Food?

Our household is undergoing a transformation. In December, I decided to become a vegetarian. After reading Skinny Bitch at the recommendation of a friend, I decided to become vegan. I wasn’t really sure I could follow through with it. I’m still not sure if I can follow through with it.

It sort-of happened overnight in the way many things do. That is, it didn’t really happen overnight. I haven’t wanted to eat meat for a long time. I would make chicken pasta and pick around the chicken. When I am only preparing meals for myself, I’d always make vegetarian meals. I haven’t eaten pork since 9th grade.

I have no idea what prompted me to start researching vegetarianism. If I remember correctly (I should because it was only a few months ago), it was boredom. My husband was watching TV, and I didn’t feel like it. I went upstairs and started surfing the internet. When I came back down, I’d just decided I’d become a vegetarian. It seemed to happen just like that, but I’m sure it didn’t. I’m sure it’s something I’d been considering for a long time. An idea on the back burner that I’d never let boil into action.

Then all these things started happening all at once. I started reading Skinny Bitch because a friend told me to read it. I owned the book even before I had made the decision to become a vegetarian. Truth be told, I didn’t even know it was about veganism. I thought it was about calorie-counting or mean-spiritedness. And then I read Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet because I watched Clueless nearly every day after school for about six months after it came out on VHS. The part of me who wanted to be Cher in high school still hasn’t died, I guess, because I saw Alicia Silverstone on the cover of the book and bought it. I wanted to be on the kind diet even if I had no idea what the kind diet was. And it was about veganism too. And then my mother-in-law showed me an Oprah episode on the food industry. And just last night, Dave and I decided to watch Food Inc., which had more to do with genetically modifying food than veganism, but it was still a wake-up call into the way the food industry works.

After my declaration of veganism, my mother-in-law decided she was going to become a pescatarian (one who avoids all meat except fish). My mom and my husband decided to cut back on meat products. Even my dad, who has shown only marginal interest in health food in the past, has asked questions about it. My friends were interested in my decision. They wanted to read the books I was reading. They wanted copies of the recipes I was going to make. They started sending me names of vegan cookbooks. One friend gave me Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I expected resistance, and instead I received support.

Last night, I made a conscious effort to make my first vegan meal. I made Dave a regular chicken breast just in case he hated the vegan one. But he ended up liking the vegan one more, to both our surprise. And he’s swooning over my vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free banana bread.

I feel like I’ve opened a door to a brand-new world. People have asked me if I’ve felt any changes in my body since starting this new way of living. I’ve been eight weeks off meat and zero weeks completely off dairy and eggs, although I intend to fully commit to the lifestyle after our trip to Hawaii next week. I haven’t been home a full week since mid-December, and I didn’t think I could realistically avoid all dairy while traveling so much. It’s probably too soon to say if I’ve noticed any changes in my health. But the one thing I do feel is happier.

A clip in Food Inc. shows pigs being rounded up into a steel pen. Someone presses a button and the steel pen collapses in on the pigs. Terrified squeals are instantly silenced. I realized that I haven’t wanted to participate in that death trap for a long time. I can live with myself better when I’m not choosing to live with that.

I encourage you to see Food Inc. I’m certainly not here to guilt you in to doing anything. In fact, I’m writing this blog post more for myself than anyone else (what is blogging if not an act of narcissism at some level, right?). The more I tell people I’m going to do this, the harder it will be for me to quit.

Everyone has to make their own moral decisions, and I definitely believe there are moral ways to eat meat. But to paraphrase Randy Pausch, just because we’re in the driver’s seat doesn’t mean we have to run everything over. We are given stewardship over the earth, and I believe we need to ask ourselves if we’re doing the best we can do to take care of it.