Eating animals.

So this eating thing. Let's talk about it, shall we?

I've gotten several comments lately on my eating habits. Mainly, "are you a vegetarian?"

And I always hesitate.

Why? I don't know. I guess I hate the label. I don't like restrictions, I don't like stereotypes, I don't like having to fit into some sort of "label box."

But truthfully? Yes, I am.

There I said it. It's out there. NOW STOP ASKING. Ok, you don't have to stop asking and emailing. But now that we've gotten that stupid label thing out there, I'll take the more constructive questions on "why" and "what does that really mean".

Anyone that has known me longer than 15 years knows that it's been at least that long since I've eaten any sort of red meat (IE: cow, pig, etc). Over the course of the past 5-7 years, I haven't eaten much, if any, poultry. And over the past year, I've really only eaten fish a handful of times. The red meat and poultry thing was really always just a taste issue for me. I didn't LOVE the taste. If I don't like how it tastes, why would I eat it? Fish, I like. And it has lots of health benefits. But my diet has always been mostly plant based and I've always considered myself a 90% vegetarian without much more thought than that.

But then, I read this book:

And after this book my wavering on if I truly wanted to be vegetarian was solidified. I'd always kind of wavered on that line between vegetarian and not (mainly the few times a year that I ate fish) but I didn't really ever have a hard core vested reason to be a vegetarian. To me, it was always just a personal matter of taste and nothing really to do with the actual animal I was eating. I did not consider myself to be some hard core animal rights activist, so, I had the occasional piece of fish for what I saw as health benefits and didn't really think much more about it.

But this book.

READ IT. ESPECIALLY if you are on the fence about whether or not you are a vegetarian, like I have been for YEARS.

The book exposes many opinions and many, many truths of "farming", FACTORY farming, in current day America. The reality is sick. And sad. And you can ignore it if you want to but really, you're putting this meat into your body, WHY NOT pay attention to the fact that the chicken you are buying was, more than likely, abused. And genetically altered by hormones, antibiotics, and probably has or has had some form of bacteria (e-coli, salmonella) due to the way that factory farms raise chickens now. And sure, you can buy organic but the conditions are not much better for organic chickens... organic is a VERY loose term in this regard, as I've quickly learned.

And if you don't want to just read this book or think it's too opinionated or want to see what's out there to learn more about factory farming? There are a MYRIAD of others out there, many that I've read. I'd be happy to give recommendations. The consistency from author to author on the findings in factory farms is, frankly, quite staggering. Hell, go visit one if you want to see for yourself and not just go solely on someone else's word. Or drive through Texas. Just the sheer smell and seeing hundreds and hundreds of cows crammed together driving through cow farms in Texas or Ontario, California was enough to make me believe this author's experience in visiting many factory farms himself. And that's just the cow side of the equation. I've never visited a chicken farm, nor do I really want to. Or the other option for anyone out there is to ignore every finding and just live ignorantly, which is fine too. I may not agree with that but I will respectfully disagree. The bonus of this life we live in is that we all have our own choices to make.

A couple of stats boggled my mind as someone who DOES try to be very eco-friendly:

-There are 3 million pounds of antibiotics distributed to humans. To livestock? 17.8 million. REALLY. SIX times as many antibiotics to animals that GO INTO US versus antibiotics that are disposed to us. Huh.

-Manure from factory farms is one of the biggest pollutants in our country. There is 7.2 million pounds per second of manure produced per pig factory farm, 6.6 million for broiler chickens and 344 million for cattle (which equates to 87,000 POUNDS of shit per second). Talk about the gases that go into the environment and pollute our air. FOR MEAT. THAT ISN'T EVEN GOOD FOR YOU due to how it's being raised. And that's not even to mention how much corn and soy is being raised to feed these animals so that we can distribute "cheap meat" versus how much of that corn and soy would feed all of the starving people in the world. Is that fair? I don't know, you decide.

I have my opinion and I choose to not eat meat. It's pretty easy for me to now, given that I never ate much to begin with. A lot of people won't agree with me on this. But before the discussion starts, read this book, read other books on veganism, vegetarianism, factory farming... enlighten yourself and THEN decide. You don't HAVE to be a vegetarian 100% of the time, you don't HAVE to have a label... that truly is a personal choice. But at least THINK about where your meat is coming from and make good decisions about what you are eating. I don't really want to be on a soap box here on this topic, so I'll stop. But I will end this post with several notable quotes from this book:

“The question for me is this: Given that eating animals is in absolutely no way necessary for my family- unlike some in the world, we have easy access to a variety of foods- should we eat animals? I answer this question as someone who has loved eating animals. A vegetarian diet can be rich and fully enjoyable but I couldn’t honestly argue, as many vegetarians try to, that it as as rich as a diet that includes meat… I love sushi, I love fried chicken, I love a good steak. But there is a limit to my love. Since I encountered the realities of factory farming, refusing to eat conventional meat has not been a hard decision. And it’s become hard to imagine who, besides those who profit from it, would defend factory farming.”

“I used to think being a vegetarian exempted me from spending time trying to change how farm animals are treated. I felt that by abstaining from meat eating, I was doing my part. That seems silly to me now. The meat industry affects everybody in the sense that we are, all of us, living in a society I which food production is based on factory farming. Being a vegetarian does not relieve me from a responsibility for how our nation raises animals- especially at a time when total meat consumption is increasing both nationally and globally.”

“Facts are important but they don’t, on their own, provide meaning- especially when they are so bound to linguistic choices. What does a precisely measured pain response in chickens mean? Does it mean pain? What does pain mean? No matter how much we learn about the physiology of the pain- how long it persists, the symptoms it produces, and so forth- none of it will tell us anything definitive. But place facts in a story about the world we live in and who we are and who we want to be- and you can begin to speak meaningfully about eating animals.”

It's worth a read, no matter what your eating preferences are, have been or will be. Truly.