As some of you may have gathered, I am a vegetarian. I became one on Thanksgiving day when I was 10 years old because I could not bear the thought of eating an animal, that was the first time I really made the connection.
My parents, with their infinite fortitude, let me decide for myself. Their only stipulations were that I learn the basics of nutrition, and that I learn how to cook for myself so that my choices didn’t add to their workload. I have always admired the fact that they were so open to a child making up her own mind, and allowing me to figure it out myself.
I have throughly enjoyed being a vegetarian, so why am I considering a change? There are a couple reasons, the primary one is nature. As a city dweller, I had no idea of what goes into farming, and now that I’ve read a lot on sustainable farming, I am starting to realize that you can’t grow plants without animals (if you are going to have an organic farm).
Think about it, when was the last time in nature that you saw a forest or field without animals on it? The plants need the animals and the animals need the plants to survive. It is only humans who think that they can control nature, and have only the precise inputs that they want. After reading about Polyface Farm in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and also reading multiple books on homesteading, I have come to realize that each animal on the farm plays a very important ecological role on a farm, and that this balance is key to being good stewards of the land. I’m just not sure that in the long term, it is possible to have good fruits and vegetables without any animals or outside fertilizers.
So great, have a couple sheep and use their fleece for wool, and maybe add a few chickens in for their eggs, using their excrement as fertilizer; but for heaven’s sake don’t kill them. Let them live a nice long life on the farm and enjoy their company. The obvious problem with that is that the land would quickly be over run. No where else in nature can an animal live with no fear of predictors. Hubby and I are currently watching Planet Earth, a TV series by the BBC. It is a fantastic series, but has really driven home the point that basically all animals do is mate and eat (either plants, bugs, or other animals). Imagine how overrun our planet would be if all animals kept mating, but became vegetarians? The same would happen very quickly on a farm as well.
Now all this being said, 99% on Americans eat horrible meat that is not grown under humane conditions, or under conditions where they are part of a good ecological food chain. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) are horible, toxic places that pollute the air and water, all while producing sickly animals that aren’t anywhere near as healthy for us to eat as their traditional counterparts. Even animals raised under the organic label are still apt not to be a part of a healthy, ecologically sustainable farm.
If I do decide to eat meat again, it is only going to be animals that I know had a good and productive life, which means being a vegetarian pretty much everywhere but at home. But what I am struggling with is can I actually take the plunge? And even if everything that I wrote is true, do I really want to eat something that was once a clucking chicken or a cute cow?
I’m not sure, but I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the topic, both pro or con.
Don’t know about your area but here you can buy the meat direct from the farmer, so you can check out their humane or lack of, practises. Start small with non-cute animals. Try wild caught fish, clams, etc. Wild boar is mean and ugly. Chickens are beautiful, but also mean and smelly. Good luck.
p.s. I am a veggie but not fanatic. If you are comfortable so, stay veggie. Your diet will be balance to the carnivores.
Jehkeykat – I can buy direct from the farmers at the farmer’s market, which is what I would plan on doing.
I like your idea of starting with non-cute animals.
I am comfortable with being a veggie, but I do use some fake meat products, so I’m thinking it might be better just to eat a little bit of the real thing, instead of the processed foods.
Me carnivore. Me eat meat. Meat good. Meat VERY good. Eat meat!
Seriously though, I think there are plenty of us meat-eaters out here to balance out all the vegetarians of the world so if someone wants to be vegetarian, regardless of their reasons, good for them! That’s more steak for me!
That being said, I see the value of your points concerning the TYPE of meat we eat and how that meat was produced. The problem with being a meat-eater is when we are willing to allow the environment to be damaged and animals to be treated cruelly in order for us to have a hamburger.
The key is to find balance. Can we eat meat in a way that is beneficial for the environment or at least not damaging to the nvironment, and morally acceptable? It really is a question of whether or not we are good stewards of God’s world.
Any way, that’s my two-cents worth. Okay, maybe it’s worth a little less than that.
On the plus side, the market for ethical meat is still very small and niche– spending your dollars there really does make a difference.
I’m a meat eater. That being said, if I couldn’t get locally raised, humanely raised and butchered meat, I would probably be mostly vegetarian. I think that a diet with locally and sustainably raised meat is much more natural and, well, sustainable in the long run.
I also personally know many small, local veggie and meat farmers and it is so important that they have a good solid clientele, because that allows them to continue to operate and even grow, because they know they can count on the continued business, which is very important so that we can all have alternatives to agribusiness ginormo corporations.
Since I have been a farmer and animal lover for my whole life – I can’t imagine not eating meat. Is that hard to understand? I was taught at an early age to respect our animals, because they took care of us as we took care of them. We always butchered at home and death was a quick moment in an active and healthy life. We used to just sell our calves at weaning, so they most likely did not live the rest of their lives in the best environment. Now, we keep them until “harvesting” age and the people that buy their meat from us know that they were raised carefully and kindly, we feel better.
As a consumer, you do have to be careful, people use the typical buzz words for marketing that get people all jazzed up.
For instance, free range, vegetarian fed, cage free, these terms make you feel better if you are at all apprehensive. I know of people in our area that are making toxic wastelands out of their farms, by free-ranging their birds and having too many animals on small holdings. But, if the local journalist comes to the farm and writes a story, complete with feel good photos, Voila! Instant customers- it all sounds and looks sooo good. The farmers may be innocent enough – they probably can’t foresee the ecological nightmare that is ahead
of them. And really, truth be told the bird raised on a small farm, even in less than ideal conditions is still better than anything available in any health food store. So this is certainly a conundrum. I believe it is Michael Pollan that said in his article POWER STEER “a grass fed steer has a really good life and one bad day.” All these comments are probably going to make it even harder for you to decide…
Very interesting post. I became a vegetarian and then soon after that, a strict vegetarian (vegan) almost two years ago. So, I would promote the veg lifestyle in general. : ) However, I feel that food is so personal and it can become a contentious issue very, very fast.
What I would advise is to stay veg and if you don’t like eating the over-processed fake meat products, then don’t eat them…but I wouldn’t go back to eating meat unless you feel that (for you personally at least) it is medically/nutritionally necessary. Since vegetarianism is the most positive choice for the environment, the welfare of animals, and general health for many people, I would stick with it until it becomes a major problem.
Remember when I mentioned that the particular book you read would effect your thinking and put you in a frenzy to look for sustainable animal products? Here it is. You are ready to change your whole diet because Michael Pollan is an excellent and persuasive writer.
If you feel good about your diet and how it makes you feel healthwise, don’t change it. When I was a vegetarian years ago, I was healthier than I have ever been since. My Dad has been a vegan for years. The doctors told me that his diet plus his insane exercise regimen kept him from having a heart attack before they figured out he needed the quadrupal bypass.
Some vegans do not thrive. Sometimes adding in eggs and dairy makes them feel healthier. If you suspect that adding animal protien back into your diet will be beneficial to your health, then by all means do so. The point of OD was that the sustainable farming practices were better than the factory farms, so carnivores should change their practices if they can. But really, the fact of the matter is that it uses more resources to feed animals than it takes to feed plants directly to people (If the animals need supplemental feed)
I agree with you about where you buy meat. I actually drive to Leesburg because they have a year-round farmers market up there. All the meat vendors are local, mostly Loudon Co., and most all tout that they are free range, grass fed operations. Most also have websites that show their operations. They also have a nice variety of cheeses and yogurts, both cow and goat based. If I can’t get to Leesburg, I try to buy my meat at Trader Joe’s, although you did point out that its hard to tell the conditions of those farms.
I’m amazed at these responses. I was expecting at least a few diatribes. I know how personally people take this issue. Thank you all for helping me think about this.
Peregrin Joe – I firmly believe that we can find ways to eat meat in a humane and sustainable way. It seems that everything in life is always a challenging act, but this is one I know can happen.
Corie and Lisa – I agree that my dollars can help support farmers making choices that are better for the environment. I love growing what I can in my patio garden, but am so grateful to those who make it easier for me to eat well.
Nita – I agree that all the labels don’t actually get at the heart of the matter. I consider myself fortunate to have access to farmer’s markets where I trust the people that I am talking to.
Sparrowlight – Unfortunately, not eating the meat substitutes isn’t really an option. My hubby is also a veggie, but he has only been one for a couple years. He really likes when I use the fake meat substitutes. I started out as a vegetarian way before they were developed, and I could live without them.
Mimi – This actually started way before reading the Omnivore’s Dilemma, when I started trying to wean us of processed foods. That about 6 months ago, and was almost convinced. Pollan has just added one more thing to think about.
Sarah – I love how many farmers markets there are in the area. Our closest one is only a couple blocks away, but it’s not year-round, fortunately there are plenty that are and are relatively close.
While I know the vegetarianism is good for the earth because factory farmed animals use a ton of resources, I find that a lot of vegetarians aren’t necessarily doing the planet or their body good anyway because they blindly eat a lot of processed foods – fake meat and cheese products and so on. Not saying you fall into this category, because as the New Old Fashioned Gal I know you make a lot of things from scratch and put a lot of thought into what you eat. It’s just a general observation about vegetarians. In college, I was mostly vegetarian, and I used to eat veggie burgers out of a box myself, till I started reading books like the Omnivore’s Dilmena, and most recently, Michael Pollan’s newest book, In Defense of Food, which purports that soybean oil and corn oil and other chemicals pretending to be food are what’s killing us. Not to mention the oil used in bringing ingredients from farms all over a country to factories where they are processed into “food” and then shipped on to grocery stores. It was then that I switched – I stopped buying any processed food, and started only buying food from the farmers market and in bulk. In my opinion, humans are meant to be omnivores, that’s what our bodies are designed for, but again, not everyone will feel healthy eating the same foods. I like to eat meat, but I have substantially cut down my meat intake. I no longer blindly eat meat at restaurants, and will only eat meat that I know to be locally and sustainably raised. Just my two cents.
If you need any further nudging about why you *should* eat ethically raised meat, and exactly how much difference your dollar can make, I recommend reading some of Joel Salatin’s books (you know, the farmer Pollan writes about). Especially Holy Cows and Hog Heaven.
You can definitely grow plants without animals on an organic farm. I’ve been veg since I was 13 and am also a gardener. Although I am currently living in NYC and have to grow my fruits and vegetables in containers, I come from Oregon, the land of farms and organics. I try to follow the same gardening practices here that I would anywhere. Tons of compost is key. And that doesn’t have to have anything of animal origin in it. Here, I compost papers, leaves, straw, food scraps, etc. I also do worm composting and they eat all sorts of scraps. Where I lived in Oregon, we grew everything…and not one bit of animal did we use…no manure, no bone meal, nothing. Lots and lots of compost and quite a bit of alfalfa meal. We did use birds, bugs and bats as part of our natural controls.
As for animals on farms overrunning….it depends on what you’re doing. Later on we had goats and chickens. Chickens were all hens (we didn’t need a rooster because we weren’t breeding) and the goats were spayed/neutered or kept same sex. Easy enough. Animals don’t overrun anything unless humans are involved…predator and prey balance each other out. Once humans interfere, then there’s a problem. You never read headlines about animals overrunning the environment in areas where humans haven’t signficantly affected their natural behavior. People destroy habitat and then wonder why animals eat their backyard gardens. Or they remove top level predators from the environment and wonder why there are too many deer. Nature will take care of itself.
As a long time vegetarian for humane reasons, clearly that’s what I advocate. But if you choose to follow a different path, that’s your choice. However, if you do choose to do something differently, it would be great for you to continue your reading. You don’t have to eat farm animals to stop them from overrunning your farm (although you can eat them for other reasons if you like)… and you don’t have to even have animals to grow your veggies (although if you do have animals they can help you with their manure…although it’s not necessary).
Beverly – I agree that it is our fault that animals get out of balance. I have lived in many places where the government was begging people to hunt dear.
On a farm though, we take away the predators. I can’t think of a way to have all of those laying hens without someone killing the boy chicks along the way. Even if it isn’t the end user, someone has to be doing the breeding. How could we have all these female cows and hens to produce milk and eggs without killing the unnecessary males that are inevitably born through the breeding process? (Sorry guys) In this case, aren’t we then the predators?
I still am unsure what the answer is, because it is hard for a city girl to know exactly what goes into farming. I do know that I am not able to go vegan, so I am contributing to boy chicks and cows being put down.
I am so glad for everyone’s comments, both pro-meat and vegetarian. It has really helped me to focus what I believe, although I’m still not sure yet.
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I’m a little late to the conversation, but I wanted to share that I went through the same thing.
I too pronounced once Thanksgiving that it was cruel to kill turkeys for the purpose of giving thanks. For a long time, I ate them every other day of the year.. and then finally went vegetarian.. for all the good reasons mentioned here. I was mostly vegetarian, often vegan, for 7 years. Like other folks have said, it was all too easy to get caught into eating a lot of processed fake meat foods. Eating like that is still supporting agribusiness. I was the queen of like-grandma-used-to-make-but-vegan cooking. Much of it was very tasty, but I longed for simpler food. Essentially though, I had to teach myself to cook all over again.
I never thought it would feel comfortable eating cute things, but I have made my peace with it. It’s about balance. I do try to buy organic and local when I can afford it. I eat vegetarian a good deal of the time – at home and out still – and actually consume more vegetables now than I did as a vegan. I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what other people think; life is far too short to not find pleasure in food. And sometimes that means eating bacon!
[...] of my most favorite of kindred bloggers, New Old-Fashioned Gal, posted a few weeks ago on her vegetarianism. The insightful comments are worth the click [...]