Vegetarianism

When I was six years old, at a summer fair with my mother, I came across a table on animal rights, with photos (maybe a video playing too?) of how animals are treated and killed in slaughterhouses.  I don't remember this myself, or at least I don't think I do.  It feels like one of these phantom memories, lodged in your head from hearing a story so many times, you can *almost* remember it yourself...  And apparently, I instantly decided I would stop eating meat.  And I gave almost all meat up instantly.  "Almost all" because, well, I was six, so hotdogs and McDonald's chicken mcnuggets were hard for me to give up.  However, even the allure of those wore off, and by age eight I was completely vegetarian.

As you can tell, it was originally for ethical reasons.  As I got older, I went through various reasons (health, ethical, environment, meat just didn't appeal to me), but whatever the reason I gave when I was asked why I was vegetarian, I have been since age eight.

I got used to all the stupid questions and comments pretty quickly, and just learned to smile vaguely and ignore anything I found insulting.

Recently though, there's been lots of talk I've seen online among more radical people: very anti-vegetarian stuff coming from anti-civ anarchists, that I honestly find slightly hurtful.  I think it stems from Lierre Keith, author of The Vegetarian Myth, doing lots of talks recently, bringing up a lot of very interesting things to think about, but also making a lot of people very angry and defensive (even to the extent of harassing and harming her).  But, here's the thing: I want to read her book!!  I've listened to parts of her talks with interest.  I want to learn more.  Yet, I'm vegetarian.  And I don't plan to stop being vegetarian anytime soon.  The anger directed at ALL vegetarians is completely misplaced, as far as I'm concerned.  Attack the vegetarians and vegans who have actually been assholes, not ALL vegetarians and vegans!

This goes against something I find very important, and try very hard to do myself, and that is to attack the ideas/beliefs/institutions, not the people.  Or if I really do feel a need to condemn individuals, I make sure it's the specific individuals who I feel have done wrong, not others who simply share some of the same beliefs and ideals. 

But getting back to the topic of my vegetarianism.  If I believe as other anti-civers do, that agriculture (the destruction of all life on a piece of land to plant monocrops) is harmful and unsustainable, why do I have the diet I do?  Well, it's been something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I think I've come up with the basics of it.  Firstly, it's both habit at this point, and something I feel good with.  I don't feel a lack because I'm not eating meat.  When I'm eating healthy vegetarian food I feel healthy!  Secondly, if I was ever to eat meat, it would only be meat from animals I knew had been treated well and killed with respect.  That's both expensive and often hard to find, unless you hunt yourself.  Which brings me to another reason I don't eat meat: I have this feeling that whatever I eat should be something that I myself  would be willing to harvest or kill.  Pulling up a carrot is just as surely killing as shooting a deer, and I recognize that fact where I think too many others don't.  But I can bring myself to kill a carrot where I can't bring myself to kill a deer, so I eat carrots where I don't eat venison.  I wouldn't kill a chicken, so I don't eat chicken.  My feelings may change at some point, but that's where things are right now.

I try to eat as much organic, locally grown produce as possible, both for health and sustainability reasons (really, the two are the same things!  Unsustainable practices means unhealthy or dead humans.), and this year I want to grow more veggies myself.   I'm also experimenting with my diet this summer, seeing how I feel cutting out virtually all grains and processed foods from my diet.  But for now, meat is not going to be a part of my diet, and I'd really appreciate it if I wasn't made to feel bad about that fact!

Peace,
Idzie 

P.S. I want to make sure, because I'm not sure how what I said about others views on eating meat came across, that all the anti-civers I've ever met (online and in real life) are strongly against factory farming and animal abuse.  Most just see eating meat, that's either hunted or raised kindly, as part of a sustainable diet.

Vegan. For a month, at least...

I've been thinking for a while now about becoming vegan... I've been vegetarian for nearly ten years now. When I was six (so my mother tells me), we were at some type of street fair, and one of the tables was a setup on animal cruelty. Apparently my six-year-old self was so moved by compassion for what I saw that I declared I would no longer eat meat. Being the wonderful unschooling mom that she is, my mother supported me entirely in that. I didn't stop eating chicken fingers and hot dogs until I was eight, as those were my favorite types of meat, but from eight on, I haven't eaten any meat whatsoever. Because of my vegetarian diet, I learned a lot about nutrition at an early age. We as a family have never been much into following the Canadian Food Guide, seeing as the dairy industry (among other industries I'm sure) actually puts pressure on the government to say you need more dairy then you really do (I mean think about it, cow milk is made for extremely fast growing calves, not fully grown or slowly growing humans. Plus, you know how you always hear about dairy being an excellent source of calcium? Well, the type of calcium found in dairy is very hard for your body to absorb. Other sources are much better.), but thanks to my mom I had the three important groups of foods I should always eat firmly in my head: Grains, vegetables, and protein. As long as I had those three categories at virtually every meal, I was good. Grains and vegetables are pretty self explanatory, and as for protein that could mean cheese, tofu, legumes (lentils, chickpeas etc.), or fake meat substitutes that were based on soybeans. As I got older, I got more sophisticated in my knowledge of dietary requirements, finding out which essential nutrients are found in which foods, which supplements I should probably take since I didn't get adequate amounts from my diet, and other such things. I hardly think about my diet anymore, since it's become such a habit. Still, for every single meal, I notice whether or not I've included the three major food groups of grains, vegetables, and protein!

Anyway, that went way off topic in the story of how I became vegetarian, bt back to the vegan thing. I went through a stage where I decided it "wasen't cool" to be vegetarian because of animal rights (yes, I'm embarassed about that stage. What can I say, it's past now), so said it was just health reasons and habit, which was parcially true. But the only way I could "not care" about animal rights was to deliberately not find out about the awful things that animals go through to become food for us humans. Now that period of time is behind me, and I'm proud to say I care very much about animal rights. I wouldn't want to be kept in a tiny cage that I couldn't even turn around in, neglected and tortured, and then killed so someone could eat me, so why the hell would I put another living creature through that? And in the last few months, I've been thinking about the rough time other animals go through to produce other animal products like dairy and eggs. I don't think I want to put animals through that either. I've thought of trying to go free range only, but cows, even when free range, are awful on the environment, and it's nearly impossible to find eggs from chickens that are kept organic and free range! I think perhaps the huge chicken industry in Quebec makes sure no small competitors can survive... So I decided to make a commitment to myself: To be completely vegan for one month. At that time, I can see what I've really missed, if I think I'm missing anything important in my diet, or other important considerations. Overall, vegetarians have a much lower rate of heart disease than meat eaters, and vegans have a much lower rate of heart disease than vegetarians! Veganisn is quite healthy, as long as you pay attention to what you're eating, and there's only one vitamin/nutrient you miss as a vegan so need to take a supplement for (I can't remember what it is... Which means I should take out a book on veganism from the library next time I'm there). So wish me luck with my vegan month. And I hope I don't miss pizza too much!

Here are some photo's I took of our cats yesterday. Minni ("officially" my cat) is the brown one and Henry is the black and white one, and both of them are marvelous, loving, and beautiful creatures.

Peace,
Idzie