wardrobe, tie-dye everything I own, slide into Birkenstocks and start rocking a thin straggly ponytail… Now, I said it’s not my intention but who knows, perhaps it’s a little-published side effect of eating vegetarian…. being overcome by hippy tendencies.

To be completely honest one of the things that had always kept me from eating better was the cost. I know, I know – very lame excuse but true. I can buy a loaf of Wonder Bread for under a dollar, but the whole grain, ancient grains, 12 grain “health bread” is almost 5 dollars. Organic Beef, Pork, Chicken is consistently nearly double the price of regular corporate-farmed meat. Organic Vegetables are always priced at a premium… I saw some statistics that said in 1960 the average household spent roughly 35% of their income on food…. today that average has dropped to 13%.

Yes aren’t we wonderful at improving shipping, packaging, centralization and maximizing food yield but at what cost? We have more chemicals, more cancer, more heart disease, more diabetes, more obesity, more cases of contaminated food…. That’s one of the reasons I’m trying something new… what we have going on here, isn’t working. It’s a personal choice and one I’ll never push on anyone, but I will blog about it, because listen here – if I can get off meat, anyone can…. so we’ll see what happens – together. Picture me as a lab rat, a big sweaty, hairless, meat deprived lab rat. I plan on limiting both dairy & meat, at least I will at first, not cutting them out completely but I will radically decrease the portions to a tablespoon or two of meat… I don’t know, we’ll see where it goes.

Maybe after 3 weeks, I’m arrested for holding up a McDonald’s truck, Pony Express style and they catch me rolling in chicken nuggets, sucking on frozen burger patties in the back of said truck….

It’s a curious fact that historically, a sign of wealth and prosperity was to be overweight and well fed – it said hey bitches, I have money and plenty of it goes down my gullet. While the poor were walking around truly embracing their inner skeleton, frequently hungry, often starving and whip thin. Flash forward to today, where in Western society the roles have completely reversed – the well off are able to buy the best, healthiest foods and are generally in better health, while the poor are stuck – only able to afford the cheap, plentiful fast food, Kraft dinner and spaghetti-o’s and in the process bloating up like…. the stay-puft marshmallow man.

OK time to get back to the Chickens… So these gigantic, corporate – farm cartels are buying up all the little family farms and “hopping on the organic” bandwagon. Sensing a shift in consumers buying practices towards organic and free range products – they are weaseling around and using all these loop-holes —- basically having their cake and eating it, and ours, as well. They get to keep on using the mass-produced, cookie cutter methods of farming, which are diametrically opposed to the whole concept of organic and free range but are able to charge a premium for their new “organic products” because of some technicalities….. watch the video below to see what I mean. I fear I may not have been as clear as I would have liked… I’m gonna put that down to a serious protein deficiency… already, after 1 day….

Have a Great Day.
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