Saturday, September 3, 2011

Cowardly Consumption

I was at the Outback Steakhouse the other night, enjoying a delicious filet of salmon when an interesting question occurred to me.

"How did mankind decide which animals we would use as our primary food sources?"

Why, for example, do we eat cows, but not horses?  Why pigs, but not raccoons?  Why chickens, but not yellow-billed cotinga?  Have you ever TRIED yellow-billed cotinga?  For all we know, they're absolutely scrumptious.

After giving the matter some thought, because I obviously have too much spare time, I've reached an iron-clad and irrefutable conclusion:

Human beings are lazy and stupid, so we'll only eat slow, ugly animals and birds that can't fly.

Before everyone starts screaming at me, I do realize that some people eat deer (cute and quick) and duck (they fly), but you're not going to be able to get McVenison or a Jumbo Quack down at the local fast food chain any time soon.  Our major staples are beef, pork, chicken, and turkey.  Animals we can easily catch and that won't put up much of a fight.  You don't "hunt" cows, you round 'em up and slaughter 'em.  You don't go on a turkey "hunt", you go on a turkey "shoot," as in, "There he is, Rufus, plug 'im!"

Speaking of hunting, where do we get off calling that a "sport," anyway?  Let's look at deer hunting.  Now, I've got nothing against hunting per se, if you want to take your rifle and blow Bambi's head off, that's your business.  But when your opponent's entire defensive arsenal is "run like hell," that's more or less a mismatch.  Oh, it might LOOK like a sport, but it's like entering sprinter Usain Bolt in the Special Olympics -- and I'm going to end the analogy right there before it gets completely out of hand.  

You want to make hunting a sport?  Try hunting tigers with a Swiss Army knife or going after mountain lions with a billy club.  Give the animals a fighting chance.  Hell, that's a sport I'd shell out a few bucks for on pay-per-view.

Which brings us back to why we eat the slow, ugly, and flightless.  We're wimps.  We're not going to try to mass produce lion meat, because there's a pretty decent chance that we'll be the ones that get consumed in the process.  Maybe barbecued lion ribs would be out of this world, but it's just not worth the risk.  So we go after cows and pigs.  They're slow, ugly, and non-threatening just like the Cincinnati Bengals.  

The Double-Double says "Moo."
Don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining about this.  I love steak and chicken, and I eat them as often as possible, just like the good Lord intended. I know the whackos at PETA get all out of joint with the "God's creatures are not food" argument, but as far as I'm concerned, if God didn't intend for us to chow down on chicken, He wouldn't have created Colonel Sanders.  I'm no theologian, but I've never heard scripture quoted to the effect of "thou shalt not partake of In-N-Out Double-Doubles."  In fact, the only clear statement God has ever made on what we should and shouldn't eat has to do with FRUIT.  The first time someone ate an apple, boom, humanity was screwed for all eternity.  And yet the produce section remains well-stocked.  Plus, I think the book of Timothy says that everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if you put catsup on it.  Or something like that.

So anyway, just out of morbid curiosity and the desire to see a rifle-totin' redneck get mauled to death, here's what I'm suggesting.  Let's expand our food choices.  For every deer that a hunter shoots, he must also attempt to bag three other "non-traditional" sources of meat.  Take out a ten-point buck, you gotta go after a tiger, a polar bear, and a pit-full of angry cobras.  If we're given a wider variety of food choices, we might finally be able to answer the one question that's been puzzling mankind for centuries:

Does yellow-billed continga really taste like chicken?


e

Stumble Upon Toolbar submit to reddit

12 comments:

Empty Nester said...

Ok, I've got to find that verse in Timothy---I simply do not remember the part about ketchup! LOL

Junk Drawer Kathy said...

Bumper sticker on a friend's truck: "If we're not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"

"They're slow, ugly, and non-threatening just like most of the Cincinnati Bengals."

Hee. Thanks for the laughs, Knucklehead. I'm off to have something of the slow, ugly and non-threatening variety. It used to oink. p.s. It's International Bacon Day, so you know, it's required of me to celebrate appropriately.

Mike said...

I've had this same conversation before with people. We think alike at times. Must be a Jersey thing.

Steve Bailey said...

You obviously have never been on a tofu hunt then? Them suckers are crazy hard to catch!! Recently I bagged my first one... and I'm proud to say..... I now have a huge head of tofu hanging over my fireplace!

So. Cal. Gal said...

The Bible and In-n-Out burgers in the same sentence...

You're my kind of theologian!

Anonymous said...

"Human beings are lazy and stupid, so we'll only eat slow, ugly animals and birds that can't fly."

ROTFL......

Funny as hell post, just what I needed today.

Steph said...

Mmm.. i want a burger now =)
I think that one reason we eat cows instead of horses is because horses are useful, and we were better off keeping them alive and enslaving them as our personal chauffeurs. Cows really don't do much but tasted good :)

Suldog said...

"They're slow, ugly, and non-threatening just like the Cincinnati Bengals."

Might be the best line I've seen this year.

Danger Boy said...

Mmmm cotinga. Tasty, tasty cotinga.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Knucklehead ye are quite clever.

McVenison? Jumbo Quack?

hee hee hee

And who knew Timothy was into catsup. Here I thought they were only into olive oil burgers.

Oh and date shakes.

Yummo. No?

HA!

Anonymous said...

You've got to stop referencing In 'N Out...I am so jealous!! Just the photo you put in makes me drool so much my keyboard looks like it was caught in Hurricane Irene! I was going to contact them about opening franchises here in Jersey but to get the same quality you have in CA would take much too much work and expense.

I have a solution though - every time you reference the Double Double, you have to purchase one, freeze it, and ship it to me! :-D

Great post, as usual!
Katie

victorinox knives said...

I just stumbled across your blog and I love it.

Related Posts with Thumbnails