August 8th, 2008 - Our little carnivore
Despite my desire for her to be a vegetarian, Maggie prefers to be a carnivore. Which is why she doesn’t eat a lot of food perhaps since we rarely serve meat. When she does get meat, it’s all she wants to eat. But, since I will eat only organic meat (preferable grass-fed and free range) and Eric agrees that’s a good idea for her as well, and it’s rather expensive, we simply don’t have meat around much. (Eric is a different story–he will eat cheap meat from the grocery store.) (Relatedly, I just read Granny Miller’s post about why she raises her own meat animals and she nicely explains why I try to eat only organic/pasture raised meat. )
Since she likes to eat meat, we want to be sure she knows where it comes from. Although she is rather doubtful of it, she does know that burgers come from cows. (She’s a bit confused on this point, as she also thinks that our veggie burgers come from cows.)
This weekend, we’re going to the county fair. Part of it is a petting zoo of farm animals. Eric told her about it today. They went through a number of the animals each of us would get to pet such as a pig and a chicken. Then she says, “And I will say thank you to the cows.”
Surprised, Eric queries her, “Why?”
“Because they make hamburgers!”
Wondering if she’s thinking that cows sit around making burgers with their hands, he says, “Maggie, hamburgers are made OUT OF cows.”
“I know. They are made out of little pieces of cows!”
“OK. And yes, you can say thank you to the cows at the fair.”
So she both knows where her meat comes from AND she wants to properly thank the cows for providing us the food. I love her!
We need to take her to Cattleana Ranch again so she can see the cows we actually eat. (And are eating for dinner tonight. Eric picked up burgers at the Red Radish.)