I have a friend who is on a quest for enlightenment. (What is that really? I'm a simpleton. I looked up 'enlightenment' in the dictionary, and it said 'the state of being enlightened.' I hate when the dictionary defines the word I'm looking for WITH THE SAME WORD I'M LOOKING UP. Clearly, if I knew what it meant I wouldn't be consulting the dictionary, now would I? But I digress...)
I have a friend who is on a quest for enlightenment. After researching what it means to be 'enlightened', I have come to the conclusion that it is an admirable goal. In her quest she has been following the teachings of some spiritual guru whose name eludes me at the moment. This spiritual guru offers some 'suggestions' or 'rules' as it were that one should follow along the path to enlightenment, one of these being something along the lines of "Hurt no living thing" which in turn means that you should also eat no living thing. According to my friend, she has been trying to stick to this vegetarian lifestyle for months, but she can't seem to make it two whole weeks without being foiled by some sneaky meat or animal product hidden in her food. In particular, she has a problem with sneaky chicken eggs.
This got me thinking about vegetarianism as a lifestyle. I tried it when I was in high school and I found that it just wasn't for me. I know that there are different brands of vegetarians. Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat eggs and drink milk. Sounds good to me. The hens are laying the eggs anyway, and the ones you eat are not going to become chickens. Not only are eggs a good source of protein, but they are also delicious and used to make a lot of stuff. The same goes for milk. Delicious and nutritious, and no one gets hurt. That is, as long as your milk and eggs come from happy, free-range chickens and cows, and not those factory farm places that stuff chickens into tiny cages and feed cows corn that they were never meant to eat and can't digest.
Pesco vegetarians will eat fish and seafood, but not other animals. To me that means they won't eat cute animals. What makes cows and chickens any better than fish? I guess if you look into a fish's eyes they don't really look like they have souls, but chickens don't either. Not to me anyway. But cows, they are another story all together.
I'm not even going to talk about vegans. They are just too hard core for me.
This brings me to the whole point of this blog, my thoughts on vegetarianism. I have never killed an animal. Not on purpose. I ran over a puppy once, but not on purpose. I have never killed an animal to eat. It was dead when I bought it. If I didn't eat it, it would still be dead. No one killed it especially for me. If someone doesn't eat it, it will go to waste, and to me that is more terrible than the fact that someone somewhere killed the animal to be eaten in the first place. Take a moment and just think about all the good food you throw out in a day. There are hungry people right here in our very own city who would love to have that food you're throwing out. If the meat in your grocer's freezer isn't eaten, it is going to get thrown out, and then that animal's life was truly given in vain. Therefore I feel I am honoring the animal's life when I marinate its meat and grill it over hot coals.
I'm not a vegetarian. I'm a pragmatist. I have a 'don't ask, don't tell' relationship with my food. I am an animal lover. I just happen to love them medium rare.
"Vegetables are not food. Vegetables are what food eats."
