I’ve been thinking about how to approach this for a while now, and I feel that now is a good time, when the year is new and the resolutions are still fresh, to be as transparent as possible in everything I do. So today, I’m sharing something that may come as a shock to most of you: I’m choosing to not be vegetarian anymore.
I started on my vegetarian journey around 13 years old. I cut out most meat at the time, opting for fish in the rare occasion it was offered to me. Eventually, I cut out fish and other seafood as well, and as I grew older and gained more knowledge into the vegetarian lifestyle, I started cutting out byproducts of the meat industry, keeping the dairy and the eggs but eliminating stocks, gelatin, and so forth.
So for a majority of my almost 30 years of life, save for a couple instances (one of which was brought on by my lovely now-husband nine years ago, when he made a filet mignon that I simply couldn’t resist), I’ve been a pretty strict vegetarian. I even went vegan for a month as a challenge to myself, and found that I felt great without any animal products at all.
I loved being vegetarian, and I loved when I tried being vegan. It was challenging, fun, and helped me explore new tastes and textures that I probably never would have tried if I had continued eating meat. I felt great and ate well, most of the time, at least. And I only occasionally missed meat. I was doing it for myself, and I found myself content and satisfied.
Then came Tycho.
We argued before he was born about what I would be okay with him eating – I avariciously wanted to keep him as vegetarian as possible, while Matt was hell-bent on enjoying a steak with his son. I eventually relented and said that some meats were okay; I didn’t want him eating chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, but I was okay with a bit of shredded chicken breast.
Why would I concede, though? Tycho’s diet is influenced by what we put on his tray, not by what he decides (at least, not on a spoken level, as he can’t specifically request a hamburger), and as his mother, I have almost complete control of what he eats and what he doesn’t. Yes, Matt has that say as well, but I can fight hard enough when I believe in something.
I’m not sure if I just didn’t believe strongly enough, or if I didn’t feel it was a fight worth having, but I decided to let Tycho decide for himself if he wanted to eat what was on Daddy’s plate, too. After his first taste of meat, some turkey and ham at our table at Thanksgiving, we could tell that he didn’t just like it, he loved it. Since then, we’ve given him bits of chicken, fish, and beef, all with astoundingly good results.
This kid, I can’t deny it, is an omnivore. A very happy one, at that.
I felt conflicted. I didn’t want to deny Tycho the meat that he apparently loves, regardless of how infrequently we give it to him. But I couldn’t help but wonder why I was okay with my son, who is for all intents and purposes a direct extension of me, eating the very meat that I avoided. I thought I had such strong opinions on how meat is terrible, the industry is abhorrent, and I’d not let a bit of meat cross his lips until he was old enough to tell me that he wanted it.
And I’ll fully admit, I started wanting some myself. After not eating animal flesh for so many years, suddenly I was taken over by the desire to reach over and spear some of Matt’s carnitas or take the bits of hamburger my son was eating and sneak it into my own mouth. Who knows what led to this, but it’s apparent that my body has started crying for some meat.
When I initially went vegetarian, it was because I simply didn’t care for meat. If I didn’t like it, why did I eat it? That led me to cut out everything but the fish, and in the interest of becoming a full vegetarian (and considering how little fish I ate, anyway), I decided to just cut it all out. It wasn’t until many years later that it turned into an environmental and, in small part, an animal rights issue, but they did shape the way I saw eating meat.
Did my vegetarianism make a difference? Sure, I felt healthier and happier, though I did make some terrible choices when it came to choosing carbs and sweets over meat (a common issue for vegetarians and vegans just starting out). I had my good days and my bad, but for the most part, I kept my diet clean and full of vegetables – after all, what’s a vegetarian who doesn’t eat her veggies.
But I was looking for more than just me. I thought I was making a difference when it came to animal welfare; I thought of my fork as my ballot, my way of voting for more vegetables and soy and less meat and fewer factory farms. But my veggie burger, while delicious and void of any meat whatsoever, did nothing to quell what’s still going on today. It’s not making a dent in how much meat others are eating, and more importantly, from where they’re getting it. No cows were getting out of the feedlot because I decided not to eat them.
Food is a complicated religion. I’ve put so much brain power into wondering from where my food came, how it was treated, if it was organically grown. I realize, though, that I was putting my thoughts for the meat industry in the wrong place: I was choosing to be pacifist by avoiding the situation entirely rather than choosing more sustainable and humane methods.
It turns out that I can balance eating meat and making a conscientious decision about how that meat, how that animal, was treated. And for every time that I “vote” at the dinner table, I can make a vote that actually counts by choosing sustainable meat.
In the end, it probably means allocating more money to our food budget, but after talking to Matt about it, he’s fine with my desire to eat
local, sustainable meat so long as we can share more meals together and with our son. Since I fully intend to leave and have already made the steps towards leaving vegetarianism, I’d much rather our meat comes from a small farmer where his sheep, goats, cattle, hogs, and chickens are treated with respect rather than a cruel place where animals are treated like cheap protein and “quality” is measured not by the life the animal led, but how much bang a conglomerate can make for the animal’s buck.
I also intend to take Tycho (and any other future children we have) to these farms so they can see from where their food comes and what an immense sacrifice these animals make so that we may eat. It would not be to entice him to become vegetarian, but for him to have respect for the work, dedication, and lives of these animals and the farmers that tend to them. Above all, I want his meals to be about veneration.
Today, I took my first bite of pulled pork, and I knew that it was the right decision for me.
It’s a huge relief for me to be so candid about a topic that I know brought many of you, my dear readers, to my blog in the first place. I hope you’ll join me not necessarily in eating and enjoying your meals, but to accept yourself for who you are, what you eat, and why you do.
It’s something I’m slowly starting to accept within myself. :)
