A Growing Movement

I was born and raised a meat-eating Texan. I love to tell people about my favorite way to finish off a t-bone steak as a child: grab it with my bare hands and dig into the remaining bites like a complete animal. I also used to put chicken skins on my face a la Hannibal Lecter to make my siblings laugh. I was goofy.

I ain't got nothing against people eating some gosh darn meat. But after reading several eye-openings books (Eating Animals and The Ethics of What We Eat, to name a few), watching a few horrifying-but-true videos, and just some plain 'ol soul searching I realized that eating animals just isn't for me...me, personally. I do have some strong opinions about factory farming which might lead me to get preachy, but I'll save that for a post I plan to write called "How to Be Vegan and Not Be Annoying." I try hard not to offend anyone with my new found passion for this subject.

When I first became vegetarian back in May, my sister make a few sarcastic comments about how I'd gone off the deep end. I met a few people who talked to me like I was an alien after declaring I don't eat meat ("How do you LIVE??!") I even felt discomfort at certain dinner gatherings when the host who invited me over discovered I was vegetarian and they hadn't prepared any non-meat options. I hate to inconvenience anyone or make them feel bad--I absorbed just as much guilt as they did.

I know I'm not the first person to dabble with veganism, but man! I can't help but feel something's different this round. When I posted my one-month vegan challenge to Facebook, I received nothing but positive comments (19 comments and growing), several personal messages, recipes suggestions, and encouragement to start blogging about it so my experience could be followed. My brother has decided to join me for two weeks and my sister completely shocked me by calling me to let me know the she and her boyfriend were going to try being vegetarian for one full week. To top it all off, my boyfriend is joining me for a month of veganism too...something I didn't ask him to do but he's doing anyway for the added support.

While I don't expect the majority of people will ever be true full-time vegetarians or vegans (and more power to those who are), it is very heartening to know that more and more people are waking up to the fact that maybe this country has gone a little overboard on the animal product consumption. Even just these little challenges, whether it be to have a vegetarian day every now and then, or be a vegan for a week or even a month, helps us see what a meat-crazed society we live in. The way meat is produced and consumed in this country contributes to our obesity epidemic, it pollutes our environment, it affects families who live downstream from factory farms, it wipes out farmers who are trying to make a living doing things the old-fashioned way but can't because high meat demand means get big or get out, and of course we can't forget the hundreds of thousands of animals who die a traumatic death--most of which never get the decency of living a regular, stress-free day in their life--just so we can have what we perceive to be a 'real' meal.

(That's me getting preachy again--yeesh!)

Even just a little consciousness of how much we're consuming goes a long way in the end, and I'm just plain grateful to personally know an ever-growing amount of people who have taken the time to think a little more about what goes on their plates each day.