Eating meat is perfectly normal for most people.
But what if you have cared for the animal you are eating beforehand?
This is the question asked by the TV experiment “GewissensBISSE?”, Which can now be seen on Vox.
Eating meat was completely normal for the Diekmeier family. I especially like chicken. “My husband always ate hack with joy. Lasagna, meatballs, these stories, ”remembers Dana Diekmeier, as if it were a memory from a very long time ago. It feels like it too. Because for the family of SV Sandhausen professional soccer player Dennis Diekmeier, life has changed completely this year. The meat experiment ”, which Vox will broadcast from September 14th in three episodes (broadcast dates and media library access here). Here, all participants are given two animals each, which they take care of for a few weeks. Then the families have to decide: If they leave their previous diet unchanged, their animals will be slaughtered. Make up your mindto stop their meat consumption and to eat vegetarian food, their animals are allowed to go on living. So a simple principle: if you want to eat meat, you have to be able to endure the thought that animals will be killed for it.
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Hardy Krüger Jr. also took part in the TV experiment.
He took care of two lambs.
© El-Tounsy / Lencinas / TV Now
“When we received the request to participate in the experiment, my husband said: 'No, I can never go without meat forever,'” Dana Diekmeier told our newspaper and had to smile. Because the footballer was the first of them to give up meat. “We were all very surprised.” The changeover was not so easy for her at first - after all, it was a matter of continuing to fill four children's stomachs in the morning, at noon and in the evening. And at Diekmeier, meat was a natural part of getting full. The fact that things can be done differently was an aha-effect for her - which she also wishes the audience. “Somehow we just didn't think about it much, eating meat was normal. But to be honest: Today I feel sick when I see the masses of sausages in the supermarket. "
The Vox show shows how tough the life of animals is
Part of the experiment was also to find out how all the chickens that are sold for 2.99 euros (for a whole animal!) Or the cheap steaks that are marinated on the grills of this republic make their way to the Find consumers.
It is an odyssey that one does not wish for any living being.
What factory farming means and how the billions of times slaughtering takes place is something that families and spectators also learn through the experiment.
But what is the alternative? Die-hard fans of currywurst and burger, kebab and goulash might object. “Companies that pay attention to species-appropriate husbandry, for example,” counters Dana Diekmeier. The program shows how she goes on a trip to a farm shop with her children and buys high-quality meat there. Too expensive for everyone? The argument does not accept the mother of four. “In the past, people didn't eat meat every day.” And then there are now a lot of vegetarian substitute products. Son Dion simply doesn't have a poultry mortadella but a veggie mortadella on the break roll. "He doesn't even notice." And the children would put so much ketchup on the vegetarian chicken nuggets anyway that nobody could taste the difference,says Diekmeier and laughs. She appeals to not eat meat that often, but rather high-quality meat: "Then everyone can afford it."
"GewissensBISSE?" Shows tasty alternatives to eating meat
It was only through the broadcast that it became clear to her what humans actually do with animals.
“The way they are kept and slaughtered is unreasonable.
I think pictures of dead animals should be stuck on the goods so that everyone can see what they are eating. "
One of Dana Diekmeier's best friends has long been a vegetarian. She used to think: “Will she ever get enough?” She recalls. Today she knows that you can also get full without meat. And that it can also taste really good - and is healthy. “Because we no longer eat all of this meat, our health is also better. Probably because the antibiotic and whatever else is in this meat no longer harms us. ”And so, by letting“ the little animals ”live, one can also do something good for oneself. You don't have to become a vegetarian right away. But: “If everyone only ate half of the meat, each piglet would have twice as much space, for example. It is so easy."
