Least Complicated

The hardest to learn was the least complicated.

Thanks, JR, for reminding me about that great song via facebook this weekend.  It is an apt title for today's musing.

The evidence has mounted and has become too heavy to ignore.  I can no longer eat meat of any kind.  No more sushi cheats, no more nibbles of "free food!" turkey sandwiches in the staff lounge.  If I am convicted that something is wrong, then it is always wrong, no matter how much I may like it.  And in the case of eating meat I'm enjoying it less and less and less. 

It's not really a guilt thing or an "animal rights" thing, per se. It's really just one of many things that I actually feel strongly about, but am wishy-washy in my discipline and practice. Hubs's commitment to a strict vegetarian/vegan life is one of the many things I love about him.  He doesn't preach or try to convince anyone.  He just quietly lives by his principles every day, even if that includes wistful recollections of the steak dinners or greasy gyros of his past.

Many will disagree with my conclusion and that is just fine.  I am not out to be anyone's food police.  But the time has come for me to put my meat-cheating, flexitarian ways behind me.  Hopefully for good this time.

Yesterday was the first time since the Chik-fil-A debacle of the Nashville road trip in November that I made a conscious, premeditated decision to eat meat. Roommate and I were out and about on a disgusting winter day and were driving around the suburbs to accomplish some far flung errands.  We stopped at Red Lobster.  For the cheesy biscuits.  She had a gift card, and the siren song of butter and cheese soaked biscuity goodness lured us in.  I could have just had some fat bombs and a diet coke, but I didn't.  I chose to eat a shrimp appetizer.  I had been craving meat lately, and sating myself with veg burritos and black bean burgers.  Which I enjoy.  But I had this idea in my head that a little meat would be soooooo good.

But it wasn't.  It just wasn't.  And the negative feelings that stirred up inside me while I ate the shrimp far outweighed any momentary enjoyment of flavor, texture, or "comfort food" idealizations.  I slurped my diet coke, ate my shrimp, and thought long and hard about what possible benefit could be had from eating meat that I couldn't get from not eating meat. I couldn't think of any. And when I walked by the "soon to be dinner" tank and saw the mottled brown lobsters huddled on top of one another in the corner, I thought of Auggie and how he huddles in his crate when he REALLY does not want to go outside.  The only real difference between Auggie and those lobsters is that we have decided that lobsters are OK to eat, and dogs are not OK to eat.  Dogs share our beds, our food, and our families.  Lobsters get turned into bisque. 

I grew up surrounded by farms.  Little family farms with cows romping playfully across grassy meadows.  Most of the meat we consume never lolled with her friends under an oak tree on the farm.  We know better than to pretend.  And even if I did want to shell out the cashola for grass-fed, pasture raised meat, is it really better to eat something that DID live a good life?  You know, until it was killed so we could eat it?

Anyway.  That sounded like a rant and I didn't mean for it to sound like a rant.  Everybody makes choices about what they eat, and I am not in the business of judging.  Just as I don't expect you to judge me when I shun burgers but happily scarf pizza and candy.  I'm working on that too.  But for me, for my body, for our planet, and for animals, I'm going on record as officially meat-free, starting now.  Again.