Eating Eggs

This bog was inspired the book I am reading, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and my breakfast. My sister left to go back to school this afternoon. My parents prepared a big family breakfast for her. We had bagels, eggs, fruit, and hash brown potatoes. I had some of everything.  Breakfast was more like brunch. In the morning, before brunch, I had time to write another blog. I blogged about the internal struggle Foer and I have about which animals can be eaten and which can’t. All inspired by his book. I sat down with my family and began to eat. My thoughts were still among the blog I just wrote. I looked down at my plate of eggs and felt no guilt because the eggs we eat are not fertilized. I am 100% confident that there are no embryos in my eggs. I did not take any lives by eating this breakfast. Then I started to think about how long people have eaten eggs. I was assuming for a very long time. I’m sure the early settlers ate eggs. Then a stomach curling thought came into my head. The technology to produce unfertilized eggs has not always been around…did people used to eat the chicken embryos? I find that so disturbing. They were literally eating under developed baby chickens! My question is when did this stop? When did people decide that it isn’t right to eat chicken embryos? Why did people stop? What was the ultimate determining factor? I would not eat a chicken embryo. That is a chicken that has not even been born. Why would I eat meat? That is from animals that were alive! Why don’t I feel as disgusted as I did about the unborn animals, than I do about the born ones? When did one become okay? To anyone who reads this……would you eat a chicken embryo?

Chapter 2: Eating Animals

After completing chapter two, all or nothing or something else, I am leaning more towards considering being a vegetarian. Foer describes his struggles with his affection for animals. He had always hated dogs. He never wanted one and was not amused by anyone’s. Then Foer fell in love with a dog, and it became his pet. He could not explain how the switch was flicked from hate to love. I connected with this immediately because it was similar to me experience with my first dog. After my family decided to get a dog we spent around two years researching dogs. We went to dog shows and read books. We had finally settled on an English bulldog. I was far less than pleased. I thought they were ugly, mean, and downright unappealing. I could not understand why anyone would want one at all. But after we adopted Buddy, and I took a few days to get over my fear, I was head over hills in love. I know how Foer felt; there is no explanation for the change of heart. It just happens. After examining his relationship to dogs, he started to reflect on other animals. Foer started to talk about pigs and cows. Both of these animals have the same exact intelligence capacity that dogs have. They are capable of having individual personality’s, which is usually what separates dogs from other animals in our minds. We picture dogs as more advanced, or more compatible with us, but other animals have these exact same qualities. I, like Foer was horrified by the thought of eating a dog. I eat bacon and hot dogs on a regular basis. I started to feel so guilty. My dog, pearl, and English bulldog looks like a pig. She is short, fat, and snorts. She is basically no different than a pig. So why aren’t I horrified by eating a pig? When did I make the distinction between what animals I eat and what I don’t? How were these distinctions formed? The questions I am asking myself are nearly verbatim the questions that Foer was asking himself. I wont eat pearl, will I eat babe?

Poor Pets

Whenever I stay home sick it is my dog’s responsibility to take care of me. Both of my parents work during the day so when my sisters or I are sick, we are all alone. The only type of dog my family has ever owned are English bulldogs. My first bulldog, buddy, lived to be ten years old. My current bulldog, Pearl, is almost two years old. I stayed home from school yesterday because I was sick. As usual my dog laid with me the entire day to make sure I was okay. I was playing with my dog and thinking a lot about her. Bulldogs are fat, short, and have a terrible respiratory system. Of all dog species they have one of the shortest life expectancies. I was thinking about how a bulldog would act in the wild. Where would they live? What would they eat? How would they survive? I couldn’t answer any of these questions. I could only see these dogs as pets. I do not think they could survive on their own in the wild. Then I started to think about all house pets. Could they survive without being dependent on humans? What is the concept of a pet? Why do we have animals living in our houses among us? Is it right to own another being? Is it right to make these animals dependent on us? I love my pet, but I am questioning whether owning a pet is right. We have taken wild animals and domesticated them. All house pets are like broken horses, forced to obey and act against their nature. Did we make a mistake when we started to own pets?