I think I might have put the final nail in my meat eating coffin by watching the movie "Fast Food Nation" last night. It was totally unexpected. I had just heard good things about the movie, and then I saw the kill floor of a meat processing plant in it. I actually woke Mason up after watching it to make him watch it. The truth is, it wasn't the death of the animal for consumption that bothered me and pushed me over the edge. It's the waste. I understand we have to eat and that meat is an option, but I wonder how many of the animals die to feed us only to end up in the trash as a half eaten hamburger or a package of meat that wasn't sold soon enough. They were born to be food, they ate to grow fat to be food, they were killed to be food, and then they end up trash. So their whole existence was for not.
It was watching the death of the animals the second time through with this thought in the back of my head that did it. I had terrible dreams about it. There was a lot of blood, but worst of all, it just seemed wasteful. Before I get anyone riled up about animal rights and people having to eat...I'm not suggesting that anyone is wrong to eat meat. I just think it's time for me to reevaluate what is right for me. Even my husband has admitted that I will have to go this alone...he's not going to give it up.
I admit, this is going to be tricky, I love a good hot dog or chicken salad sandwich; however, I don't love it so much that I cannot live without it. I think the hardest thing for me is going to be getting enough protein since I loath beans. I'll have to discover ways to make dishes that I can tolerate that have beans in them, or maybe just eat them enough to where I finally am OK with the taste. I'm going to have to do this gradually too. I don't know enough vegetarian dishes to fill up my weekly menu. I think I'll have to eliminate one type of meat at a time to get used to not having meal options. It may not work entirely. If it becomes too much of a financial burden to cook different meals each night for myself and Mason, then it's not a good option. I guess I just need to try to figure out how to do it before thinking too far in the future about failure. Seafood seems a little less cruel for some reason...that might be a viable option, too. Also, Seafood is an option where I can support local fishermen, local seafood businesses who limit the amount of waste by limiting the oversupply so they don't have to buy a lot of food that they will lose money on, and a local industry. I don't have the particulars, but I do know that the winds of change are in the air. I'm sure there will be more than one blog about this as time goes on, maybe I'll even get Mason turned on to it!
Definition of strict lacto-ovo vegetarian:
For lacto-ovo vegetarians, this generally means food that excludes ingredients derived directly from the death of animals, such as meat (including fish), meat broth, cheeses that use animal rennet, gelatin (from animal skin, bones, and connective tissue), and for the strictest, even some sugars that are whitened with bone char (e.g. cane sugar, but not beet sugar) and alcohol clarified with gelatin or crushed shellfish and sturgeon.
My definition of lacto-ovo/sometimes seafood vegetarian:
excluding foods that are derived from the death of most (eventually all) animals, sticking with organic foods that usually do not contain these other meat type filler ingredients (thank goodness for Whole Foods), preparing meals that center around the vegetable rather than the meat, using eggs and milk and cheese for most of my protein, and sometimes eating fish/seafood.