Ethical Meat Consumption

An even interesting experiment is to go raw vegan. Once you do that for quite even a few weeks, cooked food starts to taste strange. It is my opinion that one can become addicted, for lack of a better word, to meat, and the taste and texture of cooked food. It is a social attachment as well.



I have become more of a raw vegan and a went to a banquet a few months ago where about 150 people were being served chicken. I literally had to leave the building and go outside to avoid getting ill. I had never experienced this before, the rancidity of the overwhelming smell of death and burning flesh. I had been able to walk among the flesh eaters for years and just ignore the smells. Then, it was all of a sudden so overwhelming I had to call my husband (a vegetarian of 32 years) and explain how I felt. He said, "welcome to my world."



If you want to see a really good DVD about what our consumption of food does to the Planet, get the DVD "Eating." I had to skip over the part of killing the animals, but the science and statistics involved in how our eating patterns affect the planet was quite convincing.

As of last year, I hadn't eaten any animals for 21 years. After 10 years with a particular health issue (and trying various supplements in my diet), I finally decided to try re-introducing some fish and non-factory farmed chicken for several months, to see if that helped. It took 10 years for me to be desperate enough to try that, as even the concept is now horrifying to me. Eating those 'animals' didn't help my health issue, but I found it very interesting that the flavors I loved a long time ago now tasted utterly disgusting. Mind you, at one time I was a complete carnivore; not only did I eat an animal at every meal, I would go so far as (for example) eating the ends of chicken bones and sucking out the bone marrow. Now, 21 years later, the chicken had a somewhat decayed flavor (I don't know how else to describe it) and the fish was completely awful--and I even tried several types at various 'nice' restaurants. It was strange, b/c I told people when I first became vegetarian that what I missed the most was fish. Now it was horrible just trying to choke through it. I was so relieved when I had tried fish/chicken long enough to determine that it wasn't helping my health problem, and I could stop 'ruining meals' by having to eat it.



To me, this suggests that what people enjoy (or miss) to some extent is partly a matter of just what one is used to. I completely agree, though, that leaving yourself a 'safety valve' will make it easier to be vegetarian the rest of the time. I did that myself when I first started eating veg, and it worked well. Then I saw a video on what happens to the animals, and from that day forward I just couldn't do it, period. But until then, it was a good method for a gradual, more comfortable change.



Thank you for your concern for the environment, it's so encouraging to hear from people who see the connections between environmental health and animal consumption, and who then care enough to take personal action to change it! I know too many people (including an environmental scientist) who are aware of the environmental facts, but still just 'can't' make the changes to their diets.

Keep up this attitude, I applaud it!

If you care about the climate, no, meat is not sustainable. That said, it's more about *everyone* reducing their consumption *by some percentage* than about scattered individuals eliminating their consumption. If you really cared, you'd convince everyone in your family to eat one fewer meat-based meal per week. At least it's a start. :)

If you can do without it, do without it. We've dramatically reduced our meat intake (basically reversing proportions - vegetables & meat, rather than meat & vegetables) and it has been healthier and cheaper. It's hard to become a real vegetarian when your social and family circle is not conducive to it, but anything that reduces consumption of and demand for meat is a good thing.