ONLY A HAMBURGER? A Reflection on the Ramifications of Beef Consumption

	"You're only holding a hamburger," you say.
	But that's merely where the story begins.

	You're also sustaining an economic machine,
	casting your vote for a fast-food way of life.

	You're endorsing animal slaughter,
	accepting the quiet bargain of convenience.

	You're saying yes to engineered livestock,
	synthetic additives, disposable packaging,
	and wages thin as paper napkins
	given to the hands that serve your food.

	Every hamburger carries a larger burden:
	fields stripped bare, forests sold for grass,
	rivers drained, methane rising,
	and grain meant for the hungry
	funneled into cattle for the affluent.

	Look more closely between the buns.
	There lies a world of choices—
	ethical, ecological, and economic—
	pressed together as tightly
	as the patty upon your plate.

	Every bite tells a story.
	The question isn't only what you chew,
	but what kind of earth, what kind of future,
	your appetite is helping create.


   Satoru leaned back, one eyebrow arched as he drummed his fingers across the worn pages 
of the poetry book. "So," he mused with a faint grin, "What do we have here," he muttered, 
his voice laced with mild amusement, "some vegetarian credo?"

   Ying didn't even look up from her cellphone, letting out a nonchalant sigh that dismissed 
the text entirely. "Sounds that way," she said, her tone dripping with indifference. "The 
writer seems to have complicated feelings about meat."

   Frida laughed softly. "Complicated feelings?" she said, leaning forward with a mischievous
sparkle in her eyes. "Please. We're all meat." Frida interjected. "Time has its teeth in 
all of us, so why not just enjoy  ends up on our plate?"

   The room fell silent. Dmitri’s jaw tightened, and when he spoke, his voice carried a sudden,
sharp anger that cut right through the room. "There's a difference," he said, his eyes finding
Frida's and holding them, "between dying—" a pause, deliberate, almost surgical— "and being
treated as though you were never anything more than a slab of meat uin a supermarket." 
Nobody laughed this time.

=====================================================================================
from Peace Pieces: Reflections on Violence and Conflict Resolution by T Newfields
LONG SUMMARY:  A provocative poem and dialogue explore how a simple hamburger embodies ethical, 
               environmental, economic, and philosophical questions about modern food consumption.
SHORT SUMMARY: Thoughts about hamburgers, world hunger, and vegetarianism.
KEYWORDS: world hunger, peace poems, vegetarian credo, hamburgers, vegetarianism ,
		  beef consumption, animal welfare, food ethics, consumer responsibility, 
		  environmental sustainability, factory farming, consumerism, moral philosophy, 
		  industrial agriculture, conscious eating

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 2005 in Tokyo, Japan ⩝ Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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Translations 

Chinese   https://www.tnewfields.info/zh/hanbao.htm
French    https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/seu.thm
German    https://www.tnewfields.info/de/nur.htm
Japanese  https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/tanhan.htm
Spanish   https://www.tnewfields.info/es/sol.htm