What I won't be eating this Thanksgiving

In just a little while, I'll pack up the car and head home to Memphis for the holiday. Thanksgiving is a little different this year in that I usually host it for my (small) family here in Nashville. Last year's feast was good, but quite heavy on the winter squashes. There was a lot of yellow and orange on the table.

This year, though I will be going to my mother's house and, unfortunately sharing space with a large bird carcass. Thankfully, she doesn't put it on the table and must keep it covered to protect it from the cats. I'll be eating a meal of sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows), homemade craberry sauce, and fruit salad. If I choose to forgo the mac & cheese, it'll be a vegan Thanksgiving feast for me.

I don't step up onto my soapbox often, but a conversation I had recently reminded me that so few people understand or are even willing to understand the processes that result in the meat appearing on their plates. Certainly, I appreciate those who choose local and organic meats over the factory farmed meats that are so cheap and plentiful, but the process (to me) is still quite horrifying. And I'm disturbed that for most of my life I ate meat without any thought or respect for the being that suffered.

That said, I do hope that those who plan to consume a turkey will read this article from The Daily Page in Madison, Wisconsin: "To Kill a Turkey: If you're going to eat animals, shouldn't you be willing to do the deed?". It's an excellent and informative article and is written by a person who is a meat-eater, so it's not "vegetarian rhetoric" or something published by PETA, which has a tendency to alienate rather than engage omnivores these days. And to those of you who will be consuming animals on this day, I hope that even if you don't read the article, that when giving thanks for what you have that you will also honor and respect the animal and the humans who suffered so that you could eat today.