Animal Writings

For your cookout this weekend, pick up some Gardenburger Riblets. They're amazingly good. Plus there's an important bonus reason for trying them, which I hope you'll take into consideration.

Most pigs raised today live their entire lives in cages barely bigger than they are. They never see the sun, feel grass, or breathe fresh air. These intelligent, curious, social animals exhibit severe frustration from their constant confinement, biting aggressively on the cage bars, surely wishing to break free. In many operations, the cages are stacked three high and the bottom pigs are covered in the excrement from the pigs above them. This is a highly unnatural situation. The pigs have no exercise, no toys, no affection, nothing. Their treatment would result in a felony conviction in 38 states if done to a dog. Eventually the inhospitable, empty environment gets to the pigs and they simply give up, becoming lifeless and unresponsive. All the while, they're standing on concrete, their unexercised legs barely able to support their huge upper body.

Then it gets worse. They're crammed extremely tightly into trucks without food or water and taken to the slaughterhouse. Many of the pigs are still fully conscious as they're immersed in scalding hot water. They flail and scream as this is happening. This is well-documented and admitted by slaughterhouse workers.

So each time you buy Riblets, or veggie bacon or ham, you're sparing animals from horrible suffering. That's amazing power — use it.

I like my Riblet sandwiches on a bun with cole slaw piled high on top. Some folks prefer them with a slice of red onion and tomato. Delicious either way. Or make up your own variations. Load up with side dishes like corn and pasta salad and you've got yourself a great meal. The Riblets are a little on the salty side, so you may have to wash them down with a beer. Try some, let me know what you think.

While we're on the subject, here are a couple of other vegetarian grilling ideas. I want to impress upon you that it's easy to work vegetarian entrees into your barbecues, and that there are many advantages to doing so.

A friend of mine could not find a veggie burger he liked, until he discovered Morningstar Grillers. Now Grillers still have some animal products, like eggs — and laying hens in factory farms probably suffer more than any animal on the planet; their lives are even worse than the pigs' — but the reason I'm recommending this product anyway is because I want to get you in the habit of cooking up veggie alternatives instead of always meat, meat, meat. Mountain climbers, triathletes, weight-lifters, and Olympians do it, so there's nothing un-macho about it. But I realize that sometimes there's this hump you have to get over; you're used to buying hamburger and frying it up for so many years, there's some resistance to change. Sometimes I hear something along the lines of "what are my friends going to think?" Don't worry about it, don't make a big deal of it. More than likely, they'll ask for a taste and like it, and eventually buy it themselves. This happens all the time. Or you can give them a copy of Even If You Like Meat. This pamphlet is a real eye-opener. Warning: some of the pictures are disturbing. But we can't close our eyes to pain and suffering that we help create. Better to face it head on, admit it, and divest ourselves of it. And you can do that in large part with a more humane diet.

Anyway, my friend and his wife, who rarely ate veggie burgers before, now eat Grillers regularly. They invited a non-vegetarian friend over for an all-veggie barbecue. He loved it.

Bonus — most of these products require practically no clean-up afterwards. You'll go to grab the wire brush, ready to scrape, and notice that there's nothing to clean.

Other veggie meat products to try out: GardenBurger BBQ "Chickn," and, actually, all the fake chicken products. Some taste more like chicken than chicken. I know that sounds strange, but you'll see what I mean. If you don't like one variety, don't give up, because there is tremendous diversity.

You don't have to go out of your way to find these products; they're available at major supermarkets like Safeway, Kroger, Albertsons, and Whole Foods. You can even buy many of them at WalMart in bulk. They're lower in saturated fats than the products they replace, so figure improved health into the equation. These products also tend to be high-protein and low-carb, and fit into low-carb diets very well. Plus, you are saving animals from God-awful suffering — that helps your heart, too!

Hope your weather is as good as the weather in the DC area this weekend. Enjoy your grilling. Remember the animals in cramped cages who suffer out of our sight — and who you can help simply by modifying your food purchases. Take a moment of silence to remember the fallen soldiers, who sacrificed so that we could live in freedom.