Reay Goes Vegetarian
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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Reay…I’m Jan’s friend (going back to high school days). I applaud your choice to go vegetarian. I’ve been just that for over 40 years and my three children were raised as such, although two of them are now eating fish and chicken…organic, know the source etc. My son, who is 39 has never eaten meat…poultry and fish included.
There are so many protein alternatives for Laila as she progresses to solid food. The kids ate beans, cheese, eggs and tofu. They didn’t know any different! I used to make all of my own soy milk, sprout a variety of seeds, bake cheese breads and make gallons of yogurt a month…in those back-to-the-land days of the late sixties and seventies.
What prompted us to go vegetarian in the first place was a newpaper article describing the addition of diethylstilbestrol to cattle feed and the effects it had on humans who ate the meat. There weren’t many books or cookbooks in those days that dealt with vegetarianism, so we basically made it up as we went along. We joined a food coop and met like-minded people, having monthly potluck dinners and garnering recipes in the process. These days, there’s cookbooks and information galore, so I think you’ll have an easy go of it in that regard.
Just thought I’d get my two cents in here!
Cheers, Barb
Hi, Barb -
Thanks for the input, and support. Yeah, it’s scary stuff that’s being done in the name of making more, and always-affordable, meat, and amazing how Western society so easily turns a blind eye to it. I’d be interested in hearing your process for raising the kids on an all-veggie diet, and any suggestions you’d have for books for that, or for me in the transition period. I’ve known six vegetarians in my life (seven now, including you), and two are good friends who seemed to make the change from eating meat pretty easily. Temptation issues aside (I’ve had a life-long love affair with ribs, and a barbecuing steak has long been a favourite smell of the warmer months), I just want to make sure I do this the right way. We were at a friend’s place for dinner last night, and they mentioned that a family member of theirs had gone vegetarian but hadn’t done it right, and ended up in hospital from some gastrointestinal danger. Sounded like something I’d be good with avoiding. And hey, any recipe books you could recommend wouldn’t go to waste, either.
You can get my home e-mail address from Jan if you’re so inclined.
Thanks again!
OMG. You’re serious.
Well, it’s not a choice you’ll ever see me make, but if it’s what you want/need to do, have at it.
Personally, I’ve never understood the distinction of some animals being for eating, some for petting, etc, either. I’ve eaten many strange animals over the years. Would I eat cat or dog? If I were travelling a part of the world where that’s a common thing, I’d probably try it. My philosophy is if The Almighty Big Juju didn’t want us to eat animals, he would’ve made em faster and smarter. But that’s just me.
Good luck, bro, and stay healthy. I’ll raise a fork to you tonight when I’m cutting in to my 20oz rib steak.
“What do you mean I don’t know where meat comes from? It comes from that cooler at the grocery store!” ~ Unknown Carnivores Across North America
Also, I think to help ease me into accepting your lifestyle transformational choice, you should donate to the “Rob Needs An Asus TF101-1A Transformer Tablet For His Birthday” fund.
I kid.
Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought it was a choice I’d make either, even a few months ago. But once you learn stuff, you can’t un-learn it, y’know? And I can’t really justify it any more. Foer reveals studies that have concluded that animals people eat are far more intelligent and complex than traditional myth maintains. And there’s such variety out there.
Americans (Foer speaks from that perspective) choose to eat less than 0.25% of the known types of food on the planet. All the suffering of, and environmental damage from, those billions of animals, only to choose to stay within such an amazingly narrow selection of food options? Makes no sense to me.
As for your tablet pitch, tell you what: when I make at least as much money as you do annually, I’ll kick in. I’d recommend you don’t hold your breath.
Hahah! Fair enuff. Wait, you mean that freelance writing/editing lifestyle isn’t pullin’ down 6 figures yet?
Childhood foods were mainly vegetable, because they were less costly, and kept well in the “root cellar”.
Meats were expensive and tough, and fish had to be caught under hardship conditions, through a hole in the ice. In summer you had to have a boat.
ie, we were raised mainly on vegetables. I still make sure that they are the bulk of my diet, though you know, as I approach 90 years, I am far from being a vegetarian. I ate natural foods until I read the last page of the newspaper that most people died of natural causes. What are we to believe?
Hi Reay…you and I have discussed this so you know my point of view. I just wanted you to know that my long standing friend Barb who emailed you earlier is the very same Barb who lives in the sweet cottage where Rik and Heather lived when they first moved to the coast.She bought it from them many years ago. Perhaps when you go out there you could make a trip to see her. She is the expert vegetarian of all experts and VERY healthy!! Jxx
Grandad - Well that’s the problem, as well: what we know to be “the best for you” changes every few years. There’s something to be said for just diving in and making the most of the time that you have, but to some degree (and again, what that may be varies) it of course must be tempered by taking care of one’s self in order to get the most time you can.
Jan - We’ll have to see Barb, for sure. It’d also be nice to put a face to the name I’ve been hearing for years.
Hey Reay. I think you should stop reading & eat meat… ignorance taste way better! I wish you only the best of luck and success, and health.
But I’m sticking to fiction…
see you guys at the BBQ…
G!
Thanks for the thoughts, good sir. I already spend a lot of time wandering around the fiction in my head, so why not just go all-out, eh?
See you at the BBQ, indeed. I’ll be the one with the thousand-yard stare chewing on the carrot in the corner.
For the BBQ, Reay, just go to PC and purchase the “portebello/swiss cheese burgers”. You will love them!!
Thanks, Jan.
I was joking about the carrot (the thousand-yard stare, not so much…)
We actually tried those portabello mushroom swiss burgers a week or so back. Not bad at all. And we had nachos last night with a pre-seasoned vegan Mexican mix that was very similar to the texture of meat and pretty damn tasty. There are always options. More and more, apparently, good ones.
Reay…I think in a way, we had it so much easier all those years ago. There seems to be so many books, thoughts and opinions on eating meat-less these days, that I wouldn’t know where to start. We just jumped in with both feet, with no gradual easing into a vegetarian diet. There was no mucking about. Bacon one day, beans the next. We found copies of Lendon Smith’s book, Feed Yourself Right and Adele Davis’ Let’s Eat Right, at a flea market and they became a good resource. When Mollie Katzen wrote Moosewood Cookbook in 1974, that became my kitchen bible. I still use it today, well-thumbed with tattered cover and as each kid left the nest, I made sure they had their own copy tucked under an arm!
Babies usually start with fruits and veggies as solid foods and so it’s an easy thing to introduce cheese and eggs, beans and other substitutes as time goes on.
My new grain of choice is quinoa, very high in protein. For the last several months, I’ve gone gluten-free and so I find myself in a whole new ballgame!
After awhile all the vegetarian jokes and asides will be like water off a duck’s back. People think they’re being so original, but little do they know that you end up hearing the same old, same old, over and over again. I remember when my son was 14 and at a large party with his school friends. He said everyone kept saying, “Robb can’t eat meat.” His reply, “I can eat meat. I choose not to eat meat.”
I do hope you get a chance to visit when you are on the coast.
And just so you know, to this day, the smell of bacon frying makes me drool!