meat

we talked about the meat industry in my L&S class on tuesday, and i just finished reading some articles in our reader about meat. the more i do the research, the more i find that eating meat is just bad. it’s bad for the person who eats it because it’s unhealthy and it’s unclean (full of bacteria), it’s bad for the animals for obvious reasons and because they get treated horribly even before they are killed, and it’s bad for the environment. i’ve learned so many things in the past few weeks, i could talk to you for hours about how disgusting meat is once you really look into it. i don’t know what to do. most people have some form of guilt about eating meat, because there really is no way to justify it, so every time i mention this to someone they always feel the need to defend themselves. they may not even realize they’re doing it. i understand. i used to do that too whenever i met someone who was vegetarian, i still do. it’s really tough to have grown up eating meat and other animal products, to try to give it up. i don’t even know yet if that’s what i’m doing, giving up meat and animal products. i certainly haven’t felt like eating anything made from animals in the past few days, and the times that i did, i didn’t really enjoy it. i don’t know what to do. because people get so uncomfortable when faced with someone who has decided not to eat meat, i feel like i’m burdening people by telling them that i would prefer not to eat meat. and i don’t even know yet whether i’m really going to stop eating meat. after all, just because i don’t feel like it this week doesn’t mean next week i’ll still be able to stick to it. it’s a big change, because i’ve stopped eating eggs as well. i would like to be able to stick to it, but it’s incredibly difficult and makes other people uncomfortable, and i don’t want to make people feel guilty about their own decisions.

*sigh* i need to do a lot more thinking about this, and i don’t have time to do it! i’d love to go vegan, but as someone who loves food and eating i realize that it’s incredibly, incredibly difficult and inconvenient to entirely avoid eggs and dairy products. even chocolate truffles have cream in them. where does one draw the line? i don’t know. but i do very definitely know that i’m going to make a serious effort to stop eating meat, because my mindset has changed. i no longer feel like i have to eat meat, and i feel better about myself when i don’t. there’s really no way to justify eating meat, except, as my L&S gsi agreed, ‘because we like it.’ even if i do continue to eat meat and animal products, i will definitely try my best not to buy any meat or dairy that isn’t humanely raised. i don’t mean just free range, because ‘free-range’ is not an industry standard and can mean anything from a slightly bigger cage to actual roaming. *sigh* augh! i don’t know what i’m going to do! and i don’t know how to tell people, or if i should even tell people anything before making a definite decision. all i know is that i just don’t even want to eat meat or animal products anymore.

[note, 4/10/14: Imported from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]