Posts tagged "meat"

What do you do when you love animals but you also love to eat meat? Does a true animal-lover have to be a vegetarian to have a clean conscience? Would you ever consider DIY butchering?

Forget backyard chickens. The latest trend in urban eating is butchering classes. The New York Times reports that butchers are now teaching classes in places like New York City, San Francisco, and London. There are also more intensive apprentice programs with master butchers. According to the Times, "The same food connoisseurs who once revered only celebrity chefs or restaurant impresarios are now turning their attentions to a humbler, more rustic food world." David Kamp, the author of "The United States of Arugula," a history of the recent American revolution in gourmet eating, calls the interest in butchery "a weird echo of the early-70s back-to-the-land movement."

Some diners think of it as just the next logical step from belonging to a CSA or eating locally grown produce. The idea seems to be that if you know where your meat is coming from, you can try to honor the animal by respecting that it died for you. While the classes themselves are not for the squeamish, some animal-rights activists say this new interest in nose-to-tail eating might spare the animals certain slaughterhouse horrors.

At any rate, it's sure a change of pace from yet another yoga class.