The Downward Spiral, Part 2

So Jason & I boarded our plane in Argentina,with our dirty little secret and a pound or so of beef lodged in our large intestines. What would we do when we got home to San Francisco? It was all so deliciously forbidden. Would we tell our friends? Would the lure of meat be too strong?

Surprisingly, no, it wasn't. After coming home, the whole meat-binge adventure seemed more like a dream. We eventually fessed up to our friends - the carnivores congratulated us, and the veggies just shook their heads. But back in our old veggie-friendly surroundings, it was easy to fall right back into our old way of eating. We started eating by the Rules again.

But something more subtle was happening to us, and I blame the dog. About six months before we went to Argentina, we adopted the world's most adorable mutt puppy from SF Animal Care & Control. We named her Stella, like the beer.

Getting a puppy was a huge step that impacted so many parts of our lifestyle. We had a little life in our hands now. We crate trained, we went to puppy classes, we raced home from work to walk her, and suddenly, we had meat in our refrigerator.

Trying to be the best puppy parents we could be, we shelled out for Natural Balance dog food. If you are unfamiliar with this stuff, it looks like a big salami. Mmmmm, salami. You have to store it in the refrigerator, and you have to cut it up yourself. With a knife.

At first, I was completely disgusted. The dog food had its own shelf in the fridge. I had a special knife for the dog food. I had a special cutting board for the dog food which I covered with paper towels, just for good measure, so the meat wouldn't touch any of our food. I wiped up the crumbs with a special sponge. Besides the Natural Balance, we bought other meat products, on the advice of the dog trainers. Hot dogs. Ewww. Hot dogs in our fridge. I hope none of our friends come over and see them in there and think we're eating them.

But after a year or so, I became desensitized to the meat. It started sitting on the shelf with the rest of our food. The special knife was forgotton. I even used our forks to scoop out the canned stuff. It just wasn't disgusting anymore. It was a fact of life. And I guess in some way, this helped to eliminate the 'yuck' factor when I eventually did make the transition from semi-veggie to full-on meat eater.

Is it ironic that I am blaming an animal for making me a carnivore? I don't know. But I do know that Stella is really really happy when we cook bacon.