Over the past few months, I've been eating more and more like a vegan. I've been eating less dairy and eggs because they cause me digestive problems. I get along fine that way (I'm one of those people who really likes tofu) and I really appreciate the fact that foods without cheese and cream are also lower in calories. Although I consider myself a vegetarian (for about the past 12 years), I do eat fish and seafood occasionally.
My food choices have thus far been primarily about health. I originally stopped eating red meats because of a family history of colitis. As mentioned above, avoiding dairy and eggs keeps me from having health issues, too. Though I do value the fact that I'm not personally contributing to animals living in cramped and unhealthy conditions, I know that vegetarianism isn't for everyone.
A couple of nights ago, though, I had a dream which involved a pool of water being formed (temporarily) on my Aunt's driveway. When the water was drying up, there were three large salmon flopping around in the evaporating pool. My companions and I knew they would die soon, and I was given a knife and told to put them out of their misery. I just couldn't do it, though, and I handed the knife off to someone else, covering my eyes and turning away. The question that ended the dream was "well, should I be eating fish, then?"
Today I went out to lunch with my parents at a local diner, which isn't particularly vegetarian-savvy. This is the type of situation where I might normally have a haddock sandwich or some such thing, but after that dream, I couldn't do it. I'm not sure what my long-term decision on this is, but for the moment at least, I'm feeling that I've made a further step down the vegan path.
[As a footnote, if vegan food interests you, there's a really cute blog about it that I've linked here, called The Vegan Lunchbox.]
2 comments:
Good on you Starcat for being honourable to yourself.
As an unrepentant omnivore, I firmly believe that if you couldn't kill something yourself, you've no business eating it. It is that sanitised 'let someone else do my killing for me, I don't care to see blood' attitude that has our culture in many of the binds that we are in. (From meat eating to most of our other consumerist habits.)
If you are really serious about eating a vegan diet, make sure you look after your nutrition needs, i.e. be sure you get enough protein and B vitamins - particularly B12.
Food for thought (pun intended!),
Timmmaaayyyyyyyy
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