Eating meat, with a side order of conflicting emotions. One person, under the Twitter handle @MichelleVegan, wrote, “McDonalds scalds baby chicks alive for nuggets.” The Twitter feed for Vegan.com chimed in: “My memories of walking into a McDonald’s: the sensory experience of inhaling deeply from a freshly-opened can of dog food.” Then, of course, PETA entered the fray with a photo of a coil of pink goop, implying that McNuggets were made from “mechanically separated chicken,” an allegation that McDonald’s immediately denied. Regardless of the veracity of those claims, the episode underscored a new truth: Meat eating is not the simple pleasure it was in previous generations, and not just for those frequenting fast-food joints. Even as millions of Americans continue to gobble down gourmet burgers, dry-aged steaks, chef-driven charcuterie and bacon-wrapped everything, they’re regularly forced to consider the potential consequences of their actions. PCRM: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Vegetarian Doctors Go Whole Hog to Burn Bacon in Iowa. Protein consumption and bone fractures in women. [Am J Epidemiol. 1996.