Local co-op begins beef sales

After years of trying, GreenStar Cooperative Market has sadly secured a supplier of local beef. The co-op has long been a purveyor of animal flesh and secretions for many of its customers--"free-range" eggs; "humane" milk; and chickens, fish, turkeys, and other creatures reside, dead, in the deli and freezers there. But those animals were apparently not enough to curb the appetites of GreenStar shoppers who have damanded (and will now receive) nothing short of a smorgasboard at the top of the food chain. The new supplier, a dairy in Nichols, NY, will bring both cattle and pig flesh to the co-op.

The individuals in GreenStar's Marketing and Member Services Departments apparently do not recognize that not every co-op member is in support of their continued sale of animal products:

GreenStar’s business is guided by the collective voice of its members. Getting red meats into the stores may have taken longer than it would have elsewhere, but it has been carefully carried out to express the wishes and values of the members. Subsequently, the meat itself is more than a commodity. It represents the healthy lives of the cattle and the care taken for the soil. It strengthens our local food network and supports our region’s farming families. If you don’t eat red meat you may appreciate the care put into the process. If you do eat red meat, you’ll taste the difference.

I do not place myself in either of those final categories: I am neither appreciative of GreenStar's new avenue of exploitation nor interested in a taste. Instead, I am writing this letter to the editor:

I read with dismay the article about local beef in the May 2007 Greenleaf. The authors of the article assume there are only two kinds of shoppers at GreenStar: those who “may appreciate the care put into the process [of finding a red meat supplier],” and those who will “taste the difference.” I’m writing to let you know that there is another group of shoppers at GreenStar: vegan members who neither buy the flesh and secretions of animals nor support the continued treatment of animals as commodities. The article indicates that local beef “represents the healthy lives of the cattle,” and that is true--it represents individual lives taken prematurely at young ages for no other reasons than to satisfy human tastes and make a profit for the co-op. Farmed animals are sensitive, complex beings with interests that exclude being eaten by humans. No matter how “quickly and efficiently” these animals are slaughtered, when we breed and raise them only to kill them, we are enslaving sentient (subjectively aware) individuals whose lives are valuable for reasons other than those we assign to them as ingredients or profits. GreenStar has a long history of exploiting animals, and many members have not yet made the connection. It’s remarkable that co-op members who no doubt support our no-kill county animal shelter would also clamor for the flesh of animals on their plates. If people are repulsed by the idea of eating dogs and cats, how can they contentedly eat other animals?

If you shop at the co-op and you are tired of seeing animal products in every square inch of retail space in that store, please get in touch with me. Maybe it's time we revived the idea of a vegan co-op.