It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the kids who came out with it but often you can tell exactly where they get it from.
Examples 1:
Child pointing to table: Look mummy, carrots!
Mummy: Those aren't real carrots. Real carrots don't have that green stuff on them.
Example 2:
Child, pointing at pig roast: Is that a real pig?
Cook: Yes it's a real pig.
Child: Why have you got it over the fire.
Cook: I'm cooking it. We're having it for dinner later on.
Child: Ewww.
Example 3
Child, pointing at goatskins: Look at the furs!
Mother: They aren't real fur.
Me: Yes they are, they're goatskin.
Mother: You buy fur?
Me: When you eat the goat, you don't waste the skin.
Mother scuttles off, horrified as if she's just been talking to a serial killer.
Example 4
Child, pointing at our border collie: Is that a real dog?
Example 5
Child: What's this.
Me: A drinking horn.
Child: What's it made from
Me: It's a cow's horn.
Child: Is it plastic.
Me: No, it's a horn off a cow. (followed by an explanation of how you cure a cow's horn)
Child: Eww.
I really love all the "Ewww" at the use of animal parts, but especially when it is an animal they eat on a regular basis. Junk food is unrecognisable (because it's a great way to disguise all the nasty bits they wouldn't eat if they could recognise them), it comes in non-animal shapes, in plastic wrappings and appears, as if by magic, on supermarket shelves. Eating burgers (Noah's Ark in a bun) is okay but drinking out of a cow's horn is Ewww. Eating sausages or hot dogs is okay, but roast pork carved off the pig is Ewwww.
People don't know where their food comes from. As long as it appears all nicely packaged they don't CARE either. This "If I can't see it, it isn't real" attitude is what enables factory farming, "recycling" of meats, chemical sprays and additives to flourish.
Soylent Green is just around the corner.
Wassail
Karen
