Reay Jespersen

There are doubtless going to be questions from friends and family about what prompted the choice. I shall duly answer the six questions we were taught in grade school to ask about events in order to cover the bases:

Who?
Me.

What?
Vegetarian(ism).

When?
For about a week now, though still in transition. More on that in a minute.

Where?
Here. Everywhere. Also: me.

Why?
Well that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?
As a quick bit of background, I bought the new Rise Against album, Endgame, and was flipping through the insert — the lyrics and notes — when I noticed a quick aside prompting the reader to read the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Intrigued by the title, I Googled it, and was immediately engaged by what I found. I bought the book shortly after, and have been reading it piecemeal since then as time allows.

As for the “Why?” itself… there’s no one, quick answer to that.
I’ve always known, as all meat eaters do, where the meat I’m eating comes from. Yet it’s very easy to forget that; meat becomes just another grocery item. But as I’ve been reading Eating Animals, I’ve been acutely reminded of meat’s source. And not just in the most basic of ways, but getting in-depth detail: how meat is produced on not just a large, but a massive — a global — scale. And it’s truly horrifying stuff. Not just on a moral level of what the animals are put through (the genetic modification to make them produce more viable meat regardless of (indeed, in direct contrast to) their own well being, the standard mutilation to prevent them from damaging each other due in no small part to the inhumane conditions they endure, the drugs they’re fed as a matter of course due to the illnesses generated by the living conditions they’ve been put in), but on a philosophical one (why is it ok to raise pigs and cattle for meat but not dogs? Why do the people profiting from these factory farming processes get to be the ones to set the laws as to how their practices are done and what does or doesn’t constitute humane treatment? How much of a creature’s suffering is too much for me to enjoy my burger or chicken strips? Why kill a sentient being for nothing but the brief enjoyment of its flavour?), and a scientific one (what are we doing to aquatic life, and the planet itself, when there are 145 other species routinely captured and killed as an offshoot of fishing for just tuna? Why use six to twenty-six calories of food to produce one calorie of meat? And most notably and concerningly: all flus are fundamentally avian-based in origin — by forcing so many chickens in such close quarters and feeding them ever-more powerful drugs to combat the new strains of illnesses that are invariably produced by the nature of the system we’ve put them in, mankind is setting itself up for a far worse flu pandemic than the one we’re already long overdue for).

Where one issue of opting out of meat eating may be settled with one solution (organic, family-style farming where the animals are treated well and allowed to live in as natural a manner as possible before killing them, for instance), it doesn’t answer another (why do I need to kill that sentient being for food at all when eating in this other way will sustain me just fine?)
And as been confirmed again and again by professionals, the fact is that a balanced vegetarian diet is at least as healthy as an omnivore diet. Other than liking the taste of meat, there’s no reason to eat it. And given everything involved in letting me have that taste — the ethical, philosophical and scientific issues — I’m ok with stepping out of that cycle.
As I said… there’s no simple answer to the question of why I’m doing this. Perhaps the best way I can put it is that, all things considered, this is what I feel I need to do.

How?
Carefully. As tempting as it has been (and still is) to just change these gears to feel better about myself, I know precious little about what a safe transition to vegetarianism involves, and as with other things, making sweeping changes without the proper knowhow can be dangerous. Until I have a solid grasp of what I’m doing to make this switch safely, my meat eating shouldn’t fade completely, but more appropriately be phased out (though I am trying to speed that up).

So there’s the bulk of the scoop. I’m wide open to any questions anyone has, but to cover what may be a few of them:

Won’t you miss the taste of meat?
Hell yes.

Does this mean you’re not killing anything ever?
No. While I often try to help out living things (ask Jackie — and our neighbours — about how many spiders and the like I’ve transported outdoors rather than kill them), there are times when circumstance requires it. We had a lot of little ants that were invading the kitchen last year and already this year, for instance. Left unchecked, they’d take over the place. The larger, black ants have been coming in lately, too. They’ve gotta go, as well. But that’s of course completely different: practicality vs. killing something to eat it.

Are you going to harass me if I don’t join you in this change (into a left-wing commie pinko hippie animal-hugging dreamer)?
Not at all. As with my choice a few years back to not support Coke and its affiliated products (see killercoke.org) and in the last few months to not support chocolate manufacturers who use child labour (i.e. a lot of the big producers; do an internet search for Is There Slavery In Your Chocolate?, among others), this is about my choices for me. To each his own.

Are you joining PETA, or anything of the like?
No. PETA does raise valid points (can anyone really deny that there are animals that are mistreated, and that they should be treated better?), but their methods are extreme and sensationalistic. Anyone who’s known me for more than a day will know I’m neither of those.

Is Jackie joining you?
While she supports me (albeit with due, loving mocking), Jackie’s not on board the Vegetarian Train. Yet, at least. She’s still breastfeeding, so we agree it’s best to not to risk shocking or forcing such a change on her system when Laila needs her to maintain a status quo.

Is Laila joining you?
While now on ever-new (liquified) solids, she’s not on meat yet. Jackie and I are going to do what research we can on long-term benefits or drawbacks to raising a child as a vegetarian from scratch. At the very least, we’ll do whatever we need to do to get her hormone/drug-free meat to raise her on, and let her make her own moral choices about continuing to do so later in life. In short, we want whatever the evidence suggests is best for her.

Are you giving up anything else? Drinking? Junk food? Sex?
No, no, still trying to cut down but indulging, and dear god no.

If you were on a desert island and could only survive by killing a pig to eat it, would you?
Tough call. I probably would. Hell, those plane crash victims in the mountains years back ate dead passengers to survive. The drive to live another day makes people do things they never thought they would, or could, do. Luckily, I’m afforded a lot more opportunities in everyday life. Here, now, I wouldn’t kill a pig to survive, because I don’t need to. Nor do I need to ask someone else to do it for me.

So does this mean you’re going vegan at some point? After all, dairy products and eggs, and such, come from animals, which must be farmed to some degree, and are therefore suffering to some degree for your overeasy or bowl of icecream.
Fair point. If I thought I could make it to that big a leap in one go, I probably would. As it is, I like milk, I like cheese and eggs, and I really like icecream. This change to vegetarianism by no means wholly clears my conscience as far as farmed animal welfare goes, but it’s now one helluva lot better than it was. As my best friend Alex puts it, small changes can make a big difference. And as a guy who’s turning 40 this year and who’s eaten meat all his life, I’d say becoming vegetarian would certainly count as a least a small change.

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