In Which I Discuss Meat

I think it must be obvious by now that we are not shy about the meat. In the course of our culinary adventures, we are, at the very least, dedicated omnivores. However, I took this a step further in my last post in which I made mention of the "responsible meatatarian". Allow me to elaborate: I consider myself a responsible meatatarian; someone who eats meat but does so in such a way as to limit the negative impacts of doing so as much as possible. I work at making sure I know where my meat comes from, how it lived and ate and who is selling it to me. In other words, I'm pretty particular and am aware that any choice that I make to eat meat has the potential to make a broad eco-socio-economic impact. I don't want to go off on a rant here but the minimum amount of research that I have done (really, tip-of-the-iceberg stuff) has helped me to make the decision not to capriciously consume food. I appreciate meat and, lucky for me, I also have the luxury of being able to make a choice about what I eat. (And for the record, I really appreciate the vegetable family, too. I respect the people who choose to eat them exclusively and who, in turn, accord me the same respect as an omnivore.) That being said, I thought it would be interesting to look at irresponsible meatatarianism. (Plus, we didn't cook last night so I've got no pictures and no recipes to blather on about.) Ergo, here is my list of (arguably) The Top 7 Most Irresponsible Meatatarians (That I Was Able To Find In A Couple Hours' Worth of Google Searching): Number Seven Truly remarkable, this is a story about a 115-lb woman from New Jersey who ate 11% of her body's weight in burger. I actually don't consider her so much an irresponsible meatatarian as I do the pub and its owner who are responsible for creating this crazy-huge meat sandwich. So I guess it's a tie: Denny's Beer Barrel Pub and Katie Stelnick. Number Six Interesting that people choose to challenge themselves with the amount of food they can consume in one sitting. I think the description of this affair is what qualified it on my little unofficial list.

Halfway through the burger, I started to slow down. "Sweet Lord," I complained, "This is like trying to eat a cow hit by a produce truck." "My plate looks like a roach coach exploded in a mustard factory," Todd observed. By this point, the burger looked like something out of a John Carpenter film. It was not easy to be eating mutant zombie flesh, even with the cheese. "I'm having a hard time here," I said a few minutes later. "I'm getting the meat sweats," Todd said, dabbing at his forehead with a filthy napkin. This was a war. Covered in fluids and flesh, we determined to slog it through. With great difficulty, I finished the rest of the burger, including the quarter-pound of loose condiments that had dripped onto the plate. Scooping that mess into my mouth was the worst part: a greasy casserole of bacon, oily mushrooms, and fried onions.

To his credit, this guy wrote an extremely colourful description of the experience – especially the "greasy casserole" part which, even without the pictures, was enough to trigger a brief wave of nausea. (I can practically hear Chris supressing the dry heaves as he reads this.) Number Five "Badlands" Booker eating a burger that is larger than his head. Number Four The Smoke Meat Marathon. While in Montreal, this guy challenged himself to eat as many versions of the smoked meat sandwich as possible. Tasty though these sandwiches can be, I feel pretty bad leaving behind so much food on a plate, let alone meat. I can only assume that he didn't finish each sandwich he tried which would mean wasted meat which would point to an irresponsible meatarian. Number Three I think Hardee's deserves to be Number Three on this list because not only do they make the largest, most calorie-laden fast food burger on offer today, but they target a most apathetic demographic. People! Fear the burger! Save yourselves! (BTW, I totally looked up where the closest Hardee's is. If I drove for, like, 8 straight hours, I could get one of these burgers in Montana.) Number Two Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas. I love that the people who enter the competetive eating circuit give themselves nicknames. Witness American greats like Eric "Badlands" Booker (a.k.a. Number Five on this list), Ed "Cookie" Jarvis, "Hungry" Charles Hardy, and Rich "The Locust" LeFevre. She holds a number of world records for eating and, incidentally, her inspiration for becoming a professional competitive eater is Number One. NUMBER ONE The Hot Dog King himself, the champion and inspiration of irresponsible meatatarians everywhere, Mr. Takeru Kobayashi. Seriously. 53½ hotdogs. In 12 minutes. Seriously! How is he not dead? Of nitrate poisoning and/or choking and/or heart attack? Scientists should study Takeru and make sure that he isn't a super villain. I can't even be reprehensive here as I am overshadowed by sheer amazement. I am agog. And I kind of want a hot dog. Disclaimer: I admit that I got pretty carried away on the burger theme but there is a mountain of evidence documenting the irresponsible meatarianism out there and the burger just seems to be the vehicle of choice for unadulterated gluttony. When/if I ever decide to make a list like this again, I promise to explore other forms of outrageous meat-eating.