Archive for the ‘leather’ Tag



I am tired of self-righteous people looking down on my rib eye steak.   I don’t eat one every day.   Probably because I can’t afford to.   But when I can, am in a good restaurant and have a hankerin’ for one, I want my moo.  And as I’m enjoying its marbled fat clogging my arteries and shortening my lifespan, there is always some single young urban professional woman with short hair a few tables away eating a salad flashing me cutting looks of disapproval.  It’s as if I were munching on a shriveled up human cadaver with a frozen in time gaping open-mouthed “please help me” expression on its face pointed her way.

For a moment I look down on my plate and feel bad about myself.  I love animals.  I would never harm one.  Yet, I’m actually eating a dead one.  But as long as I don’t have to slaughter and butcher the cow myself, I can stomach it just fine.   Yes, I am weak.  A weak man when it comes to eating morality.   I can not suppress my taste for meat, no matter how many vegetarians give me the dirty dining look.


I think if you can abstain from eating meat on anti-cruelty to animal principles, you are a marvelous person.  Not only do you have strong convictions, but you practice what you preach.   A far better individual than I.  However, most of the vegetarians I have met are self-righteous hypocrites.  They castigate you for eating meat, yet they are wearing leather shoes, jackets and carry leather bags.

You may or may not believe Jesus died for our sins.  But a cow definitely died for those loafers.  Vogue vegetarians are not saving lives as long as they are using products made of leather.  And since many claim vegetarian status out of fashion,  they are not prepared to give up their fashionable leather apparel.   It’s in vogue to abstain from eating meat, not to shop at Payless Shoes.

And the fact that many “vegetarians” eat fish and chicken further perplexes me.  Does it hurt a chicken or fish any less to be slaughtered?  Are their lives any less important than a cow’s just because their brains are not as developed?   That’s like saying it’s OK to kill a retarded person because he or she won’t really understand what’s going on.  Killing is killing.  You either do it or you don’t.   There isn’t a happy medium.   It’s like supporting the death penalty.  You’re either for killing people or you’re not.


However the pendulum swings both ways.   There are nobel individuals out there, mostly in San Francisco, who see the hypocrisy of “vogue vegetarians” and make their statement by becoming vegans, by not eating any kind of meat or food that has any animal origins.  A cow can’t even have looked at their plate of jicama or it’s inedible.  Moreover, they do not wear any animal products either.  This is why most vegans are readily identifiable by their garb;  Canvas sneakers, pants falling down because they don’t have leather belts, canvass messenger bags and t-shirts promoting no-kill animal shelters.

But the best way to identify vegans is by the scowl on their faces.   These people are not doing this to be fashionable.   They are 100% committed to not killing any animal for any reason.  And if you are not fully on board, you get “the look.”   Head cocked to the side, lips pursed together and a cold stare through squinted eyes that penetrates your soul. Even all the way from the sidewalk and through a McDonald’s plate-glass window while you have a mouthful of Big Mac.  To a vegan you are not just eating a hamburger, you are disposing of a dead body.

So while I admire vegans for their commitment, many are seething with vitriol at those who are not in step.   And if you do find a vegan who can tolerate you, going out to eat with them is like looking for a French restaurant in Texas.   Most restaurants don’t even know the requirements for vegan cooking.  And when you finally locate one with a vegan menu, you feel like you are eating perfumed flowers and crayon flavored polenta.   You can’t wait to get home and scarf down a bowl of Count Chocula in Chocolate Milk to get that humane vegan taste out of your mouth.


Equally annoying are the healthy eating food movements that have arisen to foul our collective kitchens;  Eating raw, eating natural and eating a turkey leg while the bird is under anesthesia so you don’t have to kill it.  Every self-styled Dr. Phil of Food has a new way of eating that is going to “change everything.”   They put out DVD’s, books, create special web sites, have seminars and even PBS specials.

One “groundbreaking program” supposed to change the way the world eats was called Food Forward, which had a single episode life span on PBS’ “starved for free programming” affiliates in Anchorage Alaska, Columbus Ohio and other major minor markets.   Surprisingly  eating plants and dirt (packed with iron you know) never caught on with the mainstream.

So, the Food Forward producers tried to cross-fund more episodes with a cheap reality series of videos called Food Rebels, staring the self-styled road warrior in search of great grub Greg Roden, who is also the show’s producer.  He aimlessly drove around the country in a trailer looking for ordinary people eating unordinary things.  It’s a total reach when programs like this find a food fool in Oregon who eats wood and calamities like Food Rebels try to convince viewers this is a newly discovered “kind of food” and way of eating.  Apparently we need to take more nutritional cues from termites.

The only thing I can say is that whenever you hear or see anything from the bowels of Food Forward’s rag-tag collection of stupid food tricks, light a match when you are done.   Please be considerate and don’t stink up the world for the rest of us.


Food has already been invented.  As much as people like the producers of Food Forward would have you believe, they are not going to discover a new food.  Ancient cultures have beat them to the punch.  The Chinese eat cow stomach lining called tripe, a delicacy left over from when they were starving in ancient China and could not waste any part of the animal.   African slaves in America made delicacies out of pigs knuckles and black-eyed peas, which were scraps left over from white people.  And Aborigines still eat insects to survive out in the bush.

Moreover, people have been even drinking their own urine for years, but I’d hardly call it a new food, or even beverage.   Plus, I’m sure it doesn’t taste all that great either.   But Food Forward, Food Rebels or whatever the producers are now calling it, might designate drinking urine a new food.   And the strange person in the little house in the woods with no electricity guzzling it down daily?  A “Food Hero.”


My response to all of the people with their eating idiosyncrasies, whether they be out of fashion, true conscious or a desire to be famous, “is to chew with your mouths closed.”  Nobody wants to see what you’re eating.   Nor does anyone want to be told how to eat.   People know whats good and bad for you.   They chose to eat what they want for their own reasons.  I know eating meat is a complete juxtaposition against of my love for animals.   However I unabashedly admit my shortcoming. And, its my decision if I want to reorganize my priorities.


So enough of all these “great new foods” and ways of eating.  There are no new foods and ways of eating.   Delicacies and diets just come in and out of fashion.   The only thing original are new and more delicious ways of preparing food.  Moreover, as long as there are delectable things to eat in the world, people are not going to eat out of their gardens, get their iron from consuming dirt, drink their own urine or stop eying that sizzling rib eye with the garlic butter.   So mind your manners and eat off your own plate.   Or as  Food Forward might recommend, don’t just clean your plate, eat it.  It’s loaded with calcium and they can shoot an entire episode about it!