invisible
On Holiday
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i guess i am making this thread just because i realised over recent months that i feel very strongly about the ways in which many people seem to approach the eating of meat, the attitudes they have towards it, and the ideas they have about it. i have written about my ideas on this in the forum previously but i think it's probably within reason for me to have a thread on it also considering that i have been a member for a while and this is something i really care about.
i became vegetarian a couple of years ago after i put my cat friend down. she was almost 18 and over her life we had developed a close friendship and a special bond. although she was obviously not an abstract thinker she was emotionally sophisticated and it was very difficult for me to part with her. it became difficult for me to think of animals as food after her death. but, i recognise that there are a lot of grey areas in this world. i am not vegan. for the time being i still eat eggs and dairy and i wear leather shoes and belts. so i guess i still consider animals as clothes! this is just a bit about me, because obviously i regard the eating (or not) of meat as a personal decision.
often in my life it is necessary for me to inform people that i do not eat meat of any kind. in these situations it becomes apparent to me that people have very different ideas from mine regarding the consumption of meat. they wonder whether i miss meat and they find it difficult to engage with the notion that i do not desire meat, that i can do without it. it is true that i do not have any desire to eat meat. in general, i find the flavours of meat to be overpowering and unsubtle. the flavour is overwhelmingly of flesh and animal fats, a statement which presents as objectively pointless, except that it seems people do not exactly think of the flavours that way. to me bacon tastes of salt and animal fat, and cow tastes of blood and tree bark - kind of like marmite or promite except not as good. meat can be yummy, i admit! but i definitely don't crave it, i don't have trouble doing without it.
i mention all this because the way people talk about meat as compared to vegetables is that it is meat that has all the flavour when vegetables have none. to me i find that it is the opposite. the various world of flavour that is in vegetables seems endless. herbs, legumes, fungi, fruits and vegetables just seem to go on forever in terms of flavour distinctions and possible combinations. there are simply so many more flavours available than those in the meat products people consume on a regular basis. since becoming vegetarian i discover and appreciate new tastes in the food i eat all the time. people who have meat heavy diets do not seem to appreciate the flavours of the vegetable world. they have an idea that flavours of vegetables are practically nonexistent, they barely seem to taste them at all. i want to slap these people and shove their mouths full of tomatos and basil, olives and garlic and onions and...!
for many of us growing older involves processes of realising the moral instability of our world. it becomes difficult to fully separate what is completely right and good from what is completely wrong and bad. these notions are in many ways very useful but in other ways seem simultaneously artificial. i can't decide whether eating meat is inherently right or wrong. if i am basically a good person then in other ways i am a morally compromised person and i don't feel in any way that it is my place to dictate to people whether or not they should eat meat as any sort of ethical necessity.
what i do believe and what i do become emotional about is what i see as being a heavy meat consumption culture. i observe that people indiscriminately consume large amounts of meat products. it seems that many people find it difficult to consider a meal to be "real" ie a genuine "meal" unless it contains meat, and often, multiple meats. they must have not only eggs for breakfast but also salmon, or also sausage; then for lunch they must have chicken; and for their evening meal steak. sometimes it is possible that bacon or chicken or shrimps or whatever must be an additional component of every meal. this sort of thing bothers me because it is not necessary to the health of the consumer, but also because it is not good for the planet, and not kind to animals, or appreciative of them. it takes lots and lots of resources to raise animals, and the impact of their lives on the environment is in turn great, while in the mass meat market, great proportions of their flesh is simply not eaten and wasted as garbage. many of these animals endure uncomfortable lives and lonely deaths. it seems impossible in this world to avoid hurting others, but it also seems meaningful to attempt to minimise these effects.
ideally, i believe people should be eating at most 1 meat based meal a day, or ultimately, 4 per week. i believe that this is sufficient to human needs. i believe people should be supplementing what they eat with more healthful (and flavoursome!) vegetable based alternatives to the meat heavy routines which seem to be to be very commonplace, and teaching themselves and their children the reality that vegetable products are inherently delicious, interesting, and satisfying rather than a bland chore to be endured or merely as complementary to the flavours of meat.
i leave you with the option of google image searching mac danzig, as an example of an extremely physically healthy person with a vegetarian diet. thank you for considering my post
i became vegetarian a couple of years ago after i put my cat friend down. she was almost 18 and over her life we had developed a close friendship and a special bond. although she was obviously not an abstract thinker she was emotionally sophisticated and it was very difficult for me to part with her. it became difficult for me to think of animals as food after her death. but, i recognise that there are a lot of grey areas in this world. i am not vegan. for the time being i still eat eggs and dairy and i wear leather shoes and belts. so i guess i still consider animals as clothes! this is just a bit about me, because obviously i regard the eating (or not) of meat as a personal decision.
often in my life it is necessary for me to inform people that i do not eat meat of any kind. in these situations it becomes apparent to me that people have very different ideas from mine regarding the consumption of meat. they wonder whether i miss meat and they find it difficult to engage with the notion that i do not desire meat, that i can do without it. it is true that i do not have any desire to eat meat. in general, i find the flavours of meat to be overpowering and unsubtle. the flavour is overwhelmingly of flesh and animal fats, a statement which presents as objectively pointless, except that it seems people do not exactly think of the flavours that way. to me bacon tastes of salt and animal fat, and cow tastes of blood and tree bark - kind of like marmite or promite except not as good. meat can be yummy, i admit! but i definitely don't crave it, i don't have trouble doing without it.
i mention all this because the way people talk about meat as compared to vegetables is that it is meat that has all the flavour when vegetables have none. to me i find that it is the opposite. the various world of flavour that is in vegetables seems endless. herbs, legumes, fungi, fruits and vegetables just seem to go on forever in terms of flavour distinctions and possible combinations. there are simply so many more flavours available than those in the meat products people consume on a regular basis. since becoming vegetarian i discover and appreciate new tastes in the food i eat all the time. people who have meat heavy diets do not seem to appreciate the flavours of the vegetable world. they have an idea that flavours of vegetables are practically nonexistent, they barely seem to taste them at all. i want to slap these people and shove their mouths full of tomatos and basil, olives and garlic and onions and...!
for many of us growing older involves processes of realising the moral instability of our world. it becomes difficult to fully separate what is completely right and good from what is completely wrong and bad. these notions are in many ways very useful but in other ways seem simultaneously artificial. i can't decide whether eating meat is inherently right or wrong. if i am basically a good person then in other ways i am a morally compromised person and i don't feel in any way that it is my place to dictate to people whether or not they should eat meat as any sort of ethical necessity.
what i do believe and what i do become emotional about is what i see as being a heavy meat consumption culture. i observe that people indiscriminately consume large amounts of meat products. it seems that many people find it difficult to consider a meal to be "real" ie a genuine "meal" unless it contains meat, and often, multiple meats. they must have not only eggs for breakfast but also salmon, or also sausage; then for lunch they must have chicken; and for their evening meal steak. sometimes it is possible that bacon or chicken or shrimps or whatever must be an additional component of every meal. this sort of thing bothers me because it is not necessary to the health of the consumer, but also because it is not good for the planet, and not kind to animals, or appreciative of them. it takes lots and lots of resources to raise animals, and the impact of their lives on the environment is in turn great, while in the mass meat market, great proportions of their flesh is simply not eaten and wasted as garbage. many of these animals endure uncomfortable lives and lonely deaths. it seems impossible in this world to avoid hurting others, but it also seems meaningful to attempt to minimise these effects.
ideally, i believe people should be eating at most 1 meat based meal a day, or ultimately, 4 per week. i believe that this is sufficient to human needs. i believe people should be supplementing what they eat with more healthful (and flavoursome!) vegetable based alternatives to the meat heavy routines which seem to be to be very commonplace, and teaching themselves and their children the reality that vegetable products are inherently delicious, interesting, and satisfying rather than a bland chore to be endured or merely as complementary to the flavours of meat.
i leave you with the option of google image searching mac danzig, as an example of an extremely physically healthy person with a vegetarian diet. thank you for considering my post
It was something I needed to see.
