Dear Straight Talk: My family is going to “Aunt Maggie’s” again for Thanksgiving where eating meat is practically a religious act. My uncle and cousins hunt every living thing and clean their rifles right on the kitchen table. There are dead animal heads pinned up all over the living room and sometimes there are dead animals hanging in the garage.
They give me such a hassle for being vegetarian and my own parents join in under the banner of “is she getting enough protein?” The whole thing makes me sick. I don’t believe in hunting, for one, and having everybody smack their lips and tease me about how good the animal tastes is just too much. What’s the perfect comeback to get them to leave me alone and have a little shame?—No stomach for killing
Dear No stomach: There is nothing shameful about consuming legally hunted game. What is shameful is being taunted for your eating preferences. To get them to leave you alone, try a humorous compromise. Tell them you’re okay with them roasting the turkey as long as they don’t roast you, too.
Here’s another angle:
From Lennon, 19: They shouldn’t be teasing you, but it’s no wonder they do. Your disgust for their lifestyle is obvious. I think you misunderstand hunters and hunting. My hunting mentor is Tom Brown, Jr. and nobody respects animals or nature more than he. In his book, “The Tracker” (a true story), Tom’s teacher is an Apache Indian named Stalking Wolf. Stalking Wolf tells Tom to find a deer, learn its habits for a month, and then kill it with a spear so it’s up close and personal. Tom does this. He jumps out of a tree onto the deer (the deer had gotten so used to him it was not fearful), and drives the spear into its back. The spear breaks, half-killing the deer, so Tom has to strangle it the rest of the way. Afterward, he feels terrible for the deer, and is enraged at Stalking Wolf for giving him this task. Stalking Wolf, noticing his anger, says, “It’s not fair to feel that way for the deer unless you can also hear the grass scream.”
My point is, no matter what we eat, something has to die for that to happen.
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