She Just May Try Meat Again!!!!!

As I had stated in my previous post from Napa I had a lovely encounter with a vegetarian which turned into a great conversation and her actually admitting to considering to try meat again.....here's how it all went down

Now just for the record I have nothing against vegetarianism.  I think that everyone has a choice and that is the great thing about America is that we get that choice.  Now I myself am a meat lover and could eat a steak everyday of my life it is so good.....and bacon.   Can't forget bacon....it's like candy for adults!  However I am always curious when people say they are vegetarians what reason they have for choosing to be vegetarians.  Some people just don't like the taste of meat or have that texture issue where it just is not attempting do to texture.  While others don't for humane reasons or culture reasons, what ever it may be.

So our day started on a group wine tour that was with about 10 other people and they provided a picnic lunch.  As we were all getting in line to dive into this home made delicious lunch provided, the young girl in front of me said she forgot to inform them she was vegetarian.....this sparked my interest!  As luck would have it she ended up sitting right across from me at a picnic table.  I couldn't help myself but ask her why she chose to be vegetarian.  She said that she just knew too much about how animals are treated and killed.......and it was game on. 

I asked her how she knew first hand?  Did she perhaps visit a slaughter house?  Had a bad run in with a tour of some sort?  Her reply was, well all the stuff you see on the Internet and you tube.......at this point i was like really?  I thought back to my mother always saying...."do you believe everything you see on TV?"  I started talking with her about how perhaps propaganda and media may just PERHAPS make things edited to not exactly the correct info or full story.  I then asked her why when the stock market gets corrupt why don't people pull all their stocks out?  Or perhaps your favorite baseball team was caught using steroids or the coach was lying.....people don't just stop liking that team.   So why is it that the media shows one bad seed that made a wrong choice in agriculture and we all go to extremes with it?  For every bad producer there are ,542,342,432 more producers that do things correctly and humanely. 

Surprisingly she admitted that media probably doesn't portray the correct truth and blows things up bigger than they are.  I then assured her that we live in a country with probably some of the most strict regulations when it comes to food safety and animal welfare and lets not forget these are production animals used to feed the world not your pet dog.  I suggested that maybe she should visit a slaughter facility and see how things are done and visit farms/ranches and get a first hand look at the life of a production animal. 

I get the pleasure of working with cattle on a daily basis and most of these animals have better lives that we do.  We ended the conversation with her saying thank you for your information and that I had inspired her to think about trying meat again......I couldn't have been happier.   Even if she never does at least she took the time to listen and showed some interest and didn't just shut me down and refuse discussion.  Connecting producers with consumers is key!

Have a great up coming week!!  EAT BEEF!!