I feel like I should break into some kind of Suessical rhyme here, but the first of the meat that I do not eat, is veal.  And I think this is for obvious reasons.  I used to LOVE veal and had it as often as possible, veal picatta and marsala being my favorites.  Then I went to college and you like, learn EVERYTHING there, and I learned what happened to the veal calves as they were being raised and it just disgusted and saddened me.  So eliminate one meat from my diet.

MEAT #2

I had a diet that consisted of alot of pork for a good portion of my life, sausage, bacon, ham sandwiches fixed any way you could think.  I eventually quit eating sausage, because, well, let's face it, have you ever actually sat down and thought about what is IN sausage?  Skip ahead several years to 1995.  One day I saw THE most charming, heartwarming, glorious film about the spirit of the heart, perseverance, youth and innocence lost, but not totally, and it was all about pig named Babe.  I saw Babe and I LOVED it!  I cried, and then promptly decided that I could never eat pork again.  I can't eat pork because the movie about a talking pig was so cute and pigs are extremely intelligent.  To this day, I still am subject to my husband's barbs, whenever he is eating bacon or sausage of "Goodbye, Mom."  I could just reach over and smack him.

MEAT #3

I was lying in bed one night about 5 years ago, channel surfing, when I happened upon one of our cable access channels.  But what was being shown upset me so much I ran downstairs crying to my husband about it and how awful it was.  And I didn't have to sit there and watch it.  It was like a trainwreck, you couldn't take your eyes off of it.  What is was, was a covert video shot inside a turkey slaughter house that was probably one of the single most horrific and disgusting things I have ever seen. I don't even want to repeat the details here, it was so awful.  I don't eat turkey anymore and will most likely eliminate chicken from my diet as well.  So Thanksgiving for me is a whole lotta starch and carbs!  And that's just fine with me.  My family have been very accommodating on this one.

MEATS #'s 4 and 5

A few years ago there were those outbreaks of mad cow disease and foot and mouth disease amongst cattle and sheep.  Now, its not that I was afraid that I was going catch either of these diseases, but when ever they would report on an outbreak overseas, and then show PILES of carcasses of these animals that had been destroyed, it just sickened me.  I used to eat ALOT of beef, because, let's face it, I DO live in Texas and cattle is king.  Its almost sacrilege to NOT eat beef if you live here.  I was to the point where I was eating my filets almost rare and damn, a good filet is a thing of beauty.  And beef fajitas.  Yum.   But not anymore.  I saw a story one day on an American sheep farmer whose flock was suspected of exposure to foot and mouth, not proven, just suspected, and the entire flock, the entirety of this family's livelihood, was marked to be destroyed.  There was a picture of the family's teenage daughter standing there with a lamb that had a big red "X" painted on it which meant that the lamb was scheduled to be euthanized.  It broke her heart and it broke mine.  I don't think they ever found foot and mouth infection in the flock after that.

So those are the meats I don't eat and the reasons why.  You may giggle if you want.  I do eat other meat besides chicken and seafood.  I will eat any kind of wild hunted game.  Call me silly, but I figure these animals have been given a fighting change, lived in the wild, never been subjected to being raised cruelly, and as long as hunting is ethical and the animal killed humanely and instantly, I have no problem with it.  I personally cannot go out and shoot something myself nor can I join in and watch or observe, never have, but I am not going to pass up a good meal of venison or duck when it is presented to me.  And hunting is beneficial to the species as well.

I am quirky, I know, and my family accept this and are very accommodating at meals for me, God bless them!

Song virus du jour:  "The Pastorale (or 6th Symphony)" ~ The Deaf Kraut (That would be Beethoven ;  )