Do you like Meat loaf? Not the kind you might put ketchup on, but the band. My favorite Meat Loaf song since childhood has been Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. I remember calling the radio station on a corded phone from the kitchen to request it. I was so nervous I could hardly speak, thankfully the woman at the station understood what I was trying to spit out in my shaking, quiet 7 year old voice. But that’s an entirely different topic.
Recently, I realized many people in my life don't know why I stopped eating meat. I mean, a few people do, I have told people the reasons when they’ve asked. If you even know I’ve stopped eating meat it’s probably because we’ve gone to dinner or you’ve invited me over and since I don’t like to go hungry I like to make sure before I go that there are options or I plan ahead and eat before I leave my house. Full disclosure: I do still eat fish and most of the time feel bad about it. My goal would be to eventually give up fish and dairy, especially dairy coming from large farms in the United States.
I’m taking a quote from the author of one of my favorite books, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer. Now, I haven’t read this book and only know about it because a friend told me about it and his quote so I had to google it. :) “I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what’s right. I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.” Even that sentence of this quote is slightly more than I’m going for here, but I do think everyone should be educated about what they are eating. But I’m not here to educate you. I’m simply explaining why I have made the choice I’ve made in this point of my life. It’s not an argument or a debate. It’s not a persuasive piece, it’s just my account of where I currently am on the food chain. Don’t feel judged, don’t get defensive, don’t read it if you aren’t curious. Just like many things, this is easier for me to type then talk. Not because it’s a difficult subject for me, but because it’s a lot of words to speak, repeatedly.
The first time I ate a vegetarian diet for more than a day was in 2016 when I went to the 3 week yoga retreat in Mazunte, Mexico. I was convinced that I would starve to death. I had anxiety about getting enough food everyday. The retreat was somewhat rigorous in that we were getting up early and doing 3 hours of yoga a day (two sessions) in the humid heat and having lecture classes in the morning and night as well. I ate more than I needed out of this unrealistic fear. I survived it no problem! Then upon leaving the retreat I immediately returned to eating meat almost every meal. Adkins, Paleo, Keto, I was a meat eater. Period. Now be clear when I was in portland I was only buying “happy cows, happy chickens, or happy pigs”, as I liked to call the meat where the animals had a fairly good life up until their end. Free range, happy animals romping in the grass and laying in the sunshine. That’s how I imagined them anyway. I had stopped buying meat at places like Fred Meyer a long time ago mostly due to the smell of their meat departments. Where if they didn’t smell like rotting meat, they smelled like bleach. I referred to myself as a guilty meat eater for years. I had given up chicken for a close to three years after doing research before getting my first batch of egg chickens/pets. The things I read in preparation to have chickens talked a lot about chicken farms and practices by most chicken for meat and chicken for eggs farms. Absolutely revolting practices (this is where I’d love to insert the graphic images that I read about that sealed my decision, but that’s not why I’m here)! I eventually started eating chicken again while in other counties as it was hard when I didn’t speak the language and I believed other countries have much better practices when it comes to animal treatment, and when in the US ate it very rarely. One of the few times (3 times total in all my travels, twice in the US and once in Mexico) I had a food born illness was most likely from chicken that carried the Campylobacter bacteria. There other two times were straight up food poisoning, thankfully only lasted just over 12 hours each.
Then in February 2017 I went to India. I arrived in india with no expectations and very few preconceived ideas. Mostly because I was lazy and didn’t do any research. It was also fairly last min comparably speaking in prepping for other trips I have done. I knew nothing about the Indian culture. Although just like everyone else I had heard that cows were sacred. The first stop on this retreat was in rural india at a Ayurvedic medical facility. This facility has cows that they keep for dairy. They use the dairy for treatments and for tea and ghee. These cows are walked to a grazing location daily, they are cared for throughout the day and return to their cow house (cow chala) every night. They have shepherds who’s solo job is to care for these cows. One afternoon, I was walking around the grounds and came upon a calf that was grazing. She had the most beautiful eyes, with eyeliner. I was petting her while she ate and talking to her like I would any other animal that would let me get my hands on them for petting! Then the thought came to me, how would I ever be able to eat her at a later time? I couldn’t. How would I be able to eat her friends or family? I couldn’t. How would I be able to eat anyone/animal like her? I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t eat a cat or a dog, I wouldn’t eat a lion or tiger, a rhino or hipo, a giraffe or elephant, what was the difference? I can no longer could see one.
These days when I see a picture, on facebook for example, of a deer shot in the head, it’s as disturbing to me as if someone had shot a horse and was preparing to eat it. I still have the knowledge that this is the culture I live in, that these are “norms” that make one socially ok, but not the other. But my heart hurts for it just the same.
Just before going to India I had also been thinking a lot about adrenaline, anger, fear, anxiety and the effects of those things on the human body. I had been living with them for far too long at this point. (If you’ve read previous posts you’ll know what I’m talking about) I wanted to cleanse myself of those things. So I was thinking about the state of most animals in their last seconds/mins/ hours before death (especially but not limited to factory farm situations) and how I didn’t want to ingest another being’s fear, anxiety, or adrenaline. This can be on a woo woo spiritual level or this can be on a hormonal level. I’d had enough of those negative things in my life and reducing and eliminating them as much as possible was my goal. There is the hormonal / adrenaline level that farmers and hunters will attest to and agree on, that when animals experience fear before and at death it changes the meat texture, flavor and nutritional values. These things are passed on to the human at some level or another. Since I’m not a scientist or chemist, I’ll let you research this for yourself if you’re interested. I have done my own research and have come to my own conclusions about what can pass into the ingesting human.
The shorter answer why I don’t eat meat: Karmic, I don’t want the death of animals on my hands. Animal rights, I don’t want animals being bread just to suffer and die for a few minutes of my taste bud’s pleasure. My spiritual wellbeing, I don’t want additional negative energy entering my body.
Am I still a hypocrite when it comes to fish, shrimp and dairy? Yes, sadly, I admit I am. My admission doesn't make it right by any means. But that’s my struggle, guilt and self judgement. The lame excuse that I tell myself to only slightly ease the guilt; I struggle as a cook, I eat very few processed foods, I don’t eat fake processed meats or soy, they taste gross and wreak havoc on my stomach. Beans and grains don’t treat me too much better.
I don’t crave meat, I haven’t at all. I do crave the sauces for things like Buffalo chicken wings, or the Pok Pok Vietnamese wings, or the salty taste of processed meat. Once in a while I think about the rare bloody steaks I ate on a weekly basis, but it’s not a craving. Often it’s a curiosity of would it still taste good? Would I actually be able to ingest it? Would it make me physically sick?
I’m happy with my choice. It’s not convenient, for me or others, at times. It’s sometimes frustrating when even vegetables are cooked in meat broth, or when there isn’t a vegetarian option at all or someone wants me to pick the meat out of a dish, or when I’m the only vegetarian in the room. But it’s a small price to pay for additional peace and freedom I feel in my heart.
And a special thank you to those of you who have gone the extra mile to make sure I have something delicious to eat! Xoxo
Hugs and love to the rest of you too!
Love you
ReplyDelete🥰❤️😘
Delete