extremely guilty pleasures...

Having just prepared and eaten a (terribly delicious) small colony of steamer clams with a white wine, fresh parsley, tomato, and a squeeze of lemon, I'm plagued with enough guilt to corrode the edges of my pleasant dinner and wine buzz.
 
A lapsed vegetarian and uncommitted meat eater, I sometimes wonder how often devoted carnivores feel the same such guilt pangs, if ever. It's so easy to sanitize the food process to the point where an animal becomes a packaged product. They probably never think about how high they eat on the food chain or the variety of suffering they promote.
 
I spent a bit of time this week attempting to convince a waffling vegetarian that he could be perfectly justified in eating the occasional organic burger. The way I prefer to see it, one's life as a citizen of the Earth should be judged on the overall impact of collective actions. Live simply, with good intent and minimal impact overall, and you're a better, happier person for it.
 
I must admit, however, that view doesn't really assist my conscience much when I'm steaming a pile of clams to death.
 
My last roommate joined the Peace Corps a few months ago and moved to Zambia. In a recent note he described how a funeral shuts down all activity in the village: school, work, going to the field to get food... Instead of going to the market or the bodega or even the refrigerator, Bemba people go to the fields for their food. 
 
Living in a dense urban area, I'm so removed from that lifestyle. I imagine, if I lived a life so simple, I wouldn't blink over questions of food morality. I'd just go into the field or forest and eat. But I can't. And I don't. And I do pause with thoughts of those questions every time I eat.