Center for Consumer Freedom

A new blog features the interesting conversion story of a self-identified former “militant vegan” who changed his ways and became a full-fledged meat eater, starting a website called “The Ethical Butcher.” On his site, the former vegetarian offers readers tips on choosing, cooking, and keeping meat products. He’s even writing a book to showcase the conversion stories of vegetarians who gave up meat for at least 3 years before switching back to eating omnivorously.

“The Ethical Butcher” is hardly alone in his return to meat. The very small percentage of the population that follows the PETA diet is finding that there’s just something about meat that pulls tofu-fanatics back toward a less restrictive diet. In 2007, two former vegetarians founded a quarterly magazine called Meatpaper. When asked by The New York Times for her observations about what’s fueling “come-to-hamburgers” moments for vegetarians, an editor of Meatpaper gave a straightforward answer:

We find over and over again that bacon is the conversion meat. Bacon is how vegetarians change their minds.

There’s nothing wrong with choosing to be a vegetarian. But it can’t be easy to be on a Buddha-like self-denial quest when the smell of crisp, juicy bacon strips wafts through the air. Our guess is that only the most maniacal, militant vegans will be able to keep it up.

Along with reminding us of the satiation that a nicely cooked steak provides, Meatpaper and “The Ethical Butcher” highlight a new intellectual movement exploring the ways in which meat eating is moral. In other words, the animal rights moonbats no longer have a monopoly on the word “ethical.” Sorry, PETA.