The Tortured Pig

On the days I work, I run run run all day long.  Leap out of bed (ok, grudgingly crawl) early and get Ben ready, fed and off to daycare.  Several cups of coffee later, I get myself ready, fed, and off to work.  After work, stop at the store to get some obscure but necessary ingredient for dinner, come home and wash and/or put away dishes from the night before, and cook dinner before running to daycare to get Ben.  Don't forget about pump pump pumping and washing breastmilk parts 3 or 4 times over the course of the day.  Ugh.

I will admit, I make a lot of the work for myself by insisting on cooking dinner most every night.  To me, its not optional.  I love to eat and I love to cook even more.  I can't come home and pop something frozen in the oven and hang out on the couch while it cooks itself.  I've never eaten like that and I don't want my family to eat like that.  Tonight's dinner was mac and cheese with bacon and butternut squash and homemade tomato soup.  Bacon was the obscure but necessary ingredient I needed for dinner that made me detour by the grocery on my way home from work.  Which brings me to the tortured pig...

I like to eat happy animals.  I have absolutely no reservations about being omnivorous, so long as the animal portion of said omnivorousness comes from humanely raised animals.  Sometimes its very difficult to know exactly what kind of meat you are eating, but in our society, if you don't know, odds are it came from a feedlot.  The occasional slip-up is ok because our culture makes it so difficult to eat humanely raised meat ALL the time.  But for the most part, I use my money to buy the good stuff.  Certified humane.  Grass-fed.  Pasture raised.  Sure, its more expensive, but I am of the opinion that you are eating too much meat if you buy so much that the higher price is an issue.  Red meat?  Twice a month max.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've bought bacon in the past year ( I'm getting to the poor piggie!).  And chicken is almost nonexistent in my kitchen because its near impossible to find pastured chicken.

Today I had a slip up.  I REALLY didn't feel like going out of my way to Whole Foods for some tasty, certified humane bacon.  So I stopped at the regular old grocery store and bought regular old bacon.  I felt guilty all afternoon.  Until I ate this.

Porky was pretty tasty!  Although I am sorry he had to suffer just so I could have a delicious dinner.  I appreciate his sacrifice, but in the future I vow to better plan for meals so I am not put in this position again.