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Mad Cowboy

Earlier this evening my Aunt took me to the Chicago Vegetarian Society's Turkey-Free Thanksgiving Dinner. The meal, all vegan and mostly organic, was out of this world- were I blindfolded, I would have sworn I was eating stuffing straight out of a turkey. It tasted exactly like it! The chef, it turns out, won a gold medal at the International Culinary Olympics back in 1996, and was singlehandedly responsible for the creation of a vegetarian category there.

After dinner, Howard Lyman gave a passionate, inspiring speech about his transformation from being raised a 4th-generation Montana cattle rancher to a full-fledged vegan and social activist, from eye-witnessing the horrors of the meat industry all his life. These range from using rendered animal parts (scraps left over from cow/chicken/hog/fish processing including bone, tissue, blood, etc.) in cow feed, to the rampant use of antibiotics, insecticides and growth hormones while raising the animals. All of these, of course, can result in nasty things like Alzheimer's Disease, Mad Cow Disease, and numerous other food-borne diseases.

Seeing Lyman speak was perfect timing for me, given that I've somewhat recently become vegetarian, and am almost finished with Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation." This is definitely a must-read book, along the lines of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle." Especially for you carnivores in the audience, and anyone who eats fast food...