Why I became a vegetarian...
Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 9:26 pm
We weren't always vegetarians. I was eating meat till my mid thirties and I have to admit, I was a real ‘carnivore’. I just loved meat, in any form, shape -- I loved the taste, the texture, even the smell of our favorite Hungarian Goulash and "paprikas porkolt".
Then I learned about the unspeakable cruelty to animals in the chicken factories, factory farms, abattoirs, food processing plants, fishing industry, etc.
See link to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) at: http://www.peta.org/issues
That was just before we moved from Toronto out to our 50 acres in the country, so I suggested to my wife that we raise our own animals for food, in decent, free-ranging environment, without the cruelty associated with commercial meat products.
I asked: "Where do I build the chicken coup?"
She said: "No chicken coup -- I won't eat any living thing I know personally".
I said: "This is hypocrisy -- you let others do your dirty work for you?"
She said: "You are right"
I said: "Then we should not eat meat".
She said: "Fine".
I said: "Fine".
That day we stopped eating meat. That was fourty years ago.
We are not Vegans, we eat milk products and eggs. Our rule is simple: we don't eat anything that visibly objects to being eaten.
This is not a religious (god forbid!) attitude -- it is only an ethical decision, combined with our soft-hearted love of animals, coupled with some logic for the sake of consistency and integrity.
After that day we discovered vegetarian cook books and the countless recipes that are enjoyable, nutritious, even exciting and adventurous. We eat a lot more interestingly than we used to when we were carnivores.
I know that we evolved as omnivores.
Being omnivores implies a choice -- a choice that true carnivores like lions and wolves don't have.
We do.
One of the most frequently heard arguments against vegetarianism is "It is the natural thing to eat meat!".
We find that argument funny: Our entire history, as a human species, was spent fighting against natural things. Like dying of an infection, living in caves, freezing on cold nights, having to roam with the prey animals, hunting and gathering as we used to before agriculture was invented.
We evolved, with our science and technology, creating as unnatural an environment in our big cities as it gets.
There is room for further evolution.
Our science and technology makes it possible today to synthesize meat, in taste almost indistinguishable from what is gained from torturing and killing animals. It could be done on an industrial scale a lot cheaper than what producing meat costs today, if all the costs are considered.
And it would end the unspeakable cruelty we all participate in, as long as we eat meat produced by the meat industry.
Even now you can buy meat-tasting products (bacon, salami, chicken, etc) made from soy beans and I eat a lot of those because I like the taste.
So, there is room for evolving to our full potential as a scientific, technological civilization that does not need the barbaric, inefficient, wasteful survival skills of our primitive past.
Then I learned about the unspeakable cruelty to animals in the chicken factories, factory farms, abattoirs, food processing plants, fishing industry, etc.
See link to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) at: http://www.peta.org/issues
That was just before we moved from Toronto out to our 50 acres in the country, so I suggested to my wife that we raise our own animals for food, in decent, free-ranging environment, without the cruelty associated with commercial meat products.
I asked: "Where do I build the chicken coup?"
She said: "No chicken coup -- I won't eat any living thing I know personally".
I said: "This is hypocrisy -- you let others do your dirty work for you?"
She said: "You are right"
I said: "Then we should not eat meat".
She said: "Fine".
I said: "Fine".
That day we stopped eating meat. That was fourty years ago.
We are not Vegans, we eat milk products and eggs. Our rule is simple: we don't eat anything that visibly objects to being eaten.
This is not a religious (god forbid!) attitude -- it is only an ethical decision, combined with our soft-hearted love of animals, coupled with some logic for the sake of consistency and integrity.
After that day we discovered vegetarian cook books and the countless recipes that are enjoyable, nutritious, even exciting and adventurous. We eat a lot more interestingly than we used to when we were carnivores.
I know that we evolved as omnivores.
Being omnivores implies a choice -- a choice that true carnivores like lions and wolves don't have.
We do.
One of the most frequently heard arguments against vegetarianism is "It is the natural thing to eat meat!".
We find that argument funny: Our entire history, as a human species, was spent fighting against natural things. Like dying of an infection, living in caves, freezing on cold nights, having to roam with the prey animals, hunting and gathering as we used to before agriculture was invented.
We evolved, with our science and technology, creating as unnatural an environment in our big cities as it gets.
There is room for further evolution.
Our science and technology makes it possible today to synthesize meat, in taste almost indistinguishable from what is gained from torturing and killing animals. It could be done on an industrial scale a lot cheaper than what producing meat costs today, if all the costs are considered.
And it would end the unspeakable cruelty we all participate in, as long as we eat meat produced by the meat industry.
Even now you can buy meat-tasting products (bacon, salami, chicken, etc) made from soy beans and I eat a lot of those because I like the taste.
So, there is room for evolving to our full potential as a scientific, technological civilization that does not need the barbaric, inefficient, wasteful survival skills of our primitive past.
