Hi. I've coined a new term.
Occasiotarian: A vegetarian who occasionally lacks will power and thus partaketh in the forbidden flesh once, maybe twice, a week. Tops.
Let me just say this: I love animals. I always have. When I was a sophomore in high school I did a class project on PETA. During research for said project, I came across a video of the Chinese fur trade. Dogs, crammed one on top of another, in steel cages. Terror in their eyes. And then, one of them was skinned... alive. I started bawling right in the middle of the classroom. I'm honestly surprised I didn't throw up. That was the first time I was introduced to the real horrors of how animals were being treated.
But that didn't stop me from eating meat. Momma loves a good steak- charred on the outside, bloody on the inside.
Then I started getting into documentaries- particularly food documentaries. Supersize Me. Food, Inc. King Corn. Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. After every movie I was inspired to change the way I eat. Especially Food, Inc. I'd give up on meat cold turkey (heh), and ultimately in a few weeks, I would cave and have a few bites of steak. In my mind, at that point, I had already failed in my mission, so I started to eat meat regularly again.
About 3 weeks ago, I was watching 30 Days, a TV show by Morgan Spurlock, the creator of Supersize Me. In that particular episode, a hunter moved in with a family of animal rights activists to see how they lived for 30 days. At the end of the show, he had rescued and rehabilitated a baby cow all by himself. That goddamn cow was so happy. And something about that just stuck with me. It wasn't gruesome. They didn't show much on how the animals were treated, but something about that cow just did it for me.
So I stopped eating meat. Almost. This time, I'm allowing myself to give in to temptation every now and then. I'm not beating myself up for eating meat here and there. Something about the psychology of allowing myself to "cheat" actually makes it much easier, because I know I can eat it if I really want to.
So far It's been 3 weeks, and I've eaten meat twice. That's pretty good for someone who basically used to eat meat at every meal- and I feel good about what I'm doing. I'm not the perfect vegetarian, chances are I never will be. So there you have it, I'm an occasiotarian.
Have you been inspired to drastically change how you eat? Got any great vegetarian recipes for me?
4 comments:
I'm a pescetarian, which basically means vegetarian but I eat seafood too. For me, it works & I love it. I've been doing it since the new year. Sweetbay has an AMAZING tube of meatless meat. And you can do anything with it.. like make burgers or meatballs. I forgot the name of it, but it's not hard to find. Look in the refridgerated tofu section in the produce section. We've gotten it twice now, and even my husband likes it!! Now that says a lot. Happy eating!!
I gave up beef (and pretty much all meat) in high school in protest after my parents had a few of their cows butchered for meat. I remember feeling all sorts of violated about it. I kept with it for about 4 years, and then went to a churrascaria and was reintroduced to the wonder that is beef. Now I'm married to a hunter, and am making a solid effort to try and only use the meat he kills, since it's done ethically (at least in some people's minds. They die in one clean shot, after living a nice free life out in the wild. It's not pain-free exactly, but seems a helluva lot better than being caged, bludgeoned, and butchered, IMO) and they truly are "organic". No preservatives, hormones, or chemicals. I'd love to have chickens, but still need to look into the city guidelines about keeping them...
I think you've got a really great outlook on this! Sometimes if you tell yourself you can't have something, that's going to be all you want, and you set yourself up to fail. But by now allowing yourself to eat meat occasionally, I bet it's a whole lot easier to make the choice when you really really want it, rather than it being the forbidden fru...I mean cow!"
I love how you're thinking about this, and you're so right... I think seeing animals cared for a treated properly is far more impacting than seeing them mistreated. I can't take the shows where they're shown being beaten and caged.
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