A vegetarian became a butcher after a pregnancy craving led her to try a hamburger

During the pregnancy, she had a strong craving for a hamburger. Jonas had become “dangerously anemic” while carrying the child, forcing her to rely on iron supplements because of her meatless diet.

When the iron supplements became less effective, she broke down and grabbed a hamburger.

“I was at work one day and just thought: ‘A burger would fix this,’” Jonas said in an interview with 10 Daily.

She had red meat once per week to keep her health up throughout the pregnancy, but the habit didn’t go away when the child was born. Jonas decided that if she was going to continue to eat meat, she wanted to ensure the animals were respected.

“I never thought it was immoral to take an animal’s life for food,” she explained. “I’ve always been comfortable with my place in the food chain, but I thought it was immoral to treat [animals] cruelly, to not allow them to go outside and breathe fresh air and to be confined in crowds in sheds.”

Jonas decided to become a butcher, raising animals on her own farm. She started by raising pigs because they were the “worst treated in industrial systems.”

“I feel the most justified in eating the meat when I know they had no fear, no pain, they were just alive, and then they were dead,” she explained.

She noted that her version of farming doesn’t harm the environment. Jonas warned climate activists against condemning the consumption of meat as a whole.

“Hats off to you if you don’t want to participate in any livestock production but try not to have too hard a go at those of us who are trying to restore landscapes with livestock and doing a much better job of it than your vegan impossible burger,” Jonas said.

Several Democratic presidential candidates have supported policies that could reduce red meat consumption as part of their climate policy.