Achin' for bacon?

via whisker snaps photo on flickr

I love pigs. I mean, I've never really met one per se, but I can tell we'd get along right away, kindred spirits right off the bat, friendship bracelets everywhere. Look at this video of some lucky beach-dwellers and their little squealing pal! How can you help but sprint from your home to the bank to take out a high interest loan for $4500 and purchase a Royal Dandie for your very own? They're charming and pink and plucky, and if movies have taught me anything, they can even sing their way to stardom (although upon Googling "singing pig movie," it doesn't appear that that's a thing that's happened ever [screenwriters, email me!]). They're also as smart and as potty-trainable as a three year old. George Clooney has a pig and he won an Oscar. Think about it. Pigs! Awesome!

But as much as I  would love to give every pig a home -- be they cartoon and dressed in a one piece swimsuit or all flesh and snout -- I understand that there are carnivores out there who would also like to give them a home, but in their digestive tracts. Bacon, guys: maybe you've heard of it. On sandwiches, for brunch, sprinkled on top of perfectly good vegetables, in a milkshake if you happen to be my brother -- it's fucking everywhere.

Bacon's so adored that NPR is even claiming that bacon is a gateway meat for vegetarians. "Because bacon is one- to two-thirds fat and also has lots of protein, it speaks to our evolutionary quest for calories," said some sort of meat scientist, probably while putting together a BLT. "Since 90 percent of what we taste is really odor, bacon's aggressive smell delivers a powerful hit to our sense of how good it will taste . . . There's [also] an intimate connection between odor and emotion, and odor and memory."

Food and eating are complicated, because they're not just about getting enough nutrients to survive. The sensory pleasure, the ritual of family dinner, and the cultural or emotional experience, as the aforementioned professor of Pork Studies at the University of West Hamtown mentioned: it's a loaded activity. And it's especially complicated for those who have voluntary dietary restrictions, because eating suddenly becomes a binary that we are held to and judged by: Vegetarian or Not. People will roll their eyes at your new dietary identity, but if we slip up -- say, can't resist a 3 a.m cheeseburger -- we're underachieving failures and any time spent avoiding meat becomes null and void and forgotten. Carnivores high five and welcome you back to their team with open arms. "Forget about sprouts, baby," they'll coo. "You belong with us. Let me get you a Double Down."

Perfection is hard, and harder when the changes you're trying to make come with all this gastronomical baggage. Going cold turkey from cold turkey is tough, but we're doing our best, you know, and that's better than nothing, so everybody should just stop this arbitrary "pass-fail" grading rubric. Vegetarians shouldn't be made to feel like animal byproducts are a slippery, gravy-ladden slope with no return with terms like "gateway meat" (although I suppose it's better than "meat gateway," which sounds a little pervy).

My boyfriend dabbles in what he calls "weekday vegetarianism"; I'm cutting out 95% off the dairy I eat, but still indulge in a wheel of brie (I'm a growing girl!) on occasion. That doesn't make us hypocrites, that makes us humans -- cheese-loving humans -- who are making an effort. I ate meat for most of my life, and I can't say for sure that I will never, ever eat it again, but I'm doing my best to save as many pigs 'n' pals as possible, and my successes shouldn't be considered negated by any carnivorous hiccups.

And now: some more pictures of pigs I haven't eaten!