whether to eat meat reactionary veganism

How I Decided Whether to Eat Meat – Part 4: Reactionary Veganism

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

For the next two weeks I sat in a purgatorial existance, flip-flopping between reactive veganism (I stopped buying yoghurt and cheese) and seeking out a chance to hand-slaughter an animal. Steak tartare vs David’s ram. Bernard vs Theresa.

Theresa’s family tree would face an uncertain future if the world were to go vegan, many breeds have little use outside of being raised, killed, cooked and eaten. They’re certainly not the same as the native wild boars that wreaked havoc across agricultural land in England during medieval times, tearing up crops and occasionally attacking sheep. Such a menace, they were subsequently hunted to extinction along with wolves, lynxes and beavers, because not only were they a threat to agriculture, they also made good sport and fine eating.

Theresa and her sisters were born and raised exclusively to be eaten, so the path of their demise was an inevitability which…

Tamworth black pig

How I Decided Whether to Eat Meat – Part 2: It’s an Eating Dog World

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Have you ever been asked what your ‘death row’ meal would be? If you were to be strapped into old sparky tomorrow, what would be your choice of dinner tonight? At this point I’d like to introduce the hero, or perhaps villain, of the story, and my death row meal — Steak tartare.

Raw meat and fish are manna from heaven, some of my favourite foods are eaten raw, such as oysters, sashimi and steak tartare. Consuming flesh raw puts heightened demands on the quality and freshness of the meat and increases the personal connection with the source of the food, it feels a more visceral, primal form of consumption when no heat has been involved.

Steak tartare is an opulent dish, eaten perhaps once a year, on the rare occasion that I find myself in a restaurant that serves it. It stands as my favourite dish in the world, because…

As I ponder the question of whether I should, or whether I can continue Eating meat, I see it's not a question of absolutes, but one of relatives and the fifty shades of grey that they encompass.

Eating Meat – Fifty Shades of Grey

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Can I Eat Meat?

At the beginning of 2017, I wrote a blog post, asking the question “Should I eat meat?”. The motivation for this question came from a desire to seek moral congruity, meaning that I felt my actions as a human were not aligned with my sense of morality. I don’t like the idea of inflicting pain upon a living creature, I’d hate to see my dog in pain, yet I’m happy for other living creatures to be killed, simply to provide my food. It’s clear to see the contradiction here.

More recently, I’ve come across the psychological term ‘cognitive dissonance’, which refers to the ability of people to hold two or more conflicting opinions. In my case, I hold the opinion that inflicting pain on animals is wrong… come and read more…

Should There Be a Bloggers Code of Ethics?

Should There be a Bloggers Code of Ethics?

Gavin Wren Food Blogging, Writing

Elizabeth at Rosalilium.com, in her YouTube video on the subject posed the question, should there be a bloggers code of ethics? After spending some time thinking about it, I’ve put together my response to what I feel is a very important subject within the world of blogging. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q89m3ANGYo Should There be a Bloggers Code of Ethics? My initial reaction is that yes, there should be, because there’s often questions over the behaviour of bloggers, which …