AccidentalVeg
03-23-2005, 05:35 PM
I'm here from Veggie Boards at the suggestion of a friend.
Here's my tale:
I am a relatively new veggie and am not all the way vegan. Yet. I am working really hard on it. I went veggie last summer when my boyfriend started doing all the cooking. He has been vegetarian for 20 years now which I find incredible. He is not vegan, though and is not interested in becoming so. When I went back to eating meat when John's summer visit ended I became hopelessly sick. I realised that eating meat was not really something I missed enough to make myself sick over. I have had gall bladder issues for some time. Actually ever since I tried the Atkins diet and nearly wrecked that little organ. I manage fine on a low fat diet of mostly veggies/carbs with some soy protein stuff. I have been lactose intolerant since my late-20's so no dairy for me. The odd slip-up here and there for cheese. But I equate cheese and dairy with smoking in health terms and fur-wearing in ethical terms.
I eat the odd locally grown egg too but I am starting to realise there is almost no such thing as an ethically sourced egg. It has been my experience in these last few months of looking and researching how food is made that eating is hands-down the most political act we do on a daily basis. It has been very satisfying to me personally to recognise my power to decide what I eat and where it comes from. My power to effect change. It was with amusement that I passed my local McDonald's this week and noted their change in livery. They now sport a disingenuous green band around the building. You can paint it green but it will still smell of dead cows, Ronald.
My big watershed moment came around Thanksgiving when I viewed footage of hostages in Iraq being beheaded on the same day that I watched footage of "Kosher" slaughter. The sounds the two animals make upon meeting their untimely and violent ends are identical. The rasping, the desperate struggling for their lives. There is no difference between a murdered man and a murdered pig. They are both murders and they look the same on camera. That was it for me. I had maybe been toying with my vegetarianism up until that point, telling myself it was merely healthier for me but from that point forward it was an ideological shift I do not think I could renounce without it being an extreme circumstance of survival for me.
I currently struggle with trying to raise my daughter vegetarian but since she is split between two homes, one of which is omni, I am encountering real difficulty with it. I struggle each day to remove animal products from my life but I must be truthful that it is a struggle. I have serious problems with giving up my leather shoes, for example, but I understand how unsupportable a position it is and that I must have the courage to stick with my professed convictions. I am at times deeply unhappy in my struggling and at other times I am thrilled with what I have learned about life and about myself. It's tough stuff but it's good stuff. You know?
And that's my story.
Here's my tale:
I am a relatively new veggie and am not all the way vegan. Yet. I am working really hard on it. I went veggie last summer when my boyfriend started doing all the cooking. He has been vegetarian for 20 years now which I find incredible. He is not vegan, though and is not interested in becoming so. When I went back to eating meat when John's summer visit ended I became hopelessly sick. I realised that eating meat was not really something I missed enough to make myself sick over. I have had gall bladder issues for some time. Actually ever since I tried the Atkins diet and nearly wrecked that little organ. I manage fine on a low fat diet of mostly veggies/carbs with some soy protein stuff. I have been lactose intolerant since my late-20's so no dairy for me. The odd slip-up here and there for cheese. But I equate cheese and dairy with smoking in health terms and fur-wearing in ethical terms.
I eat the odd locally grown egg too but I am starting to realise there is almost no such thing as an ethically sourced egg. It has been my experience in these last few months of looking and researching how food is made that eating is hands-down the most political act we do on a daily basis. It has been very satisfying to me personally to recognise my power to decide what I eat and where it comes from. My power to effect change. It was with amusement that I passed my local McDonald's this week and noted their change in livery. They now sport a disingenuous green band around the building. You can paint it green but it will still smell of dead cows, Ronald.
My big watershed moment came around Thanksgiving when I viewed footage of hostages in Iraq being beheaded on the same day that I watched footage of "Kosher" slaughter. The sounds the two animals make upon meeting their untimely and violent ends are identical. The rasping, the desperate struggling for their lives. There is no difference between a murdered man and a murdered pig. They are both murders and they look the same on camera. That was it for me. I had maybe been toying with my vegetarianism up until that point, telling myself it was merely healthier for me but from that point forward it was an ideological shift I do not think I could renounce without it being an extreme circumstance of survival for me.
I currently struggle with trying to raise my daughter vegetarian but since she is split between two homes, one of which is omni, I am encountering real difficulty with it. I struggle each day to remove animal products from my life but I must be truthful that it is a struggle. I have serious problems with giving up my leather shoes, for example, but I understand how unsupportable a position it is and that I must have the courage to stick with my professed convictions. I am at times deeply unhappy in my struggling and at other times I am thrilled with what I have learned about life and about myself. It's tough stuff but it's good stuff. You know?
And that's my story.