Cows get mad cow disease by eating the flesh of their own kind.
I remember the day I stopped eating meat. I was 15 and I was eating a late lunch at Burger King. I had ordered a Whopper not because I needed a sandwich that large but because I despised the term Whopper Junior. It was a Saturday, the end of October. I had on red pants. Maybe it was the color of my clothing or maybe it was the poor cooking job, but after one gaping crescent bite in the side of the burger, my stomach cried mutiny and my tongue ejected the unwanted mouthful. The fleshy strings of the meat patty looked remarkably like what I knew the inside of my leg looked like, and I couldn't do it anymore. I made a firm decision that from that day on, I could not ingest anything that had previously owned a set of eyeballs.
Hardly a day goes by without someone asking me why I'm vegetarian. Almost immediately, the person will begin their best to persuade me to eat animal flesh again, as if I am the one who has gone mad. To convince me, they kindly remind me how much I'm missing. Oh, the chicken Marsala! Oh, the Thanksgiving turkey! Oh, how it falls off the bone! Most of these people can't see the futility of their efforts to save my soul from the meatless anguish it must be suffering—which is too bad since the reasoning behind my food choices is not necessarily vegetarian-specific.
Anyone can become more aware of the food they consume. Perhaps you decide you will win a place in heaven by choosing to eat only the decomposing fruit that has naturally fallen from trees. Or maybe you will only find satisfaction choosing to eat onion rings fried in the lard of pigs raised west of the Mississippi River. The point isn't exactly what you eat; it's why you eat it .
Themed parties seem to saturate the social scene these days: you've got your James Bond parties, your ‘80s metal parties, your Dante's Inferno parties. However, I recently heard of a party being sponsored by an organization called THONG —Topless Humans Organized for Natural Genetics. The theme, cape and thong, seemed somewhat up to interpretation, but still representative of an organization with a purpose. Electronic rumors of locally grown food, body painting, and organic beer had been dribbling into my inbox throughout the week, leaking into my curiosity.
I walked into the party with a skepticism that sits on my shoulder like a parrot, and squawks in my ear whenever I see the word “free” in advertising or listen to a Bush speech. Skepticism took a liking to me in college, when students were scraping for causes to cling to , and it's followed me ever since. I can't seem to get rid of it. Sometimes I clamp its beak shut with a rubber band and join the progressive bandwagon; other times I let it call those voices out. I could feel its claws pinching me lightly through my makeshift cape.
Clusters of people wearing combinations of capes, thongs, neither and both lined the perimeter of the room. A sample table promoting self-sustainability featured foods grown around the neighborhood. A Chicago resident had fermented her own wine, and garlic and egg sauce over rhubarb impressed the lot. Despite the uncooperative Chicago climate and limited amount of space, she had found a way to provide for herself. Another station set organic food next to modified food, asking tasters to compare the differences. The atmosphere, a kind of sensory circus, seemed saturated with the group's message. Thonged moderators swirled paint onto partygoer's exposed skin and brushed red Xs over their mouths. The gallery's wood floor pulsed as people jumped to music played by a group of interactive musicians dressed as fruits and vegetables. Chants against hamburgers, Kraft macaroni and cheese and Ronald Reagan bounced between the walls.
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