It was only a matter of time

I had a feeling it would happen sooner or later. It's one of those things I knew would creep up on me and get me when I was least expecting it. I've thought about it in the past, but always shied away before I committed. Lots of my friends do it, so eventually it was going to spread to me, right?

The vegetarianism, I mean.

Here's the deal - in addition to having some animal-friendly guilt I have always advocated conscious eating. Read: be aware of where your food comes from, know what you're eating, if you can't pronounce it you don't want to put it in your mouth, respect the source, etc. I think most Americans' eating habits are deplorable, so for years I've been trying to eat healthier and buy local (hence my participation in a CSA), doing whatever I can to contribute to sustainable and respectable food practices not only for myself, but for the benefit of my local community.

Our culture of blind consumption is counter intuitive to treating ourselves and our planet in a way that encourages life. Right now we throw away more than 30% of all the food we buy. That's unbelievable. That means on average, you throw away $30 of every $100 you spend at the grocery. If we did that with commodities other than food it would seem outrageous to us, but since it's food we don't really notice. Think of it this way. If you go clothes shopping and you buy a new outfit, shoes and all, then you come home and throw the pants away before you've even worn them, that's the equivalent of what we do with food as a nation. Seems insane, right?

Part of our over-consumption is wrapped up in wasteful practices that go into producing the food we eat. For example: it takes 2,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of ground beef. That's the same amount of water you can save each year by installing a low-flow shower head or smaller capacity toilet tank. 2,000 gallons! For one night's meal of taco salad! I just can't justify 2,000 gallons of water for a taco salad dinner anymore. And I loves me some taco salad, people. All that water, all that grain/corn (and the land needed to grow the grain/corn) that goes to feed the cow that lives a short and cramped life so that I can later eat him in a completely detached way has become totally unappealing to me now.

From an animal-lover's perspective, eating meat has always brought some conflicting emotions. My dad hunted when I was a kid, and it was always for food, not for sport. He taught me about guns being dangerous and only for hunting. He made sure I went with him to the butcher a few times when he took the deer in to be parceled out into the multitude of white butcher paper wrapped packages that would eventually fill our freezer. I stepped over dead deer that were being prepped for butchering and was filled with a sense of respect that those animals had been killed for us to eat. It was my first introduction to my very own food source. Rather than seeing an anonymous venison steak or burger on my plate, I knew that meat came from the deer my dad and I took to the butcher. There was something important about that experience. It showed me that meat is not only food, meat was once an animal that had a face and a mother and a life.

The humane reasons for not eating meat were never quite enough on their own to make me become vegetarian. However, the environmental impact of meat production is exactly enough to push me over the edge and change my ways. It's a personal decision. Personally, I simply can't justify my meat consumption anymore. I don't begrudge anyone their steak. I will miss cheeseburgers in a way that is best described as "demented", but that's not enough to make me ignore all the other parts of mass meat production. My eyes have been opened and I can't "unsee" what I've seen.