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This article was published on May 26, 2011

Mark Zuckerberg announces he’s only eating meat he kills himself


Mark Zuckerberg announces he’s only eating meat he kills himself

“This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I’ve basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I’m eating a lot healthier foods and I’ve learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals.”

-Mark Zuckerberg

In an interview with Fortune’s Pattie Sellers, Zuckerberg says from now on he’ll only be eating meat from animals he has killed himself. “I’m eating a lot healthier foods. And I’ve learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals,” he said. “It’s easy to take the food we eat for granted when we can eat good things every day.”

On May 4th of this year, Zuckerberg posted a note to the 847 friends on his private page: “I just killed a pig and a goat.” The 27-year old’s new dietary direction is influenced by his Palo Alto neighbor Jesse Cool, a well-known Silicon Valley chef. Cool says Zuckerberg “cut the throat of the goat with a knife, which is the most kind way to do it.” Check out Fortune’s post for an email from Zuckerberg explaining his reasoning.

I realize posting the mundane details of the Internet billionaire’s life is kind of weird and feeds into an addictive fascination. But I dig Zuckerberg’s decision. The meat industry is a very scary place. As Sir Paul McCartney so poetically puts it, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

Sellers describes Zuckerberg’s learning curve as “evolutionary,” which I find comical stroke cringe worthy. First, Zuckerberg killed a lobster by boiling it alive, which he said “was a difficult kill, at least emotionally.”

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Sorry to be insensitive but this makes Zuckerberg sound like a ___. I dislike eating animals as much as the next vegequarian but lobsters are sooo delicious. I heard that stabbing the lobster in the head before throwing it in the pot was a more humane way to kill the crustacean. But after looking this up to find if there is any truth to it, I found a fun fact for you. Thank Wikipedia.

Lobsters may also be killed or rendered insensate immediately before boiling through a stab into the brain, in the belief that this will stop suffering. However, a lobster’s brain operates from not one but several ganglia and disabling only the frontal ganglion does not usually result in death or unconsciousness. The boiling method is illegal in some places, such as in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where offenders face fines of up to €495.

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