I THINK it's a fair enough place to start to think about giving up meat. Officially, Mama says she first seriously thought about giving up meat when she saw the John Robbins video "Diet for a New America" while on detox retreat at Mandala Spa. Unofficially, it can now be told: Mama can't eat pigs and cows anymore because they remind her too much of me (so can you imagine what she feels about people eating dogs?). Not that I'm that fat and round, really (hey, I'm in shape). But I'm also a living breathing creature with a mind of my own, and I was put on this earth for a lot more than just to fill up a human's' belly.
Mama gave up pork and beef in August 2005. The first few months were tough, she likes to tell people; she would break into a cold sweat whenever she even smelled a hamburger, which she loves. Fact is, it's not a good idea for a diabetic like her to give up meat, because she has found herself turning more to carbs to satisfy hunger, and carbs are not a good idea if you've got too much undigested glucose already. But that's the point -- she didn't give up the meat because of health alone, but principle. She can no longer abide by the idea that something has to die to feed her.
This year, she gave up chicken, which was easy compared to the hamburger hurdle. It's her lofty ambition to give up seafood within her lifetime -- hopefully as a 50th birthday gift to herself and to her world. She's praying for the strength to do that. (Check out this pic of her kissing a fish in the Burma Banks instead of eating it).
Me? I felt Mama's pain when she came home once and told me about a picture she saw at the Inquirer, of stray dogs being readied for slaughter in a dog meat place in Tuguegarao, Cagayan. There were about a dozen dogs on the floor, still alive, but with their front legs tied behind them. Now, if you give this some thought, and if you're familiar with our anatomy, you'll realize that this is not easy to do -- which means either the dogs were really pliant, or the monsters broke their front legs before tying them up and stuffing their snouts into tin cans. You read that right -- tin cans. All because they wanted something to pick at while doing something universally productive, like sitting and scratching their swollen bellies while getting drunk.
Please take a look at Mama's articles next Sunday in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. One is about animal advocacy as a popular cause, and there's a sidebar on how to prepare to get a dog. She talked to friends from PAWS and PETA, and PETA's Rochelle Regodon sent us this poster of a piglet with a cute statement. This is cute and easy to digest, but Mama's seen some really awful footage of pigs being slaughtered.
Sometimes she's driven to tears when she's stuck in traffic behind a truckful of pigs bound for certain death. The unsuspecting animals are pressed together like sacks, unaware that this is the end of their God-given life -- to satisfy some human being's craving for a pork chop.
Oh, she tries not to be judgmental, because greater injustices happen every day to other people. As one friend actually told her, "Your dog (that's me) gets treated better than many kids in Metro Manila." But see, people can talk. Animals can't.
She understands when it is a cultural thing, when it's a level playing field between hunter and hunted, when it's all a tribe lives on. But barangay tanods slaughtering dogs in the playground? Raising animals for "sustainable" slaughter? What the hell is sustainable slaughter? What is the difference between catching a wild animal and killing it -- and raising an animal in a cage, and then killing it? I think "KILL" is spelled the same, either way.
Still, Mama doesn't go around slapping people like that Lanao congresswoman if she accidentally downs a piece of pork. Once in Vigan, she bit into a Lumpiang Ubod that turned out to have bits of Vigan longganiza in it. No, she didn't scream at the host and throw the lumpia away. She ate it.
Please -- for your health, for the sake of our collective souls, for the sake of this planet that is feeling the strain of having to support massive livestock and poultry industries, and for the animals you are supposed to be the guardians of, but which you instead kill and slaughter in the most ingeniously brutal of ways, even if you're not exactly starving...
PLEASE. Try to eat less or no meat. Contact the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) if you want to volunteer or learn more. All this killing has to stop. Please let my fellow dogs and fellow creatures like cows and pigs live. There are so many other things you can eat without shedding any blood.
That's a special request from me and my boyfriend Una (in the water with me, isn't he cute?).
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