Not a vegetarian then...

We buy our meat from a lovely, local farm.  My eight year-old son was with me the last time we went and I thought I'd ask his opinion on the whole meat-eating thing....  Did it bother him, for example, that the animals in the field, gazing at us over the fence with their big, sad eyes would end up on our dinner plate?  (Even a tough old boot like me finds it a bit throat-lumpy)

He thought for a moment....

"It's like this" he said eventually, "The cows eat the grass, we eat the cows and when we die we're buried and grass grows on us which cows eat."  And added, reassuringly.... "It's OK Mum, it's just the Circle of Meat"

That is adorable! I love how kids can put things into perspective sometimes.

Hah! That's hilarious - and surprisingly wise, from an eight year old boy! Now if only someone would tweak the lyrics to "Circle of Life", we might have something going...

The Circle of Meat - Too funny!

Haha that's precious!

That's a cute story - and pretty true too. ^_^

Your son is so adorable! His words are really meaningful too.

Glad everyone liked the story.     I was accused recently by a slightly bossy vegetarian pers on I met at a party of 'sticking my head in the sand' when it came to my omnivorous ways.... conveniently ignoring the despicable and krool facts of meat production etc., etc.   Which was a little wide of the mark because I used to work in the meat industry and spent quite a lot of time lurking around in abbatoirs.  So I'm better clued up in that regard than most, but she was on a roll and she'd had a drink ... I don't think she was too interested in my CV!   But I suppose the 'head in the sand' remark was top of mind when we went to the farm ...  hence the question to my son.  

Pass the tofu...???

gotta love the kiddos!

my 5 year-old is just coming to terms with where food comes from and gets a little stressed when we're looking at an animal and talking about what food comes from it, but just ask him what his favorite protein is and he'll tell you "MEAT!"

The 'stressed' description reminded me of an older story from our family.... My younger brother was something of a picky eater and for the first six years of his life, didn't eat any kind of meat unless it was a sausage.  So we simply told him everything was a sausage.... heck, it was the seventies, so sue us.   One day my Dad forgot the 'everything is a sausage' rule and let slip that the thing on his plate was a Loin Chop. 

S-i-l-e-n-c-e....

"What kind of animal is a 'loin'?" asked my brother, poking it suspiciously

"You know...?" said Dad, giggling.. "Loins and toigers!"

And do you know, he ate it quite happily!