This Little Piggy Went to Market...

January 2010 - Siem Reap, Cambodia. Tuk tuk ride to the temples of Angkor.

On my tuk tuk ride to the Angkor temples (day two), I spotted little baby pigs in a cozy wooden cage on the back of a motorbike.[bxA] It was cute. I could see their little baby pig faces and curly tails moving around comfortably in the big cage. It made me think it was a kinder, gentler way of life there in Cambodia.

But then on the way back from the temples I spotted a motorbike with grown up pigs. Dead. Strapped to the back of the motorbike. Pig corpses.

Oh yeah. Of course. It took this circle-of-pig-life moment for me connect the dots. And feel guilty.

I eat meat, you see.

Lots of it. Not just sometimes, not in moderation, and not only fish. Meat. Chicken, cows, fish, lobster, pigs, lamb…most of God’s creatures.

I am not proud. In fact, increasingly, I am ashamed.

I suffer from cognitive dissonance. I’ve seen the documentaries on factory farms. I know the health risks. But I just can’t stop myself.

In fact…

By the time the next motorbike stacked with dead pigs passed my tuk tuk, I worked it out in my head that these pigs represent the old school good kind of farming. A way of life. The food chain. I imagined these free range old school Cambodian pigs living a nice happy life until the slaughter. Yeah, yeah, I know, the trauma of the slaughter fills the meat with toxins and I’m eating all that bad stuff. But there’s no hope for me and my cognitive dissonance.

And…here’s the really horrible part…I’m ashamed to admit…

It made me crave bacon. I ate it the next day for breakfast.

Feel free to fling a can of red paint on me next time I come ‘round.