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<\/a><\/div>\nI unwittingly came across one of the best Pro-Life articles I\u2019ve ever read (via the mainstream media) in the latest on-line edition of Time<\/em> magazine. The funny thing is, the author probably didn\u2019t realize that is what he was writing about. But that\u2019s the wonderful way unintended graces work themselves out. You write one thing, and I see another, which in a nutshell is why sola scriptura<\/em> is nonsense (but that\u2019s a post for another day).<\/p>\n The piece, written by Josh Ozersky (a James Beard Award<\/em>\u2014winning food writer and the author of The Hamburger: A History<\/a><\/em>) is about food, not people. Specifically, it is about killing and eating young animals, and why we really shouldn\u2019t be doing that. As I was reading it, it struck me that many of the same arguments work well for why we shouldn\u2019t be killing young human beings.<\/p>\n Below you\u2019ll find Josh\u2019s short piece in blocked script, and my parallel thoughts in the clear. There I was, just minding my own business and reading about food,<\/p>\n The Gastronomic Case Against Eating Baby Animals<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s odd, given American meat eaters\u2019 sporadic bursts of conscience, that as a nation we are so O.K. with infanticide. Veal cutlets, suckling pigs, spring lambs, game hens \u2014 with or without the euphemisms, I know that I\u2019ve made my peace with eating very young animals. But it\u2019s hard not to be struck by the peculiar blindness of people who fawn over puppies and kittens and devour their barnyard analogs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Heh. What\u2019s weirder is that many of these same folks are blind to the even sicker reality of killing unborn human beings. Wee tiny baby boys and girls, surgically scrambled up, dismembered, and fed to the garbage cans of abortion clinics all across the country. Talk about peculiar blindness. The case for killing human babies has peculiarly blind reasoning behind it too.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have much to say on the subject of morality, and wouldn\u2019t presume to offer advice to fellow sinners even if I did, but I can say this: if you want a good reason not to eat baby animals, consider the fact that they really don\u2019t taste that good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Seriously, sinners \u2018r us, for sure. As for the morality of killing unborn children, did you notice how easily your eyes just slipped over those words? Let me shout it from the rooftop: WE\u2019RE KILLING LITTLE BABIES?! How sick of a culture are we for making murdering babies legal? Look at this picture.<\/p>\n See, you don\u2019t have to be right-leaning, Moral Majority card carrying, Catholic Christian, pro-life zealot, to \u201cget\u201d the idea that killing unborn human children is wrong. Stop hiding behind Roe vs. Wade, put you thinking caps on, and look at the facts.<\/p>\n Animals, like most everything else in nature, grow stronger as they move from infancy to adulthood: they develop more fat, more muscle, more everything. They\u2019ve eaten more food, and the food they\u2019ve eaten changes them; it makes them taste like their food, which can be a very good thing indeed. I am against eating baby animals on gastronomic principle alone. The flavor of all immature animals is uniformly bland. The real taste of sheep isn\u2019t to be found in lamb, but rather in mutton; no teensy little 4-lb. chicken is ever going to have the flavor of a fat old hen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The similarities to feeding baby humans is striking again. You see, baby human beings develop more of everything as they mature too. Language skills, manual dexterity, cognitive skills etc., etc. They too eat and grow and develop and the next thing you know you\u2019ve got what no pet animal will ever achieve for the world: folks with the ability to send rockets to Mars, cure the common cold, and fix your car so the dreaded \u201ccheck-engine\u201d light doesn\u2019t come on. And these same folks will build the networks of the future , pay into our old age retirement systems, and do all the other neat stuff that our social programs and economic systems are built upon. The real payoff is when the babies become adults. Which begs the question,<\/p>\n So why, then, do we persist in eating babies? One reason, though not the real one, has to do with texture. Baby animals don\u2019t taste great \u2014 really, they don\u2019t taste much like anything \u2014 but their flesh is tender and so satisfies a country where the greatest compliment any meat can receive is that \u201cyou can eat it with a spoon.\u201d Yes, baby animals are \u201clike butter,\u201d but so what? Take an old tom turkey, or the shoulder of a 250-lb. hog, and cook it for many hours in a heavy pot, a slow oven or a sous vide bag, and it\u2019ll be \u201clike butter\u201d too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hold those thoughts on the butter and let me ask, Why do we continue to kill unborn babies? Insanity is all I can figure. It\u2019s mind-blowing to know that as a culture we are like farmers who are eating our seed corn, instead of planting it. It\u2019s mind blowing that our governments don\u2019t see the fact that killing off future generations will leave us barren and starving. We\u2019re setting ourselves up to be starved of the life blood of innovation that comes from the stock of human capital that we have been blessed with. Man, I\u2019m starting to get hungry for a turkey sandwich.<\/p>\n No, the real reason we eat a lot of baby animals is much cruder than any misguided preference for tender meat. Here\u2019s the thing about raising meat: Americans don\u2019t like to pay a lot for it. The longer an animal lives, the longer its owner has to shelter it and feed it; so every day it\u2019s allowed to live makes it less profitable. That\u2019s why the ribs at Burger King are the size of dominoes, and the chicken at Popeyes is barely bigger than quail. It\u2019s not pure evil on the part of the producers; even small farms can\u2019t afford to keep many animals alive for many years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The inconvenient truth: people cost money. I knew there would be a Mammon angle here<\/a> somewhere. Are we just killing off future generations now because of the costs in money and time of raising these future producers? How short sighted. You just want your sex sterile and to not be bothered with the little people that results from this? Grow up.<\/a> By the way, the Mammon angle is the same one for killing off the elderly too, which means you sooner or later. You\u2019ll be too damn costly to keep around. But getting back to the future, good investors( and an enlightened Mammon) know that the real returns on capital are not instantaneously achieved, but that they compound over time. It\u2019s no different with human capital, except the returns far outweigh the costs of production.<\/p>\n Which is sad, both for the animals and for us. I was in Italy last week, and, as you might expect, I ate a lot of good things (spaghetti, obviously; there was spaghetti flying at all four walls). But the thing that made the strongest impression on me was probably the single ugliest thing I ate during the whole week: a plate of braised wild boar in Montalcino. That boar tasted powerfully of pork. Not sage, not smoke, not soy or mustard or red-pepper vinegar. No, it tasted like pork. If you had a pork chop like that in Chicago or Atlanta, your first thought would be that it had gone bad. It was \u201cgamey,\u201d a catch-all adjective that we use to describe meat tastes that aren\u2019t mellow and sweet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the case of our killing baby humans, it\u2019s more than just sad, or tragic. It\u2019s abominable. Want to be able to fly to Italy to eat spaghetti in the future? That\u2019ll be hard to do if there aren\u2019t people to build, fly, and maintain the aircraft. Or design faster, better aircraft to get there quicker and cheaper. And like the strong dishes mentioned above (I\u2019m getting hungry again!), people in all of their richness and the fullness of humanity are pretty \u201cgamey\u201d too. Mellow and sweet at times, and hell on wheels other times. But like my friend the foodie writes\u2026<\/p>\n But that\u2019s O.K.; grownup people should like grownup tastes. In any case, the art of cooking is supplied with a lot of strong flavors to complement and support big, bold tastes. \u201cI like tastes that know their own minds,\u201d wrote A.J. Liebling, one of the all-time great gastronomes, in 1959. \u201cThe reason that people who detest fish often tolerate sole is that sole doesn\u2019t taste very much like fish, and even this degree of resemblance disappears when it is submerged in [sauce].\u201d Liebling thought such indifference to intrinsic flavor was a sign of weak-mindedness, and he thought that it also explained the popularity of such things as Golden Delicious apples, American cheese and vodka cocktails.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Killing our young is a clear sign of weak-mindedness too. Isn\u2019t that obvious? Grownup people should also let babies grow up, because in that way the fullness of life, in all its dignity and depravity, can be achieved. To what purpose? That\u2019s not my call, nor is it yours.<\/p>\n If you want to taste what meat really is, then don\u2019t eat lamb: eat mutton. You already know how much better a great steak is than a thin, wan piece of veal, so wouldn\u2019t it follow that that steak would taste even better another year down the road? Food writer Jeffrey Steingarten is still talking about a 10-year-old draft ox he ate a couple of years ago in Spain. Maybe I\u2019ll go there on my next trip.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In much the same way, I can truly say if you want to taste what life is all about, then don\u2019t kill babies: let them grow up! And like the foodie is still raving about that great meal he had in Spain (some babies grow up to be spectacular chefs!), I am still raving about the day each of my children were born, all the trials and triumphs of their lives (and mine) right up to that campout I enjoyed with my 10 year old cub scout last weekend; hearing my 12 year old daughter\u2019s prayer requests over dinner every night; and watching my 15 year old son hit two line drives (one to left field, and one to right) and steal second base twice.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n