More With Less Part 3: Why I Don't Eat Meat

Thinking about writing this post has been giving me the cold sweats all week, so let's just go with the blunt opener, shall we? Rip off the bandaid and get to it.

My decision to keep a meat-free diet (both times I have made it) has been, in my opinion, the most significant lifestyle change I have made to live closer to my spiritual convictions.

There. I said it.

Can we still be friends? I've intentionally avoided talking much about vegetarianism on the blog because I know this is a touchy subject. How do I know? Because I've been rehearsing my "Please don't think I'm a self-righteous far-left Neo Pagan. Please know that I am not judging you for savoring your burger. Please believe me that this is a personal decision and I am not going to hand you a PETA pamphlet when you ask me to have lunch" answer to the oft-asked question of "So, why don't you eat meat?" It feels, at least to me, like there is often an assumption that vegetarians judge omnivores, and/or feel sorry for them and their slowly-clogging arteries. I eat a lot of cheese. My arteries are clogging if anyone's are (Oh, I'm not even going to tiptoe towards my vegan daydreams in this post). And I don't judge you for eating meat. If it looks like I am turning my nose up at your plate, it's because I'm trying to get a good whiff of your steak.

As my wise co-conspirator Jackie reminded me a few month ago (about a totally different subject, but her comment rings true in this discussion), we are not all convicted about the same things, and that's OK. Not everyone is going to feel compelled to give up meat. But I have been, and the thing about convictions is that once they settle in and grab hold of you, your heart makes it really uncomfortable for you if you continue to pull against them.

The simplest answer I can give to the "Why don't you eat meat?" question is this:

I am convinced that the meat industry is bad for people and terrible for the environment and I don't want to support it. It exploits animals and exploits people and causes intense suffering. I believe that God cares about  all of His creation, and that the inhumane treatment and death of millions of animals each year grieves Him, and it certainly grieves me. I am fortunate enough to live in a time and place where there are plenty of healthy ways to eat a balanced meat-free diet, and I'm thankful that I can opt out of an industry that I do not want to support. Plus, my mom died of cancer, and I'd just as soon hedge my bets against a diet that puts me at higher-risk for serious illness. Doctors know that high meat consumption (aka: the typical American diet) increases your risk of cancer and heart disease, and I'd really rather do what I can to avoid those.

But that's not how I put it if someone asks me face to face. Especially here in the South, the land of pig-pickin's and intensely devoted adherents to tradition, southern food, and family recipes. Even in Chicago, though, I hedged a bit. Diet and food are deeply personal, intimate topics of conversation, and people (including me) tend to be very protective of their food choices. I get it. I respect your choices! My diet is not exactly a pillar of virtue. I eat lots of sweets and other things I know to be bad for me and bad for the environment. But giving up meat, for me, was a simple and obvious step towards living in a More With Less attitude towards my food.

Yum! Totally tasty, filling, and meatless.

The More With Less cookbook (at least the older version that I got from the library) only had a half page devoted to considering the role meat should play in a simple diet, and while it used that space to encourage readers that a balanced meat-free diet is healthy and provides adequate nutrition, it acknowledged that most North Americans were probably not going to give up meat entirely. It pointed out that meat production requires a lot of resources (water, grain, land) and produces a lot of pollution, and encouraged readers to limit their meat consumption to 1/4 pound per person per day, and flatly calls anything more that that "waste".

I haven't always been convicted about meat. In fact, after eating meat-free for 5 years, I gave up on it and starting eating chicken and fish. Eating vegetarian is an omnivorous world can be a lot of work. Especially if you don't know a lot of other veg people. Chicken noodle soup and sushi and grilled salmon are their own sort of comfort-food, and I was in a place in my life where I was strongly inclined to turn to food for comfort. But then, I met Les. Les had been eating a vegan diet for 5 years, and also happens to be an excellent cook (I'm a lucky girl!). So, when we got married, one of our first major joint decisions was to meet in the middle and keep a vegetarian diet together. He added eggs and some cheese back in, and I said good bye to meat. Being a team about it is incredibly helpful, but even when I was single, eating veg was doable. I've learned a lot since that first foray into meatless menus, and I can honestly say that my diet is a lot more varied and interesting now than it ever was. Beans, lentils, quinoa (a complete protein!), some soy/tofu, (though I'm not a huge fan), and lovely armloads of vegetables that I never thought I could learn to love are now the mainstay of our diet. I still eat eggs and cheese, and Les has them once in a while. When we get up the motivation to go to the big Farmer's Market here in Raleigh, we can even get small-farm raised eggs and Animal Welfare Certified goat's cheese, which is awesome, but honestly, we don't drive out there as often as I'd like. We acknowledge the inconsistencies, and do the best we can.

My "conversion" from omnivore to herbivore, like many major life changes, is a plodding and circuitous story. The short version is that I was 23, living in Chicago, and starting to swim a bit deeper into the sea of social justice issues and realizing that following Jesus meant more than church and prayer and "trying to be good". I was reading about the growing movement of believers and "Creation Care" advocates who believe that the Bible teaches us to care for the Earth and to speak out about wastefulness and disposable culture. I read an excerpt from the classic "Diet for A Small Planet", and I can still picture the inverted pyramid diagram that showed the staggering amount of water and land it took to produce a pound of edible meat. And, I learned that the Tyson meat-packing plant in the Chicago suburbs is staffed almost entirely by low-wage, no-benefit workers, most of  whom are recent immigrants or refugees who can find no other work. Human suffering and environmental damage were the first pieces to fall into place for me. Even for me, the animal lover. I had grown up in farmland and watched cows roam lazily through the fields. They didn't look unhappy. My relatives were hog farmers on an mid-sized farm. The pigs looked more-or-less chill. I knew that meat was made from animals, but the brutality of Big Agriculture and factory farming hadn't really sunk in yet. But then I started reading. And, heaven help me, watching videos online. And that nearly pushed me over the edge to give up meat altogether. But not quite. It wasn't until I killed a couple of tree frogs that I decided "enough is enough".

My pet goldfish had died, and I went in search of an apartment-friendly pet. I brought home two adorable, zen-faced tree frogs and a little terrarium. I loved those little guys for the 4 days they survived in my care. I was eating a turkey sandwich at work when my roommate called me and told me that my tree frogs were dead. Really dead. "WHY?!?" I begged her. And she, a vet tech and zoo keeper, convincingly informed me that they had starved to death. I hadn't gotten them the right food, and they hadn't eaten in 4 days. A dry sob chugged in my bread-and-lunchmeat-choked throat, and I decided right then that if I could cry for those frogs then I should cry for the turkey in my hand. And for five years I didn't eat meat again.

And now, it has been over 2 years on this second go-round. I will confess that I have had a nibble here or there. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes not. When I did my grain-free elimination diet this winter, I ate some chicken. I was so hungry and anxious and I thought I was going to go bonkers. And I may or may not have taken a sample of grilled shrimp at Whole Foods one day and devoured it with slightly guilty glee. But 99% of the time, I'm veg and happy. And if I ever feel myself waffling in the direction of a fish taco, I look at AugDog and remember that I do not want to be part of any animal's death. I also think of a line from the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that one of my friends posted on Facebook several months ago:

"I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death."

I wish I could soften it a bit, because meat = death sounds harsh, even to me. But it's true, and I'm goin' with true over nice on this one. The Bible paints a beautiful picture of a New Heaven and a New Earth, when the world will be renewed, and not even the animals will eat one another. Of lions and lambs lying down together, and the end of all death. Woot! I'm all for that. Death sucks. I prefer to have no part in it.

There are a lot of great resources out there if you'd like to give Meatless Mondays a try, or do want to learn more about the meat industry in America. Even cutting back on meat will help your health and the planet. Check out any of these from your local library:

The Kind Diet - yep, its by Alicia Silverstone of "Clueless" fame. But it's a readable, engaging book about transitioning to a meatless (or vegan) diet. I've linked to her Kind Life website.

Becoming Vegetarian - slim book that I read many years ago when first trying out veg.

1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes - simple, cheap, and tasty. Helpful when trying to avoid the pitfalls of gaining weight from all the fries and bagels you may or may not lunge towards when first leaning into a veg diet.

Whole Foods Vegetarian Eating page of their website. Yeah, they're a big company. Yeah, they can be really spendy. But it's a helpful resource.

Eating Animals - I haven't read this because I don't need to be convinced, but I've read enough commentary on the book to know that if you are looking for an in-your-face 360-degree look at the meat industry, this is the book for you. I've included 2 articles about the book below, if you prefer the "light" version.

10 Good Things Vegetarianism Can Do For You (And the World) from Sojourners
Eating Animals: 10 Reasons to Avoid Factory Farmed Flesh, also from Sojourners (somewhat graphic!)

There are not a lot of faith-based vegetarian books/websites out there - If you know of some, please let me know! Most that I've found are pretty low-tech and home-made and, well, dorky.

And, not for the faint of heart (be advised that there are graphic animal photos on the main page): www.chooseveg.com

Last but not least, a delightful YouTube video called Vegan Myths Debunked. LOVE. IT. Enjoy.