Tareva - Week 6

During week 6 I had a conversation with my neighbor about vegetarians. She began the conversation because we were watching an episode of House where this newlywed couple had just had a baby. If I can recall correctly, I believe the child was no more than a year old, and they had her on a vegan diet! They took the baby into the doctor, who informed them that the child had pneumonia and had fallen from the 25th to the 3rd percentile of weight. In other words, the baby was shrinking. House took the liberty of informing the family that infants need nourishment beyond that provided by a vegan diet.

While discussing this topic with my friend she proceeded to express her opinion that vegetarianism was "silly." Her opinion involves believing that people are supposed to eat meat. I'm a meat eater, myself, so my opinion is that meat is delicious and nutricious!

Let me go ahead and get to the point; Gary Snyder writes in his Practice of the Wild text that humans consuming animals is all part of what he calls "sacred energy exchange." I've heard several arguments about whether or not people think that being a vegetarian is good, bad, not healthy, smart, etc. but I have never heard of soemone referring to our goods - consumer relationship with animals as an "energy exchange," let alone "sacred." I've mentioned in a previous blog that Snyder has a style of writing that is capable of captivating a reader in a manner that is otherwise not thought of, and this is a prime example. How clever to label the concept of consuming meat as a way that we engage in the exchange of energy, and that we should view this exchange as sacred, as it does foster connotations of being required for survival. Snyder's thoughts about this sacred energy exchange are profound in their deliverance and serve as a good basis of support for those that feel eating meat is part of our human responsibilities.