Slaughtered with dignity. Consumed with gratitude.

The animals grazed placidly, majestically, almost pre-historically…

The more an author rhapsodizes over a grazing animal, the more certain you can be the author will soon be eating that animal for dinner.

This author is describing a buffalo hunt he witnessed.  Like many compassionate carnivores, he takes great pride in his willingness to “see where his meat came from.”  He records the “harvesting” of the buffalo with a weeping pen.  He talks about the other buffalo bowing their heads in grief.

I felt the ache of witnessing death.  I wasn’t alone in my sadness.  As the rancher knelt over the buffalo and hoisted it by chains with the bucket of a loader, the rest of the herd drew in close and lowered their heads. The sight of animals mourning … humbled me to my carnivorous core.

Does "the ache of witnessing death" inspire the author to consider giving up meat?  No, it inspires him to get out his thesaurus and use up every word listed under honor and dignity.

“I slit the animals’s throat because I was fucking craving a big juicy steak” sounds way too profane, so the compassionate carnivore dresses things up with the noblest human impulses.

In Michael Pollan’s 36-hour dinner party “Mike wants to ‘honor the goat’ by wasting as little of it as possible."

Then there’s Katherine Friend’s letter to the lamb.

Tomorrow morning when we load you onto the trailer for your trip to the abattoir, we will be thinking about the life you’ve lived on this farm – running around the pasture at dusk, sleeping in the sun and grazing enthusiastically for the tenderest bit of grass.  We will say aloud, "thank you."

 The compassionate carnivores are always thanking and praising and honoring the animals they kill, as if the animal knew how hungry they were and, in a moment of selflessness, decided to offer up its flesh. 

By making the act of slaughter more than mere slaughter, by transforming it into something ceremonial, the compassionate carnivore is able to convince himself that subjecting animals to the most gruesome fate imaginable is a morally praiseworthy act.

Conscientious, Compassionate, Cash-earning Carnivores.

Let’s see we’ve got Conscientious Carnivores and Compassionate Carnivores.  So don’t want to offend, you know, but it’s hard to keep the two of them straight.  They both shed crocodile tears over the plight of farm animals and chatter endlessly about their personal conflictedness as they chow down on the remains of said animals.  But there must be differences. Is it like belts in martial arts? Does a conscientious carnivore work his way up to becoming a compassionate carnivore?  Who gets first dibs on the shank?  Maybe the compassionate carnivores came first and the conscientious carnivores were an offshoot.  They had doctrinal differences, split off like the Lutherans.  Or maybe it was a naked power-grabbing move.  The conscientious carnivores were sick and tired of being in the shadows while the author of Conscientious Carnivores, Catherine Friend (as in with friends like this animals don’t need enemies), was out doing the talk show circuit, getting reviewed by the NYT, hobnobbing with Michael Pollan.  Michael Pollan could tell them both there’s plenty of money to be made off all those hungry progressives out there, salivating for a juicy steak and a good rationalization.  Why don’t the two of you join me? Michael Pollan would say.  All three of us can be Cash-earning Carnvivores.

Dinner with Trina and Mike, compassionate carnivores

TRINA:  There's an exciting movement out there.
MIKE:  Bigger than organic, bigger than buying local.
TRINA:  Compassionate people concerned about the suffering of farm animals. 

MIKE: Factory farms are hell on earth.  The manifesto of the compassionate carnivore is we reduce animal suffering by only buying our meat from family farms. 

TINA:  Some cynical people out there say to us, if we're so concerned about animal suffering, why don't we stop eating them?  Mike, why don't you set these cynics straight.

MIKE: The thwing aboo compashwon is it’s a tfo we seet.

TRINA: Sorry, it’s hard to understand Mike when he’s got a mouthful of meat.  He said the thing about compassion is it’s a two way street.

MIKE: We’re compassionate to the animals so they need to show us a little compassion in return.

TRINA: The way they do this is by letting us eat them.

MIKE: Believe me, we have so much appreciation for the compassion these kind animals show us. Yummy juicy juicy meat.

TRINA: It’s one big, harmonious circle of compassion.

MIKE: Chew, chomp, yum, chewy, juicy.

TRINA: Mmm, yum, pink, juicy fleshy yummy meat

MIKE: Compassion is all about empathy. Relating to the needs of someone other than yourself.  When these poor farm animals live in a dark crate in a factory farm, it’s like I’m living in a dark crate.

TRINA: You are so compassionate, Mike.

MIKE: So are you, Trina. Yummy delicious flesh.

TRINA: Mmmmm! Chewy, delicious, juicy flesh.

MIKE: We empathize with the animals by not wanting them to suffer more than necessary.

TRINA: And they empathize with us by understanding how much pleasure it gives us to eat their flesh. Mmm, so rare, so pink

MIKE: Delicious blood running down my chin

TRINA:  Put down the napkin, Let me lick it up, oh, tasty, heavenly blood

MIKE: Lick it up, lick it up.