Conscious Carnivores

Meatless Mondays, veganism, butchery fascination: no matter the cultural paradox, they're all a move towards more conscious consumption of meat. Whether because I'm type O or my grandfather came from a family of butchers, there's meat in my blood. Not every day, maybe not even every week, but a well-raised piece of meat—lamb, pork, beef, what have you—is a beautiful primal thing.

I love that today we have the option to substitute other foods for our main diet, but like any other animal, we still crave what we can catch. We may no longer need to quiver over a crossbow but we're no less tied to the source. I won't link to factory farm videos; those horrors are readily available. I'd rather share some stories about people doing the right thing: butchers sourcing solely from organic farms and teaching restaurant owners how to make their own cuts; the king of nose-to-tail eating; and a pig-to-pork farmstead with a charcuterie CSA. It's all in Edible Manhattan's "Good Meat" issue on stands now. (See photos I took while on assignment here, if you're curious how pigs keep warm and what an efficient bacon slicer looks like.)

Even some vegetarians agree that if they could just find a humanely raised animal, they'd eat meat too. It's good for the land to pasture animals; it's good for animals to eat good pasture; and for some, harvest of a prime long-lived-and-loved animal is a luxury. As my late great uncle believed as a butcher (above in the family's Harrison, NY store), a few extra sausages for customers in need during recessions got families through to next week. To him, good meat and the people who treat it right.