Weybridge Strikes Back Frey Gives King a Royal Roasting

Author: Oren Frey

After reading Kevin King's ridiculous letter in last week's Campus, I debated whether or not it was worth the effort to write something in response. What is the point, I asked myself, in trying to bring a taste of reality to someone who is clearly stuck in their ignorant, intolerant and selfish mindset? But I just couldn't let something so lacking in truth and rationality pass without giving it a once over.

First, let's address Mr. King's claim that the Earth Day BBQ was a form of "vegan tyranny" suitable only for "hardcore vegetarians." Perhaps he was too pissed off by the College's recognition of Earth Day to notice the barbequed chicken. I thought the chicken was delicious. Clearly, referring to something as "vegan tyranny" is absurd when hundreds of chicken parts are being grilled to perfection adjacent to the "falafel mafia" station.

He suggests that a meal be planned that "takes into consideration the interests of carnivores and vegetarians alike." That is exactly what happens in the dining halls every day. And there are certainly times when the meat-meter swings in the other direction — Proctor's tailgate party and the "Food Fair"' with 10 types of buffalo wings, chicken fingers and Italian sausage, are not exactly a vegetarian's dream. But there aren't bitter letters to the editor after those events. One would hope that even if a dedicated "carnivore" like Mr. King is displeased by the chicken served, they would be satisfied by the rest of the meal — a meal where Ben & Jerry's ice cream is being scooped out generously, Fresh Samantha drinks are available by the bottle, there is juicy corn on the cob and hot bread is emerging from an on-site oven (served to you by those bizarre Weybridgers). And hey, the falafel was really good too. It's pretty sad when someone is given this much and remains so unhappy that they must complain in a public forum. When someone cannot tolerate the absence of beef — or, more accurately, non-chicken animal products — at one single meal out of the year, it says nothing about those preparing the meal but much about the mindset of the person doing the complaining. I feel fortunate not to know any of the people who Mr. King asserts "went hungry," a completely inappropriate phrase to use in the context of any Middlebury College student, or "were forced to buy food from somewhere else" because they were so hard to please.

And it's natural to eat "cute, furry animals because they taste good," eh? I propose that it is natural to eat cute, furry animals if you can kill them yourself and participate in all the other steps between the "cute" stage and the "taste good" stage. Anyone who does not think about those intermediary stages has clearly not educated themselves about what happens in feedlots and slaughterhouses. I would like to offer Mr. King a living, breathing, cow and see what he does with it. Where does that hamburger come from anyway? Where in the cow do you look to find the patties? Or is that something "gross" that happy American consumers should not have to think about?

Now let's clarify something. I am not a vegetarian. I don't have a problem with the practice of eating other animals. When abroad I would witness a sheep be killed one moment and find myself eating every imaginable part of its body several hours later. However, there are many reasons why supporting the American meat industry is objectionable, and for those reasons I have come to eat far less meat than I used to. I haven't altered my diet because of "beliefs," as Mr. King suggested anyone who would want more vegetarian options on Earth Day must be guided by. Rather, it's a matter of facing the realities of what we are eating and where it comes from. Unfortunately, most Westerners are so far removed from the origins of their food that they don't give a damn about where it came from.

But the realities are staggering. How many chickens do you think are slaughtered every year in the USA? Think about it — KFC, Sunday night Hamlin, grandma's chicken soup, caesar salad with grilled chicken. Would you believe the number is 7.5 billion? That's far greater than the number of people on the planet — it's over 20 million slaughtered chickens every day or more than 231 every second. If, with knowledge such as how many chicken lives our diets demand taking, you feel fine, that's okay. I'm not trying to suggest that chicken lives are superior to ours or anything like that — although it does seem wrong that to boost production, turkeys have been engineered to be so top-heavy they can hardly stand, pigs are made to be too long to support their own weight and chickens have their beaks seared off with hot blades to prevent cannibalism. But it is undeniable that the sheer size of the industry has very far reaching consequences.

Unless we support small local sources, eating meat means supporting factory farming. Essentially, this means putting thousands of animals into a building lacking fresh air, sunshine or space to move, pumping them full of drugs and chemicals, and then filling a 25-foot deep hole the size of several football fields with millions of gallons of feces and urine. Livestock farms generate five tons of manure per American every year, much more than can be used as fertilizer. Holding tanks spilled 40 million gallons of hog manure into North Carolina waterways in 1995 alone. Waterborne manure kills fish by the thousands, and has led to a 7,000 square mile "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. On land, you get odors, flies and contaminated drinking water … yeah baby. Might such side effects not damage the "pretty places" Mr. King thinks Earth Day is all about?

Not only does stuff come out of the industry, but it takes loads of resources to support it. A third of the fish caught worldwide are ground up and fed to livestock. Every pound of feedlot beef takes 600 gallons of water to produce water that is hardly abundant in Western rangelands. Five million acres of Central and South American rainforest are destroyed every year to create cattle pasture. Whether we know it or not, we eat South American beef, and eating five pounds of rainforest beef can emit more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than driving your car for a year.

So yes, in their heavily engineered, processed states, "cute, furry animals" are tasty, but maybe something other than self-indulgence should be influencing our decisions about what to eat. In this country, food choices and environmentalism are inherently linked. Anyone concerned about the planet will acknowledge the bad facets of the meat industry, even if they haven't committed themselves to vegetarianism. Dining's recognition of this connection in their BBQ menu is reflective of the College's willingness to offer education outside of the classroom.

What bothered me most was the overall tone of Mr. King's letter. In trying to make meat-eating environmentalists feel victimized (Mr. King claims that Middining is "implicitly telling them they aren't the real thing"), he is just trying to recruit more students to join his whine-train. Has it ever occurred to him that more can be achieved by collaborating with staff instead of breathing his spoiled fire-breath on them? Does he think that anyone in Middining will want to listen to anything he or the SGA has to say after such a disrespectful letter? In your role as my class senator, Mr. King, do you do anything but whine that your "rights" as a student are being threatened? It is revolting that such a closed-minded person has been elected to positions of power on campus.

(Statistics cited are from U.S. News and World Report and www.earthsave.org.)