I do come by this love naturally. Texas, as I said. My father was also an influence. During World War II, there was a foxhole moment I dare not even imagine when he swore: "If I get out of this alive, I'm eating steak every day." He pretty much did, and so I also developed a taste for it. In his case, the vow came from the semi-starvation of some grueling and, well, I can't even bear to think about it. I just know that he wanted cow at most every meal, and he ate his dessert first. That, too, was combat-related. If any shooting started, the one part of whatever pitiful meal was available that you did not want to miss, he said, was dessert.
I will never be a vegetarian, but lately I've been trying to reduce my consumption of meat. This for environmental and health reasons. The damage to the planet of raising large food animals is said to be out of hand, but it's also said to be mitigable with improved practices. We Americans have been said to eat more protein than any other nation, to the detriment of our health, but there is clinical evidence that says otherwise. Meh. Every health and environmental concern that has been raised has always faced push back from interested parties. That's not all bad when methods and data need some stricter attention nor when practices improve and change the scope of the problem. In the meantime, however, those of us trying to figure out what the right thing to do (or eat) might be are left trying to sift through the mixture of messages to find the truth--or a reasonable facsimile thereof. For me, that truth says I can reduce my meat consumption by making Mondays meatless.
Doing so is easier said than done. So far, I'm at only 50% compliance. I have been trying to observe Meatless Mondays for the past six weeks (more, if you count the times I forgot to start). In that time, I've nearly starved, spent a fortune, and struck out by accident when I woke up and grabbed some leftovers to stop the hunger pain in my stomach. Oops! Wrong leftovers for Meatless Monday. Yesterday, I had to eat a hamburger, knew that I was about to lose another chance to observe Meatless Monday, and decided that I would just have to try to deal with it on Tuesday. (So far so good.)
Even so, I am committed. I think it's a good idea for my personal health to start making an effort to get more plant-based food in my diet. Just as important, I think it's an ethical choice on many levels to decrease the amount of meat in my diet. The reasons include, among other things that I care about, antibiotic resistance, animal welfare, animal waste, land use, water pollution, and more. Keeping the commitment after a lifetime of loving a really good steak is going to be a challenge. Here's what I'm thinking:
- Choice takes advance planning. I can't wait until Monday to try to figure out what I can eat. I need to buy the foods that I will eat well in advance. Prepare the snacks, even some "leftovers," for quick bites when I need something to nibble on or just something fast to tide me over until the next meal. (Try not to think about the madness of hunger to a diabetic. We just try to survive it.)
- Choice needs to be sustainable. I can't keep buying prepared and packaged foods at this rate. My food budget tells me so, and I know that home cooked meals are better for me. I can manage the carbohydrate and sodium content for my body's needs much better than any corporation. So I need to know that Mondays need extra time for food prep, giving, I suppose, an added benefit of slowing down the all too hectic pace of my life lately.
- No meat does not mean no protein. I can't sustain my health by turning Mondays into a day for all starch-based foods (although I did do that one Monday). I need to learn more about alternate sources of protein. The spirit of Meatless Mondays precludes fish, but not (so far) eggs and dairy. I should broaden my palate and learn to cook with tofu and other vegetable proteins.
- Making an ethical choice helps eliminate the perception of deprivation. That's a personal thing. At first, I just tried to make it through 24 hours without meat. I even watched the clock and made a ham sammich at midnight, so deprived did I feel. Now, despite my frequent failures at observing the day, I am more unhappy, dissatisfied when I do fail, because I think that this is an important and valuable activity for me. What I am discovering is that--even as I struggle to overcome years of habit and the memories of my mama's excellent chicken fried steak--I want to do this. I want to reduce my impact on the planet, however minute the reduction, with this choice. I also want the satisfaction of making an ethical decision to do what feels like the right thing. That means that I don't feel so deprived by this choice any more and don't have to rush for some meat at midnight.
Meatless Monday is not a choice that everyone can--or will want to--make. It's a personal decision that I am trying to make work and slowly getting better at. Still, how and what we eat can have an effect on the planet, on our community, on our fellow humans. Whether we all make the same choices is less important than that we do make a considered choice--that we are mindful of how we live--because it matters. The choices we make are, after all, ethical choices regardless of which way we decide an issue, because they are choices that balance our values and beliefs against each other and reflect our ethics in the balance.
Your thoughts?
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