Thanksgiving or I’d Rather Not Be Invited

By Maria Moss

Pho­to Cred­it: “A wild turkey spot­ted in a Man­i­to­ban provin­cial park” by Vince Pahkala

For Thanks­giv­ing, let’s do with­out turkeys, these beau­ti­ful birds that Ben­jamin Franklin called “true Amer­i­can orig­i­nals.” Well, a lot of good that did them! More than 46 mil­lion are killed each year at Thanks­giv­ing alone.

Ben Franklin admired their resource­ful­ness, agili­ty, and beau­ty. In nature, turkeys can fly 55 miles an hour, run 25 miles an hour, and live up to four years. Yet turkeys raised for food are killed at the age of 5 months and – dur­ing their short lives – will be denied even the sim­plest plea­sures, such as run­ning, build­ing nests, and rais­ing their young.

But let’s not only think about turkeys, let’s also think about ourselves.

Turkey meat con­tains more fat and cho­les­terol than you’d like to see on your hips (now that you just got rid of the Coro­na bulges). Just one home­made pat­ty of cooked turkey con­tains a whop­ping 244 mg of cho­les­terol, and half of its calo­ries come from fat. One more thing that’s tru­ly unap­pe­tiz­ing: Turkey is fre­quent­ly taint­ed with sal­mo­nel­la, bac­te­ria, and oth­er con­t­a­m­i­nants. And who of us would like to eat some antibi­ot­ic-resis­tant supergerms!

Now that I’ve suc­cess­ful­ly spoiled your appetite, let’s look at some veg­e­tar­i­an and veg­an alternatives.

Here comes a recipe for Tofurkey that, despite its name, is not made from tofu but is wheat-based:

Pho­to Cred­it: A Tofurkey Roast

And if you’re not into Tofurkeys, I’ve locat­ed a web­site with 14 free, mouth-water­ing veg­an turkey alter­na­tives: Sure­ly, there’s one that will tempt you.

Let’s think of those giant, two-legged, feath­ered birds and not invite them this year!

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