A Controversy to Sink Your Teeth Into

Any writer who addresses a controversial subject--such as abortion, gun control or animal protection--is certain to be misunderstood and mangled by advocates on both sides.

In writing about the two Cambodians who killed a puppy with the intention of eating it, I said that the case raised some “exquisite” questions, since a judge dismissed the charges on the ground that there is no law against eating pets, and that the men’s method of dispatching the dog was no more cruel than that employed by slaughterhouses in killing beef.

I think the questions raised by that judgment are obvious and exquisite.

I went on to question the morality that allows us to kill any animals for food, and admitted that I had “caved in” to the protests against the cruelties of preparing calves for the table, and given up veal. (I confessed that I had not yet given up chicken, though I doubted that a chicken’s brief life was any happier than that of the veal calf.)

In a letter to the editor, Elizabeth Ondrako of Laguna Beach condemns my “cavalier manner” in reflecting on “a very disturbing subject,” and holds that the questions raised by the case of the hungry Cambodians are more “horrifying” than “exquisite.”

Well, of course I meant “exquisite” in the sense that Edgar Allan Poe’s horror tales were exquisite. Mrs. Ondrako calls the judge’s ruling “unconscionable.”

Patricia R. Bjorklund of Van Nuys applauds my comments as “particularly interesting and provocative. . . . Please don’t take offense,” she says, “but I wish you had not chosen to use the words ‘admit’ and ‘caved in’ with respect to your having ‘given up eating veal.’ Mr. Smith, you should have been proud of having done so.”

As I suggested, however, I can hardly be proud of giving up veal when I still enjoy a savory chicken leg and a juicy hamburger. The more one ponders the question of eating animals the more exquisite one’s dilemma becomes.

Ariane Spade of Woodland Hills takes a kinder view of my effort, saying, “Thank you for your compassionate and self-revealing column. This revelation of conscience is particularly timely in light of the fact that we have discovered that eating animal flesh is almost as harmful to the eaters as it is to the eaten.”

Karen S. Key of Pasadena writes that at 23 she has not only given up eating animals but also using any products, such as cosmetics, whose preparation requires animal by-products or animal testing.

Mark Machuszek of Manhattan Beach challenges the statement of Wes Korchoff, whose anti-protectionist letter provoked this discussion, that cavemen subsisted on animals. Machuszek says, “Cavemen, according to tooth wear patterns studied by anthropologists, have proved without exception, our ancestors were plant and fruit eaters primarily and consumed meat only in the absence of plant products.”

“I suspect that numerous people,” writes Clark Brickel, “grapple with the fact that we have no choice but to consume food which, in its former state, may have possessed a level of consciousness somewhat similar to our own. I have. We are caught in our primitive biology, no matter how sophisticated our philosophy.”

Eddy S. Feldman quotes a remarkable passage from George Bernard Shaw, a notorious vegetarian, imagining his death from refusing to take animal-derived iron injections for a foot infection:

“My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures. . . .”

I am pleased by Patricia Bjorklund’s detection of what she calls “the irony of your subtle last paragraph,” and her hope that it was not lost on other readers. Alas, irony has a poor batting average.

What I said was: “But my wife and I have nothing to feel guilty about. All we eat is microwave dinners, which are far removed from the real thing.”

Irony aside, I’ve decided to give vegetarianism a try. For lunch today I had a slice of bread, a bowl of lentil soup, an avocado and a glass of milk. (I’ve heard that cows like being milked.)

Of course I can’t really start until we’ve finished up our Easter ham.