Meat. (Please excuse the rambling of these thoughts, but there are a lot of ideas going on here, lol)
Last night, my brother and I had Scott and Grant over for dinner and we had a lively discussion about what it means to be a vegetarian. We discussed the controversy of raising one's children vegetarian and if that takes away their freedom of choice, which then turned into a comparison to religious families and forbidding pork or beef in the household. This led Scott to question whether vegetarianism could be on the same level of religious or spiritual importance and left us all scratching our heads. (Any ideas on this?) And at this point, my mom said what she has always said, which is "Everything in Moderation."
Which is a great philosophy, but one that many Americans do not prescribe to. I referenced a lecture I saw of
Jonathan Safran Foer. He said that since he wrote
Eating Animals many people would approach him, lamenting the fact that vegetarianism was important but they could never commit fully to a vegetarian diet because of events such as Christmas dinner made by grandma that includes a succulent ham. Foer argued that for many there may be these significant occasions that can dissuade vegetarianism for that one day, but that one day does not eliminate the significance of making a conscious effort to eat more "green" on other days. I compared this to my fall off the vegetarian "bandwagon." I had traveled to another country and decided to try local dishes, many which contained meat. When I came back to LA, I began negotiating with myself, arguing that if I slipped up and had bacon for breakfast, then the whole day was shot and I could help myself to steak for dinner. These became wasted days that then became a habit and there went years of vegetarianism, because I had convinced myself that it was an all or nothing deal. But as Foer pointed out, abstaining from meat for just one day a week can make a difference. In addition, he discussed that in his own evaluation of meat-eating, he did not necessarily have those "events" that warranted the consequences of meat-eating, so why waste a meal?
In my own life, I feel the same way. I like not eating a lot of meat; in fact, too much meat, especially red meat, tends to make me lethargic and almost ill. There are times that I want to eat meat and these are few and far between. Perhaps once every couple of months, I'll really crave my mom's chicken curry or when I'm traveling, I'll have a desire to have real souvlaki. In those cases, eating meat and being conscious of my decision to eat meat proves much better for my health and the world's health.
I want to transition to a (mostly) vegetarian diet again, but this time, I don't want it to be an all or nothing process, where I end up putting so much pressure on myself, I feel deprived of something that I didn't really like in the first place. Instead, I want to look for sustainable/local/organic meat if I am really craving it and know that every day/meal that I refrain from eating meat makes a difference to the world, whereas meals that I eat mindlessly may end up doing a lot of harm.
What do you guys think? Is vegetarianism an all or nothing thing?
