Yum. Flesh!

I've decided to only eat meat that I feel good about eating. So, the grass-fed, drug-free, humanely slaughtered cow in my freezer? Yum-bo! Delicious Taco Bell tacos? I'm just saying no!

A couple interesting things have come to light out of this eating habit shift:

- I can't believe how many times I forget! I chobbled down this delicious turkey sandwich at Starbucks, and it took me three days to notice that I had slipped. It's like over the years of omnivoring, I got into the habit of not noticing that what I'm eating used to be an animal.

- It's hard to find convenient, nutritious vegetarian food around town. I grew up in a much more hippie-friendly town, so when I was a vegetarian as a kid, I didn't realize how easy I had it.


The impetus for this change was a series of conversations at Potlatch with a cool guy named Ian. He seemed like a really great person, but after a while, I noticed myself deciding I didn't like him. That was strange enough that it caused me to probe a little deeper, and I realized that I was just projecting my internal conflicts onto him. I wrestled around with it and realized that I really don't think it's cool for me to have been participating in mass production of meat.

After I got over myself a bit, I went to talk to Ian some more. We had a great conversation about things like 'why should I be ethical when no one else is?' and 'since there's probably never going to be a big enough consumer shift to change things, why bother?' He had a lot of good insights. The one that's been most helpful to me has been the concept of 'not in my name.' I don't have to be Accomplishing Something Important to decide not to participate in something that goes against my ethical principles.

Pretty soon, I'm going to get around to addressing Ethical Dairy. But one big change at a time!

P.S. I am so not saying that people who eat Big Macs are bad, or even advocating ethical meat consumption. Just sharing where I'm at.