On Veganism.

Nope, no recipes or food posts today.  Thursday afternoon is our produce CSA pickup, and the baby has her one year appointment today (because her mom is a dope and got the time mixed up on Monday when she SHOULD have had her appointment.  and they drove 45 minutes to get there.  and the nurse politely said "the doctor can't see you."  and the baby cried the whole way home.)

or something like that that doesn't make me look as dumb.

Anyways, a friend posted this awesome link on Facebook last night, and I got a solid laugh out of it.

We eat meat.  Quite a bit of it, actually.

So you may be surprised to know that at one point in time, I actually tried to be a vegan.  And at several points in time, I tried to be a vegetarian.

Why did I do this?


because most teenage girls at one point in time decide that being a vegetarian is better for unsubstantiated reasons?

probably. 

It didn't last.  I felt like crap when I was a vegetarian.  I really hate beans, and I can eat lentils, but they don't like me so well.  (and my husband doesn't like me so well when I eat them, either... but that's another story for another day.)  I HATE tofu, and the genetics-researcher clinical trial following medical researcher junkie husband who knows way more about soy than I do has asked me to PLEASE please PLEASE not eat soy as long as I'm still breastfeeding our daughter, which I am because I am a closeted hippie.

And he's also asked me to PLEASE please PLEASE never feed our daughter soy.  At least not until she's much, much older. 

like maybe when she's a teenager and decides that she needs to be a vegetarian/vegan for a month, too.

From what I understand of my husband's rants on this subject, soy emulates estrogen, which is not so great for developing kiddos.  It's downright bad.  And there's not a lot of conclusive research on this yet, but just as he forbade me to microwave in plastic or drink non-organic milk... he's convinced that soy is a no-no and has forbidden that as well.

SO.  Icky icky icky beans, light on the lentils to preserve my marriage and the good spirits of the husband and no soy?

Yup, we eat meat.

So Will and I had this roommate at one point in time, who was awesome and reminded us of Kramer from Seinfeld, and he was also a vegetarian.  While I would be roasting a chicken with some fresh herbs and whipping up some brown rice with some broccoli for our dinner, he would be eating a cheese calzone, drinking a beer, and trying to convince us that being a vegetarian was healthier than eating meat.

BAH.  LONE.  EEEEEEEEYYY.

(no pun intended.  or maybe just a little pun.)

I don't buy this argument.  If your standard meat comes from a fast food chain or is super fatty, then yes, it's probably not the best.  Or if you're consuming more than a few ounces of meat per meal.  THEN I would believe that vegetarianism/veganism is better for you.

But we don't eat that stuff.  We eat grass-fed, organic meat, and we eat a small amount per meal.  I get it every month from my meat CSA and it's awesome stuff.  Expensive, but awesome and totally worth it.

Then there is the argument that killing animals for food is awful.

Which I just don't believe.  I think animals should be treated well while they are alive.  I don't like factory farmed meat.

Which is why I don't buy it.  Again, the meat that we eat is more expensive.  (Substantially more expensive.)  But it's worth it to me to know that the animals were treated well when they were alive.  I don't think they have souls, or feel badly for eating them.  But I do want to know that they weren't treated poorly.

There's a sub-argument here that I was especially interested in.  Vegans don't eat honey, which I thought was bizarre.  (Why not?)  Apparently it's an animal by-product, and bees are smashed up when it's harvested? 

At least that's the best information the interwebs could give me.

Do vegans not understand that many, many bugs, animals, rodents, snakes, etc. are all killed during vegetable and grain harvests?

What about those animals?

Doesn't quite make sense to me.

And then there's the sustainability argument.

I get this one; it's the only argument for veganism or vegetarianism that I think is reasonable.  Once we entered the Agricultural Revolution about 10,000 years ago, our population skyrocketed.  And now we can't go back.

Again, this is why I feel so strongly about our Meat CSA, or finding local farmers and buying directly from them (which is what we would do before we finally got a share from Chestnut Farms - we would drive over an hour each way to get grass fed meat directly from the rancher.)  It's more expensive meat, but that extra expense also allows these farmers to raise the animals in a sustainable manner.

(But even if everyone bought this kind of meat, there's just not the resources available for the entire world to have it.  I get it.)

But really - I'm not arguing AGAINST vegetarianism or veganism.  I believe in pluralism when it comes to nutrition: there are many paths that lead to the right place for different people.  I do not think that there's "one healthy diet" and that everyone should follow it.

I DO think there are people out there who feel their best while on a strict vegan, raw diet.

I DO think there are people out there (myself included) who really need some meat in the diet to feel their best.

I have vegan and vegetarian friends.  They know me and know that I love meat, and don't try to change me.  I don't try to change them, though I will get defensive if they try to pull the "we're healthier than the rest of you" card on me. 

Really - we have no beef (zing! they just keep coming to me!) with each other.

But this nonsense about vegetarians and vegans being "healthier" than the rest of us who eat GOOD meat with lots of other good-for-you foods, or these sob stories about animals being used for food... it's just either not true, or not relevant (at least to me).