Squealing Pigs

Two years ago, we retired young and bought a house in a small town in Mexico, near Lake Chapala. Everything here in this rural Mexican town is a little more “visceral” than in the U.S. Several evenings ago, my husband and I sat down to watch the Fast Food Nation DVD, a multi-layered film about food processing, fast food, immigration, “meat processing” and myriad other issues. There were several slaughterhouse scenes. I was prepared for what I would see after having viewed several PETA video clips (http://www.peta.org/). Still, my husband, who had visited a slaughterhouse many years ago, commented that the scenes in this film were still quite “watered down,” so to speak. He said they could not, for several reasons, show the totality of the savagery and the “mess” that goes on in slaughterhouses. Yesterday, as we exited the nearest supermarket into the parking lot , for the first time in my life, I heard the cries of innocent victims having their throats slit and bleeding out. The high-pitched shrieks penetrated the very marrow of my bones, and I could not cover my ears sufficiently to stop the sound. I watched in amazement, pressing my fingers over my ears as hard as I could, as many people stood idly by, in groups, comfortably having a relaxed conversation as the screams penetrated the parking lot from the community slaughterhouse. It went through every atom in my body. My husband had warned me long ago that the screams that a pig makes before and during slaughter are eerie, and they sound like a human screaming for help, for mercy, screaming in horrible pain. I had never heard this sound first-hand until that moment. I looked over to see the skinned bodies of the previous victims already hanging up on the conveyer.


After leaving the supermarket, we were on our way to eat at Secret Garden, a local vegetarian restaurant in Ajijic. As we made our way down the highway towards the restaurant, I had to hold back the tears several times. It was so very personal, so very visceral. The screams kept running through my mind and through my body.


“It’s not as if Mexico is the only one that does this. They eat pigs and other animals in the U.S., and Europe, and most other countries. It’s just more hidden from the public in the U.S.,” my husband said.


I knew this. He knew I knew this. Nothing helped. I was unable to shake the feeling. I could hardly speak. I remembered the story of a Chinese student of mine at the community college. She had been raised in a strict Christian household. One day, walking home from school in Taipei, as she approached a warehouse , she heard the cries of pigs being slaughtered. She said that even as a little girl who had no knowledge of slaughterhouses, she immediately knew that the pigs were suffering greatly and begging for mercy in their cries. She felt a horrible sadness, a painful heart, and as a very strong feeling of compassion filled her being, she saw suspended in the air, in the ether, above the warehouse a figure sitting with legs folded, with the kindest, most compassionate face she had ever seen. A few months later, when visiting the house of a schoolmate, she saw a painting of that same figure. She found out from her schoolmate that the image of the compassionate figure floating above the warehouse was called Buddha. She told me she never forgot her experience by the slaughterhouse. I can understand why.


As we entered the restaurant I asked my husband if he would find a table for us, as I needed to stop at the bathroom. When I returned I found that he had ordered me a margarita instead of my usual iced tea.


“I normally don’t order for you unless I’m sure what you want. This time I made an executive decision. I thought you needed it,” he explained, apologetically and compassionately.
We sat together quietly at the table for a while , not saying anything, taking sips from the margaritas. As the afternoon progresses, I find myself able to participate in light, friendly conversation with my husband and people at surrounding tables.


I have been a strict vegetarian since 1977, and have managed to navigate my way through a sea of carnivores with the attitude that I am responsible for only my own actions, but still, knowing that what I do, what anyone does as a single individual, impacts the world in significant ways. I try to follow all the rules of compassion, and fairness and goodness, causing no harm, and I try to live the philosophy that, within reason, we each have to find our own way through life, trying to make sense of it. I try never to proselytize or preach to others. I find it odd that every time I sit down to eat with people who notice that I do not eat the bodies of animals, I am asked why I am a vegetarian. They must know that they are requesting information that they do not really want to hear. I have tried to answer that question tastefully, with information that is suitable for the dinner table, but I soon learned that the answer to this question is not dinnertime conversation. Now I answer with something like, “Ask me later, and I’ll be happy to answer that question when we’re not eating.” Even if some brave souls dare to ask me later, I find that the conversation becomes too “visceral” for them, and inevitably the discussion begins to enter the forbidden territory of what Will Tuttle refers to in his book, The World Peace Diet, as “the taboo against knowing who you eat.” They do not want to hear. No matter how gently I word the answer, many will become defensive and respond with thoughts such as, “I’m not participating in the death of those animals. I just buy the packaged meat in the store.” They don’t want to hear the response that removing even one of those meat packages causes the cruel treatment, suffering and death of another animal to fill that space in the meat case. (If you are not afraid to know the truth, I suggest you buy his book, absorb every word from cover to cover, and keep reading it until it truly reaches your intellect and your heart. Knowing the truth he speaks will change your life.)


As a human culture, we are living a lie. It is a lie that permeates who we are, what we do, and the excuses we make for the violence that begets more violence in our culture. It is a lie that we tell to our young, after we make sure that they handle that Easter chick or duckling with care and compassion. We try to teach them to respect life, while trying to separate this lesson from the reality of the suffering that the chicken undergoes before arriving on the child’s plate, or the cruelty that the duck experiences before its feathers go into that beautiful down comforter or jacket that is in our houses. We tell them a lie by omitting the truth that with every bite they are eating and participating in suffering and death. The lie permeates almost everything in our culture. Our houses stink of the furniture, and our feet stink of the shoes made of the skin of cows and other animals , as we excuse it away saying, that the skin is only a byproduct that would otherwise be tossed into the incinerator at the slaughterhouse.


When I met my husband about nine years ago, I arrived at a compromise, so that we could share meals together. I love to cook, and I decided I could compromise by buying soy and wheat gluten alternatives that had the texture and “mouth-feel of” animal flesh. I convinced myself that as long as it was soy or wheat, it didn’t matter that it had the crazy spellings such as “Chik’n” in its package description, as long as it was accompanied by the word “meatless” somewhere on the package. He was delighted with my cooking, and he found that he didn’t mind eating vegetarian at home and only having an occasional chicken or fish dish when we went to the restaurant.


A year and a half ago, with no urging on my part, he took the leap to total vegetarianism . At a restaurant in Guadalajara, after having eaten vegetarian for a few months, he ordered a chicken dish, thinking that was what he wanted. That was the last animal flesh that he ate. He told me afterward that it “didn’t taste that great.” He told me that he realized that tasty food is really not about the muscle flesh, it’s really about the seasonings and sauces. He has told me that before he did it, he was anxious about moving to total vegetarianism, in spite of the fact that he knew that the vegetarian alternatives were actually tastier. He said that once he took the leap, a lot became very clear. It was like passing through a portal and having a veil of ignorance ripped from his eyes. He began to see it for what it was.


This lie that much of human culture maintains, is very rigorously protected. I cannot relate this as eloquently and thoroughly as Will Tuttle, so I suggest you read The World Peace Diet to really understand this. The other day I was speaking with my sister about this. She is very respectful of our vegetarian lifestyle, but as we began to step close to “the lie,” she became defensive, saying, “Do you realize how a change to total vegetarianism would break the financial back of this economy?” What about all the independent ranchers whose lives depend on the sale of cattle? What about the farmers who grow the grain to sell to the cattle ranchers?”
We quickly changed the subject, knowing where this conversation was going, and not wanting to get into a struggle. Later, my husband said to me, “She doesn’t realize that this change could be subsidized by the government, charging a tax on meat that would go to subsidize the price of production and sale of meat alternatives. If the government had to, it could finance a switchover from meat production to production of tasty protein alternatives that tasted as good or better than meat that would cost one quarter the price of meat. Besides, there are so few independent ranchers and farmers left. They have been choked out by the meat and farm industries.”


I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years, so it is interesting to me to hear the fresh thoughts of a new vegetarian. He has made some fascinating and cogent points about the subject.


“If people would just try to substitute an alternative protein source in their recipes only once or twice a week, they might come to understand how easy it is to stop eating the bodies of animals and still enjoy the tastiest of dishes. If they have no time to cook because of a busy schedule, they could purchase one of many frozen vegetarian entrees already in most supermarkets. It’s already out there for the trying. Just doing this once or twice a week could change the world.”


My husband always brings up the example of the vegetarian chili that I made at his Mom’s house for a big family gathering in Texas. Many “meat-and-potatoes” family members came back for seconds and thirds remarking that this was the best chili they had tasted. He says that they didn’t care that it contained vegetarian protein crumbles instead of ground meat. They liked how it tasted.


Another point he made was, “Meat-eaters on this planet justify killing and eating other creatures because they consider those creatures less intelligent. We'd better hope that if we do encounter intelligent life on other planets that they're not meat-eaters like us.”
In the meantime, I try to do my best to live my life the best way I can, just like everyone else. I’ve made it my personal goal, at least once a month, to invite a carnivore over to our house for a delicious vegetarian dinner. You’d be surprised how many people we’ve turned on to vegetarianism with this simple method. No words about roasted animal flesh, and suffering, just a delicious meal to show how possible and how easy it is.


What had started for me as a journey towards better health, quickly turned into a desire to do no harm. I realized that I preferred to eat delicious, healthy food that did not cause cruelty, suffering and death to creatures in order to bring a small portion of protein to my plate. I quickly learned that I was making no sacrifice at all to eat vegetarian. I have always known that whether I hear it or not, the atrocities of creature slaughter still go on. But, after I’ve heard the squeals, I have been subtley and profoundly changed. I don’t know where this will take me, but I do know I am no longer the same after I heard those cries. After being a vegetarian for over 30 years, I thought I had gone as far as a vegetarian could go. But, I was changed by the marvelous job that Will Tuttle did in The World Peace Diet, and now, once again, I have been changed by the experience near the slaughterhouse yesterday.

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.” -- Paul and Linda McCartney

“If you're violent to yourself by putting things into your body that violate its spirit, it will be difficult not to perpetuate that [violence] onto someone else.” --Dexter Scott King

September 22, 2007