Today is National Pig Day, which as you might imagine has nothing to do with celebrating pigs for, um, being pigs.  Instead, food blog Serious Eats celebrates with features on Chinese Pork Butt, regional barbecued pork, and “pig chefs.”

Perhaps the most repulsive article, though, is 30 Days of Pork, which discusses a vegetarian’s return to meat eating by eating pig every day for a month. 

From the article (emphasis mine):

Ms. Kelso (right), a 34-year-old executive producer for an interactive ad agency in San Francisco, became a vegetarian while living with a vegan boyfriend. “He was adamant that his cookware not come in contact with any meat products.” Because she cares about animals, their welfare, and their ethical treatment, she said, she found it relatively easy to give up meat. But, she says, “I love the taste, so I was one of those vegetarians who would always try all the fake meats.”

It was after reading Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, however, that Ms Kelso was prompted to rethink her reasons for becoming a vegetarian—namely her interest in remaining true to personal ethics regarding the impact of food on the environment and society. The book, which came out earlier this year, follows four very different meals from source to table while assessing their ethical, economical, and social impact along the way.

“After reading it, I realized that I was in violation of those ethics even while being a vegetarian,” Ms. Kelso said. “Unless I drop out of society, live in the forest, and become a hunter-gatherer, I have an impact based on what I buy, no matter what it is.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole “conscientious omnivore” thing (and, somewhat related, the welfare v.s. rights v.s. abolition argument — that, I’ll cover separately) and the more I see things like this, the more the idea of being promoting ”conscientious omnivorousness” bothers me.

Yes, it would be nice if people that ate meat started caring about how the animals were treating.  Yes, it would be nice if learning about slaughterhouses, dairy farms, and egg farms eventually led these people on a path to veganism.  And, yes, eating locally farmed meat may be marginally better than factory farmed meat (in the same way that punching someone in the face with your fist is better than punching them while wearing brass knuckles).

But, no, it’s not nice to keep seeing these articles about so-called ethical vegetarians that decide to go back to eating meat because now they can eat “happy meat” and have their conscience sated.  People like Kelso are drawing conclusions from books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Way We Eat that allow them to return to meat consumption with a clear heart, convinced somehow that eating animals is more ethically correct than not eating animals.  That’s some seriously shaky ground.

The article ends thusly:

While she says that she may go back to being a vegetarian (or maybe not), Ms. Kelso is looking forward to the holidays at home, where, she says, her father is awaiting her visit. “He’s obsessed with cooking and is very excited about the next time I go out and visit him. He’s already planning all his special meat dishes.”

*sigh*  I’m sure the pigs are all just as excited.