Wings

I recently competed in a Susquehanna University wing eating competition and won.  I started to think about it several hours later and I started wondering are these competitions a complete waste?  If you ever are involved in an eating contest, one thing you will notice that you lose all taste and enjoyment while eating the food.  It really seems unfair to the animals to die for your eating games.  We are to treat animals with respect, so is this respectful?  This could be quite problematic if I keep thinking like this as I may not want to compete again.  Of course, this is the highly critical me ,fueled by terrible stories about food and animal abuse, thinking of what is supposedly just for the animals.  After thinking I quickly tossed out these ridiculous ideas.  The animal is not being disrespected in the least.  If we were to butcher a chicken, cook it, and then throw it on the floor for no reason, that would be disrespectful to the bird’s sacrifice.  These wings went exactly where they were supposed to go from the moment they were cooked, into my stomach.  They just made the transfer from my plate into my stomach a lot faster than usual.  Although my brief thoughts were kind of stupid, I still noticed that I was thinking about what I eat a lot more often than what I used to.  A year ago, I would have won the competition and think nothing more about the wings.  Maybe the most respectful thing you can do for an animal is honor its sacrifice by keeping it in your thoughts.  You do not need to be emotional, but just honor it with some cognitive space.