Why I Started Meatless Moments

During my winter vacation, I successfully read my first book on a Kindle. It was Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. After the first few chapters, I thought it was a good book, but that perhaps I wasn't the type of person that really needed to read it. I mean, after all, I don't eat meat. He's preaching to the choir. I pushed on and kept reading, partly because I wanted to finish reading a book on a kindle, and partly because I came to understand that am exactly the type of person Foer wants reading his book.

He reminded me that, "someone who regularly eats factory-farmed animal products cannot call himself an environmentalist without divorcing that word from its meaning" (784) and that "when we lift our forks, we hang our hats somewhere."

Foer asks his readers, "What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?" (3448). I began to understand the truth about eating animals in elementary school. One day, I noticed the lines in my ham and asked another student what they were. I believe another child told me they were veins. Now, this may not have been correct, but the answered moved me. I had never spent much time thinking about the fact that my sandwich meat was once a living animal. I never ate ham again.

A short time later, my brother told me he had seen a car at a junkyard that someone had blown their brains out on. This also may not have been correct, but when he told me the brains looked like salami, there was no more salami for me.

In 8th grade, a friend told me that the summer camp I was attending served veal and that the only way to get out of eating it was to say I was vegetarian. This meant I wouldn't be able to eat meat for the entire 2-week session of camp. Once she told me about veal, I made up my mind to pose as a vegetarian. I didn't eat meat for those 2 weeks, and I made the decision to stop eating red meat altogher. I continued eating chicken and turkey through high school, since my mother was exasperated by my new restrictions, and didn't know what else to feed me. Once I got to college, I got rid of poultry too.

Honestly I wasn't a very good vegetarian when I started. I ate like crap. But now, I can't conceive of a meat-eating lifestyle. I've never been a preachy vegetarian, but I've never been apologetic either. After reading this book, I can say that I am re-inspired to not only strengthen my diet but to share with those around me the importance of eating a vegetarian diet. There are many people who will simply never be vegetarian. I get that. But this is exactly why those of us who can be vegetarian, should be, and - in fact - need to be.

How will I strengthen my vegetarian diet? I will try to eat less milk, eggs, and fish. As a general rule, I don't buy cow's milk. Instead, I go for almond milk or soy milk. When I am out of my house, however, I will often put milk or cream in my coffee. I could easily avoid this. And then there are eggs. I'm pretty familiar with the nastiness of laying hens, and the importance of obtaining eggs from small local growers who raise their hens on pasture. But I've become lazy. I've been buying at the supermarket. I need to stop that. I'm not likely to become a vegan anytime soon, but I could make a conscious choice to eat more like a vegan.

I also plan to experiment more with my food and to try new recipes. I'd like to try one new vegetarian recipe every week this year; I came up with this resolution as I was making Overnight Chai Steel-Cut Oats last night.

How will I share my views on vegetarianism with others? I'm going to share more information with those around me. Sometimes I take it for granted that everyone is aware that the more meatless moments you enjoy, the more you do to alleviate human rights abuses, animal suffering, deforestation and global warming, heart disease and other public health issues. I'll share some of the information Foer shared with me when they argue that they only eat organic meat or pasture-raised meat.

And I'll start this blog.