To prove it wasn’t a chicken.

Hah hah hah!

I occasionally get asked by people who don’t know me well if it bothers me that they’re eating meat in my presence.  Admittedly there was a time in my life when I looked down my nose at the carnivores with whom I shared a table, but those days have long since passed.  A friend made an observation once that changed my outlook.  It was during the time when the Charlottetown Accord referendums were being held.  The provinces and just about everybody else were vying for representation; for Canada, it was a politically charged time and arguments about whether or not this group or that should get what they want were on everyone’s lips.  Political corrected-ness now had a name, and if you had an opinion about the issues then you were probably stepping on SOMEONE’s toes.  My friend said that Canadians had lost their sense of humour and she was right.

Her comment changed how I viewed my vegetarianism and my belief in the rights of living creatures.  At times it was overwhelming when I thought of the cruelty we humans impose on life around us (not to mention each other).  Small victories won paled in comparison to the enormity of the task:  for every animal rescued, countless others live and die in factory farms; for every cruelty-free cleaning product bought, thousands of animals are killed by Proctor & Gamble’s product testing each year.  A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me.  It was called ‘compassion fatigue.’  I had it, and it made me feel leaden.  I no longer viewed my choices as small steps in the right direction; rather, they were futile attempts by one insignificant person to change the rest of the world.

My answer to the question about whether or not meat-eating in my presence bothers me is,”we all do our part.”  Many meat eaters I know eat less meat now than before.  There are good non-leather alternatives and we don’t need to wear animal fur to keep warm.  Tofu looks better than it used to and Hero makes an awesome veggie burger.  Animal testing on cosmetics is banned in the EU.  Lunching at popular restaurants now means you don’t have to just eat salad.  In Toronto, you can no longer get kicked out of your apartment building for sharing your space with a four-legged creature.

Small steps in the right direction will change the world.  Let’s just remember to laugh about it once in a while.

Many, many thanks to Gary Larson for giving us The Far Side, the only comics that ever made me laugh out loud.  For more veggie humour, visit www.happycow.net.