To meat or not to meat?

Operation Consumption Liberation’s month of not consuming meat has ended.  Before I move on to December’s challenge, I wanted to dive into some of the ethical, environmental, and health-related questions that pop up when assessing meat consumption in the USA.  Before I started this month, I asked my currently, and formerly, vegetarian Facebook friends why they went meatless.  I only got three responses (FYI: all three are no longer vegetarians), but I wanted to share a little of what they said.

From my friend B.: “I started because I loved/love animals and couldn't justify killing them just so I could eat. Then I lived in a veggie house, so that made it even easier. I started eating meat again when I realized (as sad as it sounds) that I didn't care enough to keep not eating meat (which is a sad commentary, I think, on the ubiquity of meat in our society).”

But I love you! (Credit: Jim Champion from Southampton, UK [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

The reason B. became a vegetarian is the reason many people become vegetarians.  Whether you ever went to Bible School or not, chances are you still are familiar with the Ten Commandments and the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Yes, this refers to killing other human beings, not animals. There’s the argument that the animal world is full of predators that kill prey—“if animals kill for food, why should we hold ourselves to a higher standard?”  Still, many people struggle with the idea that the steak on their plate used to be a cow, and that this cow was bred, raised (often on unsuitable grain and supplements in the confined space of a feedlot), and killed explicitly so that humans could eat it. From a moral standpoint, eating animals presents a lot of grey area and conflicted emotions.  I do not know if I could personally slaughter a cow, chicken, or fish.  And I do occasionally wonder if I should only eat the animals I hypothetically could execute myself.  By this rule, bugs would likely make up the bulk of the meat in my diet.

Talking Tofurky

A confession about Thanksgiving:

I’ve never been that mad about the turkey.

Photo by Lee R. DeHaan

Ditto for the gravy. But the dressing, the mashed potatoes, the cranberry sauce, the sweet potatoes with burnt marshmallows on top, the green bean casserole…sign me up. I will eat that stuff until I am green in the face and as bloated as this here squirrel:

"Fat Boy" photo by James Marvin Phelps

Upon learning that November was my month to give meat theheave-ho, at least half a dozen concerned friends and family asked if perhaps I’d forgotten the turkey holiday while planning Operation Consumption Liberation’s annual agenda. I didn’t—although, upon looking at the scrap of paper on which I originally outlined my rough ideas about OCL, it appears that I briefly entertained making May my meat-free month. No, I chose November for meat-free month precisely because of Thanksgiving, the most meat-focused American holiday of them all.

“Are you crazy?” my turkey-loving friends have asked, to which I have replied with some variation of my “I’m not that into the turkey” speech above. Others, including my dear mother, have inquired if I would be eating Tofurky this year, to which I have replied with some variation of the following rant:

Soup's on!

Right before I started Operation Consumption Liberation's month of meat-free eating, I asked my Facebook friends for some vegetarian recipe suggestions.  I specifically requested fast, easy, and, above all else, filling recipes—got to get full, after all.  Now I already have at least two vegetarian cookbooks, but it’s always good to get new ideas and suggestions from one’s amigos, especially since my default for vegetarian cooking is to just make a soup.

Guess what?  My friends’ vegetarian cooking default must also be soup, because everyone’s suggestions (with the exception of one friend who suggested a recipe website) included some soupy-stew creation that is best eaten from a bowl with a spoon.  I suspect this prevalence of soup recipes may not actually be a vegetarian thing as much as an “it is autumn and the weather outside is cold and wet” thing.  Soup is kind of magical at this time of the year….  Anyway, I’m working my way through my friends’ recipe suggestions and I took pictures of the results:

 

This was an extremely filling vegetarian chili recipe from Cooking Light, which my friend Sarah recommended.  I used the wrong kind of “quick cook” barley—the flakes versus the pearls—but despite the fact that it looked like my chili contained oatmeal, the chili was pretty great: fast, easy, spicy, and super filling.  

 

Dia de los Inocentes

We're in the midst of the Día de los Muertos holiday. The Day of the Dead holiday, as Wikipedia puts it: "focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. ... People go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages as well as photos and memorabilia of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so that the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them." In most regions of Mexico, November 1 (today) honors children and infants, calling that day mainly as Día de los Inocentes ("Day of the Innocents"), while November 2, referred to as Día de los Muertos or Día de los Difuntos honors deceased adults.

So I was wondering, what about deceased animals?  Maybe the ancient indigenous cultures that first practiced the Day of the Dead traditions did not believe that animals had souls.  Besides, people don't typically pray about and discuss dead animals that much. (Except pets.  We all have stories about our dead pets.  Prayers for their souls though... that's another story.)  Or maybe they thought that the souls of dead animals might be wrathful because of how humans treated and used them.  

Or maybe there is there some Dia de los Vacas y Bueys I don't know about?