Most of us are familiar with Meryl Yourish's Eat An Animal For PETA Day campaign. She received an e-mail from a critic that she dissected in this post. The writer writes:

I would listen to what you had to say, if you really tried to tell me why I should eat animals for a day. Why don't you tell me and others why we should eat animals for a day?

I have a little story apropos of this question. I'll try to keep it short.

From 1978 to 1983 I lived in New York City. I fell in with some New Age thinkers. Katherine, in particular, was a vegetarian of the ilk who believed that it was a spiritual necessity to refrain from eating meat. I never had philosophical qualms about eating meat, but to tell the truth, it was inconvenient in the neighborhood I lived in to find meat to cook. It was far easier to pop around the block to the green grocer's and pick up veggies and grains for meals. I also ate dairy and eggs, and spent some effort making sure that I had a complete diet, considering.

When I returned to Dallas in 1983 I continued with the vegetarian diet. One night I was leaving downtown with my pal Sam to go eat Indian food. I stepped badly off the curb and fractured my foot -- just a stress fracture, nothing too serious. I went to the doc-in-the-box the next day. He applied a fiberglass cast, and told me to report back to him in four weeks.

When I returned to the doctor he took x-rays of my foot. After four weeks, NO knitting had taken place. The bone was as clearly fractured as it had been in the first place.

From that day, for the next three weeks, I ate a rare roast beef sandwich and a large glass of milk for lunch every day. After the three weeks, I returned to the doctor and the foot was healed enough to remove the cast.

That's why I eat an animal a day.