Could You Quit Eating Animals?

What if you knew you could have a world full of healthier people, greater fish populations, less disease, less pollution, and a sharp decrease in animal abuse? Would you be willing to sacrifice your animal-eating lifestyle - including Thanksgiving Turkeys, to make these changes happen?

On this radio program, two great food authors, Jonathon Safran Foer (vegetarian) and Anthony Bourdain (omnivore, if there ever was one) debate the ethics of animal consumption as they relate to health, economy, environment, and culture.

I would personally recommend both of the authors' books. While Foer's book did not make me stop eating meat (I am perhaps the only person I know who has read Eating Animals and continued eating meat, actually), Bourdain's book did make me use a lot more shallots in my cooking...

Tennessee - Do it with your hands

Tennessee - land of a thousand chain restaurants. They're taking it to a whole new level.. they actually have something called KFC Buffet... All you can eat fried almost-chicken? No Thanks.

How about the meal at Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede Dinner & Show? This is a prixe fix meal served to you while you watch cowboys and Indians, trick-riding, the chicken chase relay race, magic, bad comedy, song and dance etc. It's the TV dinner on meth. The menu? Each person gets: 1 WHOLE Chicken, 2 Pork Chops, 1/2 corn-on-cob, 1/2 baked potato, cream of vegetable soup, 1 biscuit, and an apple turnover. What you don't get, is silverware. That's right folks, you're gonna eat that all with your hands. Wash it all down with unlimited sweet tea for a meal that robs you of any hope for family conversation and injects you with a hefty dose of barbarism (and sodium) in the process. Pigeon Forge, TN is littered with these dinner shows (Elvis Impersonators, Magicians, Animal Wranglers, and even good Christian Storytelling). But I suppose I can't really be surprised, seeing as the town boasts more As-Seen-On-TV stores and go-kart tracks than I've ever seen in all other places combined.

Man, the South seems like another world...