E“Isn’t nature itself based on the survival of the fittest?”
N“It is. But most of the meat we eat today doesn’t come from natural predator-prey relationships. It comes from large-scale farming systems created by humans. Without our demand for meat, many of these animals would never have been bred in such numbers, nor lived and died in the way they do.
So what concerns me isn’t simply eating meat. It’s the system we’ve chosen to create.”
N“When you eat meat, do you ever think about the fact that it was once a living being?”
E“I do now. Sometimes enough to make me feel sad.”
N“I also know I can’t completely stop eating meat. But I hope I never treat it as something ordinary. I want to remember that it was once alive, to waste as little as possible, and to let that memory shape the way I eat.
Perhaps that’s one way of showing respect.”