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By Vech Carpaccio, Special to
The Manila Times
The fully clothed meat eater is
an endangered species. Everybody is professing to be vegan and
taking their clothes off in the process. It’s the latest fad. Role
models for the prim and proper healthy lifestyle such as Borgy
Manotoc and Ornusa Cadness did it. Intellectuals such as Diether
Ocampo and Alicia Mayer have done it too. They join a long list
stars such as Hong Kong’s Maggie Q and India’s Patrick
Ribbsaeter. These days, if you aren’t garbed in nothing but
lettuce or body paint and eat nothing but vegetables and tofu,
you’re a freak.
The problem with today’s highly
urbanized generation is that they’ve lost touch with rural
reality. They don’t know their McNuggets come from a chicken,
their Jolly burgers from a cow, their siopao from the neighborhood
stray cat or their street corner hotdog from a
horse/goat/hippo/God–knows-what-else-they-put-in-processed-meats.
You could feed today’s kids
cardboard soaked in pork fat (like they actually do in China) and
they wouldn’t know the difference. And if you try to feed them
anything that recognizably organic, they say “yuck.” Anything,
exotic, authentic or native and they say “yuck” again and again.
We have a generation of sissies. No blood and guts.
Vegans have taken responsibility
for what they eat. Meat lovers need to do the same. Vegans say,
“Don’t eat anything with a face.” Meat eaters should say,
“Don’t eat anything until you know it by face.” It’s time to
go rural, get one’s hands dirty and get in touch with the circle
of life.
Don’t just eat chicken. Raise
it yourself. Feed it. Give it a name. Pray for it if you want and
call it “brother” like the Australian Aborigines or the Native
Americans do for the animals they hunt. Then when it’s fat enough,
twirl it by its head and break off its neck. Hold tightly or else
the headless chicken will flutter away and run. Drain the blood into
a bowl for later use in making betamax (barbequed coagulated chicken
blood cakes). Pluck the feathers. Chop off the feet. Disembowel
carefully so as not spill any bile. (Needless to say, intestines can
be marinated in banana ketchup and barbequed to make isaw. Nothing
goes to waste.) And then cook it any which way you want and eat it
any which way you like. You can even wear whatever clothes you like.
You’ve earned the right.
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