I’ve been so busy with my current contract and the damned commute that comes along with it that I haven’t posted an entry in nearly a month.
My big resolution this year is to become vegetarian. This was my resolution last year, but it only lasted 7 days. I’m on day 12 now, and doing well.
In the past year, I read too much about the meat industry and the health problems with eating meat that, although I still ate meat, I did so with a guilty conscience.
I’ve always felt that people who choose to be veggie must have strong will power and a little insanity. We are a country of meat-eaters (England and definitely America). I see this much more clearly now that I look at menu boards filled with things I’m not going to eat. That pasta looks good–but they put little chunks of chicken in it. That salad would be perfect if it didn’t have bacon on it. Vegetarians never have it easy.
Still, I could never figure out why someone would want to be vegetarian. I put them on a parr with those crazy people who break into science labs to free all the animals.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love burgers and chicken. As a teenager, I worked in McDonalds for 3 years and frequently ate all three meals there. My dad would refer to me as a carnivore. I was never much interested in vegetables on my plate and would often leave them there. I love meat and have always had fond associations of it. Some people rave about chocolate. I rave about chicken.
But now I’ve read more and seen more. I can’t do it anymore. Specifically, I know of two resources have had big effects on me. One is a book and the other an online video.
A very interesting book that has had a big impact on my way of thinking is The New Why You Don’t Need Meat by Peter Cox. This book explores our history of meat eating and looks at the way our consumption of meat has changed in the last 30 years or so. My big takeaway from this was the realisation that with such a huge growing population, the meat industry has had to resort to barbaric factory methods to give us the product we can now get whenever we want it. Despite the romantic vision that some farmer walks out onto his farm to butcher one of his animals (probably with a heavy heart) so non-farmers can guy it on the shelves, I know that animals are scientifically reared and butchered mostly by machines. I find it ironic that people who oppose cloning could support the meat industry. This book looks at a lot of the tactics used my meat lobbyists whenever a report on the current state of our meat comes out. It is an eye-opening book.
The second thing that had a real impact on me in the last year is a video created by PETA. It’s called Meet your Meat and is narrated by Alec Baldwin. If you can stomach watching this video and still support the meat industry, you’re a bigger man than I am. You can watch the video at www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat. You can watch it right now.
I’ve never been one for idealistic causes, but I really want to stick with this one. I want to be vegetarian. Not because I want to lose weight. Not because I want to be more healthy. I want to be vegetarian because I think it is right.
I wish you a belated Happy New Year.
