Chad Love: Take a Vegan Hunting Day

If not for the ill-advised decision by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to declare Saturday as “Michigan Meat Out Day” I would have had no idea that “Meat Out Day” was anything other than one ag-state politician’s stupendously bad idea .

And as usual when I bet against the inherent stupidity of people, I would have been wrong.

From the website:

_On (or around) March 20, the first day of spring thousands of caring people in all 50 U.S. states and two dozen other countries get active to host educational Meatout events. Activities include colorful festivals, lectures, public dinners, feed-ins, cooking demos, food samplings, leafleting, information tables and more.

The occasion is Meatout, the world’s largest and oldest annual grassroots diet education campaign. Meatout 2010 is the 25th Anniversary! Every spring, thousands of caring Meatout supporters educate their communities and ask their friends, families, and neighbors to pledge to “kick the meat habit (at least for a day) and explore a wholesome, compassionate diet of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.”_

In the interest of fairness, however, here is a proposal. Let’s create a “Take a Vegan Hunting or Fishing Day” as a means to highlight the benefits of a wholesome, organic, sustainable, eco-friendly wild game diet. I promise to observe Meatout and experience the vegetarian world for one day if vegetarians in turn are willing to experience mine.

I’m not being facetious here. In the long run it might be more productive to engage those with philosophical differences than it is to simply disparage them, and I say that as someone who admittedly does a whole lot of the latter. The world changes one mind at a time, and showing a willing Vegan what hunting and fishing is truly all about might be the best way to help that process along.